The Senate must pass the Equality Act

If passed into law, it would align with majority public support for protecting LGBTQ people from discrimination.

By The Boston Globe Editorial BoardUpdated March 3, 2021, 4:00 a.m.

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On the same day that the Equality Act passed in the House, Republican Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky launched into a transphobic attack against Dr. Rachel Levine, a trans woman, during her Senate confirmation hearing. Though the timing was a coincidence, it served to highlight the kind of irrational opposition a bill barring discrimination against LGBTQ people will probably face from Republicans when it gets to the Senate.

If Levine becomes assistant secretary of health, she would be the first openly transgender federal official to receive Senate approval, a landmark moment for the LGBTQ community. Yet few events would be as potent as passage of the Equality Act, which would extend existing civil rights protections to include sexual orientation and gender identity. It would prohibit discrimination in housing, employment, education, health care, public accommodations, and other areas.

The bill first received House approval in 2019 but languished during the Trump presidency, which until its last days pushed anti-LGBTQ policies. Now the bill has the enthusiastic backing of President Biden. With Democrats finally in charge of the Senate, this is the bill’s best chance to become law. Every effort should be made to get it done. To be sure, this is a tall order. In the House, only three Republicans voted for the bill. To avoid a filibuster (one reason to dump this ugly relic of the Jim Crow era), the Equality Act needs 60 votes — that means every Democrat, plus 10 Republicans senators. Yet the GOP has shown little interest in what Biden calls “ensuring that America lives up to our foundational values of equality and freedom for all.”

The need for an equality bill is long overdue, and the absence of its protections never more crucial than during the past year. As with other marginalized groups, LGBTQ people have suffered disproportionately during the COVID-19 pandemic, and not just from the disease itself. According to a report from the Movement Advancement Project, a gender-equality-focused nonprofit think tank, more than 60 percent of LGBTQ households have lost a job in the past year, compared with less than half of the general population.

“COVID has revealed and exacerbated disparities that existed way before the pandemic started,” Logan Casey, coauthor of the report and a policy researcher at MAP, told ABC News. The LGBTQ community “more broadly experience higher rates of discrimination in the workplace, steep obstacles to housing, accessing medical care — and to the extent that LGBTQ people and LGBTQ people of color are experiencing the full force of this pandemic, it’s likely their recovery will take even longer.”

Public attitudes toward the LGBTQ community have evolved. Last year, a Pew Research study found that 72 percent of Americans believe homosexuality should be accepted. In a recent Gallup poll, 1 in 6 Generation Z adults identified as LGBTQ. More than 80 percent of Americans — including 68 percent of Republicans — support laws to protect LGBTQ people from discrimination, according to a Public Religion Research Institute American Values survey last year.

As law, the long-gestating Equality Act would align with greater social acceptance of sexual orientation and gender identity.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said last week, “The Civil Rights Act is a sacred pillar of freedom in our country. It is not amended lightly.” Nor should the Senate, especially its Democratic leadership, take lightly an opportunity to inch this nation closer to full communion with its own espoused values of fairness and equality for all.

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Source: Boston Globe, March 3, 2021.

 

Segregation-Produced Urban Heating Disproportionately Affects Black and Latino Children Before Birth & In Early Years

A just-published report by the (London) Guardian summarizing recent environmental research shows that racial segregation caused by decades of discrimination is directly affecting Black and Latino children before they were even born and in their early years. The recent analysis of over 30 medical studies found "women of color, particularly Black women, and their babies are most likely to suffer low birth weights, pre-term births and stillbirths from climate-driven threats exacerbated by racial segregation. Hot temperatures can cause strain upon women and their unborn children, while heat can also react with pollutants from cars and power plants to create ozone, a ground-level pollutant that can cause an array of health problems."

“This pollution cause placental inflammation and affects the baby,” said Susan Pacheco, an associate professor at the University of Texas Health Science Center who co-authored research released in summer of 2020 that found that pregnant women exposed to heat and air pollution are at heightened risk of adverse pregnancy outcomes. “This can cause impacts in childhood but also bad outcomes when they are adults, such as heart and kidney disease. Even what we would consider limited exposures can affect the development of the baby. Unfortunately many children will be marked for life because of what their mothers are exposed to, affecting the brain, lungs, pancreas, everything.”

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Source: The (London) Guardian, February 16, 2021.

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Other sources for this research include:

"Association of Air Pollution and Heat Exposure With Preterm Birth, Low Birth Weight, and Stillbirth in the US: A Systematic Review." Bruce Bekkar, MD; Susan Pacheco, MD; Rupa Basu, PhD; et al Nathaniel DeNicola, MD, MSHP. JAMA Netw Open. 2020;3(6):e208243. doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2020.8243.

"Can We Turn Down the Temperature on Urban Heat Islands?" Jim Morrison. E360 Digest. September 12, 2019.

"Racist Housing Practices From The 1930s Linked To Hotter Neighborhoods Today." Meg Amderson. NPR. January 14, 2020.

"Study Finds Link Between Deadly Heatwave Exposure and Redlining Housing Policies." Nina Lakhani. E360 Digest. January 16, 2020.

"The Effects of Historical Housing Policies on Resident Exposure to Intra-Urban Heat: A Study of 108 US Urban Areas." by Jeremy S. Hoffman 1,2,*OrcID, Vivek Shandas and Nicholas Pendleton.  Climate 2020, 8(1), 12; https://doi.org/10.3390/cli8010012.

 

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HUD Announces It will enforce the Fair Housing Act to Prohibit Housing Discrimination Based on Sexual Orientation or Gender Identity

HUD’s Office of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity (FHEO) issued a memorandum stating that (1) HUD now interprets the Fair Housing Act to bar discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity, and (2) directs HUD offices and recipients of HUD funds to enforce the Act accordingly. The memorandum begins implementation of the policy announced in President Biden’s Executive Order 13988 on Preventing and Combating Discrimination on the Basis of Gender Identity or Sexual Orientation (Executive Order), which directed executive branch agencies to develop further actions that could be taken to combat such discrimination.

The memorandum directs the following:

(1) HUD will accept and investigate all jurisdictional complaints of sex discrimination, including discrimination because of gender identity or sexual orientation, and enforce the Fair Housing Act where it finds such discrimination occurred.

(2) HUD will conduct all activities involving the application, interpretation, and enforcement of the Fair Housing Act’s prohibition on sex discrimination consistent with its conclusion that such discrimination includes discrimination because of sexual orientation and gender identity.

(3) State and local jurisdictions funded by HUD’s Fair Housing Assistance Program (FHAP) that enforce the Fair Housing Act through their HUD-certified substantially equivalent laws will be required to administer those laws to prohibit discrimination because of gender identity and sexual orientation.

(4) Organizations and agencies that receive grants through the Department’s Fair Housing Initiative Program (FHIP) must carry out their funded activities to also prevent and combat discrimination because of sexual orientation and gender identity.

(5) FHEO Regional Offices, FHAP agencies, and FHIP grantees are instructed to review, within 30 days, all records of allegations (inquiries, complaints, phone logs, etc.) received since January 20, 2020, and notify persons who alleged discrimination because of gender identity or sexual orientation that their claims may be timely and jurisdictional for filing under this memorandum.

In response, Jesse Van Tol, CEO of the National Community Reinvestment Coalition (NCRC), issued the following statement:

“We are glad to see that HUD is moving forward to implement President Biden’s executive orders without delay, and taking strong action to prohibit housing discrimination, which is so often faced by the LGTBQ+ community. This community faces some of the highest rates of homelessness, which stems in large part from discrimination. They also face discrimination at many homeless shelters. Full enforcement of the Fair Housing Act to prohibit discrimination on the basis of gender identity or sexual orientation was long overdue, and we applaud HUD for moving quickly.”

Some relevant resources regarding this subject are:

Same-Sex Couples And Mortgage Lending - https://ncrc.org/same-sex-couples-and-mortgage-lending/.

Lending Discrimination against Same-Sex Couples in Mortgage Applications - https://ncrc.org/same-sex-couples-and-mortgage-lending/.

Read the February 11, 2021 HUD press release.

Read the February 11, 2021 NCRC statement.

Amtrak Fund Compensates People with Disabilities Facing Barriers at Stations

People with mobility disabilities who encountered inaccessible Amtrak stations can begin submitting claims for monetary compensation. Amtrak created the compensation fund as part of a settlement with the Department of Justice (DOJ) which found the railroad had engaged in disability discrimination violations of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).

Amtrak was given twenty years after the ADA was passed in 1990 to make stations accessible, but by 2010 had failed to make progress. An investigation in 2013 by the National Disability Rights Network (NDRN) found numerous barriers at stations all over the country. NDRN then submitted a complaint to the DOJ which spurred their investigation and eventual settlement with Amtrak.

Read more here and find out if you qualify for compensation. Claims must be submitted by May 29, 2021.

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Source: National Disability Rights Network, February 11, 2021.

Three Baltimore Insurance Brokers file Complaint Accusing Erie Insurance of Discriminating Against Black Customers

Three Baltimore-area insurance brokers have filed complaints with the Maryland Insurance Administration accusing Erie Insurance of racially discriminating by engaging in insurance redlining of predominantly Black neighborhoods in the city.

Two of the three brokerage firms are Black-owned small businesses. They filed separate complaints this week with the Maryland Insurance Administration, the state regulator. The companies included Baltimore Insurance Network LLC of Bowie, Ross Insurance Agency of Windsor Mill, and Welsch Insurance Group of Baltimore, which all contract or had contracted with Erie as agents to sell policies.

The brokers accuse Erie, which underwrites policies sold by the firms, of redlining - the practice of denying services to residents of certain neighborhoods based on race or ethnicity. The complaints say Erie refused to underwrite policies based on a potential client’s race, ethnic origin, neighborhood, and/or socioeconomic status.

“Erie Insurance brokerages that serve Baltimore, and in particular that serve the poor areas of Baltimore which are predominately African American, are being told that even when customers meet their underwriting standards and when they would otherwise qualify, Erie is not interested in certain customers,” said Cary J. Hansel, an attorney for Baltimore Insurance.

Both Baltimore Insurance and Welsch said in their complaints that Erie urged them to not sell policies to people in Baltimore with “city sounding names.” Baltimore Insurance Network said it was told by an Erie branch manager to “place those people elsewhere, I don’t care where, just not with Erie. They don’t fit Erie’s appetite. Find better people.”

A spokesperson for Erie said Wednesday that the company has not yet been formally notified of the filings but will address any complaints with the Insurance Administration. The company said it does not comment publicly on specific customers, agents, claims, or regulatory filings.

Previously, Erie has been sued for redlining in New York State as well as found to have higher auto insurance premiums not associated with risk for Illinois minority zip codes in a 2017 study by Pro Publica. 

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Source: Baltimore Sun, January 13, 2021.

COVID Relief Loans Loans Flowed Mostly To Businesses In Wealthy White Communities

Businesses in upper-income mostly White neighborhoods dominated the government’s Payment Protection Program (PPP), according to the analysis of government data by the National Community Reinvestment Coalition (NCRC). The findings confirms evidence that business owners of color and businesses in lower-income communities faced many obstacles that cut them off from the government’s COVID relief program for small businesses.

The NCRC analysis was based on records of 5 million PPP loans released by the U.S. Small Business Administration. The data was only made available after a federal judge ordered the data released after several news organizations sued the agency under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).

After adjusting for total businesses in each neighborhood, NCRC found that, on average, neighborhoods in low-income areas received less than a quarter as many PPP loans (.387 loans per census tract in low-income tracts, compared to 1.787 loans per census tract in upper-income census tracts), and only about one-third of the PPP loan amount ($36,481 per business in low- and $100,539 in upper-income census tracts). Also, the analysis evidenced that neighborhoods with higher percentages of people of color got significantly fewer loans and lower amounts.

The NCRC study is more evidence that Fair Lending laws must be better enforced.

Read the December 11, 2020 NCRC release.

To read more on NCRC’s preliminary analysis, visit: NCRC Paycheck Protection Plan Preliminary Analysis.

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Source: NCRC, December 11, 2020.