Feature

Do You Hear What I Hear? Thoughts on Linguistic Profiling

by Nadeen Green

It has been said that more people have been hurt by words than by guns. This anonymous aphorism makes the point that what is said about someone can be damaging and harmful. But some studies indicate that it is not just what is said about someone, but what they themselves say and how they say it that can be a source of harm in the form of housing discrimination.

When you speak to people on the telephone, you racially profile them. Actually, you racially profile people all the time. When you see someone, you note whether that person is white or black, Asian or Hispanic, perhaps Native American or Pacific Islander. The race of the person may not matter at all to you, but you are aware of it, just as you are aware of race when you hear someone call in to a radio talk show, or perhaps even learn someone’s name. Racial profiling alone is not unlawful or evil; it’s human nature (remember that at any given moment someone is racially profiling you). Racial profiling only becomes an issue when the awareness or acknowledgement of someone’s race has an effect on how that person is treated. In this article, I will discuss how racial profiling can lead to unfair treatment in the housing arena and several easy ways to make sure you don’t get caught in a linguistic-profiling fair housing lawsuit.

Linguistic profiling is a form of racial profiling that is based not on how people look, but rather how they sound: their voices, their pronunciation and their grammar. Making housing decisions based on someone’s “color of voice” can get you into the same fair housing trouble as making housing decisions based on someone’s skin color.

There has not yet been a determining case that concludes that linguistic profiling was in fact the basis for housing discrimination, but cases have been allowed to go forward on that premise. Research has suggested that people are able to correctly identify (with about 80% accuracy) the race of a person from hearing them say “hello” or count from 1 to 20.

There are fair housing cases in abundance where housing was denied once a landlord met or saw the prospect and didn’t want to rent to that person because of race or color. It will be interesting to follow some of the linguistic profiling cases and see if it will be shown that an apartment was not offered or rented because the landlord did not want to rent to that person because of a “heard” race or color.
Now that you know about linguistic profiling, how do you manage this in your leasing strategies and what can you do to minimize the chance that you might be accused of housing discrimination based on how your prospects may sound?
In a perfect world (and we certainly don’t mean the apartment industry here) all of your managers or leasing agents would have standard greetings and information to share with telephone prospects. And it would certainly be wise to work with them to teach them some basics for when they pick up the telephone and welcome people to your community.

Likewise, keeping apartment availability logs (with available units being logged in and out by date and time) as well as telephone logs (tracking inquiries by date and time) can be a valuable technique to dispel notions that an applicant was told there were no apartments available because they sounded like a particular race or color. These parallel records can help you show that you said you didn’t have an apartment at that time because you really didn’t have one.

Three Valuable Procedures:

Return every voice message call
There should be no excuse not to return a call from someone who was interested enough in your community to call you. Not only is failing to return calls rude and bad business, it is now potentially dangerous. Instruct your staff that every message will be responded to, promptly and pleasantly, and that they should make a record that they have indeed done this.
Always conclude a conversation with an invitation
Be sure that at the end of any conversation an invitation is extended to the prospect, no matter what. The conversation could be misconstrued as discriminatory in some way, through no fault of the leasing agent, and the fastest way to correct that misrepresentation is to invite the prospect to visit. Have your leasing agents say: “Even though we don’t have any two-bedroom apartments now, you are still welcome to visit us. May I set up an appointment?” or “Would you still like to visit us even though we don’t have parking? If so, let’s make an appointment.” Comments like these can be an insurance policy for you as the landlord. If the prospect declines the invitation, then that should be noted accordingly.
Test your staff
From time to time check to be sure that your staff are following the above procedures. Have people leave messages asking to be called back; have people call and ask about an amenity you don’t have. Then see how your managers or leasing agents handle this. If they return calls and issue invitations, reward them. If they don’t, then work with them or find someone who will not put you at risk.

This “Fair Housing Focus” article was written by Nadeen Green, senior counsel with For Rent Media Solutions™, who regularly teaches fair housing law to the apartment industry. The information contained in this article is not to be considered legal advice, and the author and FRMS™ strongly recommend that you consult with your own counsel as to any fair housing questions or problems you may have. Copyright © 2007 by the SF Apartment Magazine. All rights reserved.