Guest Lecturer - Amy S. Nelson

Executive Director of Fair Housing of the Dakotas Speaks in Clinic Class

Law Clinic students recently welcomed Amy S. Nelson, Executive Director of Fair Housing of the Dakotas (FHD), as a guest lecturer. 

FHD is an organization devoted to eliminating housing discrimination in North Dakota and South Dakota.

Speaking to the Clinic class on the day following the 2008 Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday, Ms. Nelson began by pointing out that Dr. King had worked throughout the 1960s to further fair housing laws and that the Fair Housing Act was passed by Congress within a week of Dr. King’s assassination. 

Ms. Nelson then described her organization's efforts and experiences in working to enforce federal and state fair housing laws.

The Federal Fair Housing Act prohibits discrimination in the rental, sale or financing of housing due to race, color, religion, national origin, sex, familial status, or disability. North Dakota state law also prohibits housing discrimination on the basis of age (40 and over) or status with respect to marriage and public assistance.  Ms. Nelson presented information about fact investigation and other means of proving discrimination, the development and interpretation of the state anti-discrimination laws, and specific examples of cases that had been successfully pursued through the efforts of FHD and the attorneys who accept their referrals.  Clinic students also engaged in problem-solving exercises concerning how they would seek to gather evidence of discrimination under various scenarios, each of which were based on actual cases pursued by FHD.