Amish Housing Dispute Update

This article originally appeared on Sunday, May 11, 2008

An Amish landlord discriminated against a black family from Chester County when he bowed to the bigotry of another tenant and failed to rent them their picturesque dream home in rural Nottingham, the state Human Relations Commission has ruled.

Emanuel Hertzler was “naive” about state law concerning fair housing practices and did not mean the family any harm, the commission stated in a 22-page opinion in the case filed by Glenda and Raymond Brown and their children, but he violated provisions of the state's Human Relations Act nonetheless.

“It is simply wrong to allow the prejudices of a potential neighbor to trump the mandate to make rental decisions absent racial considerations,” the opinion stated. “Here, Hertzler did just that.”

The order was filed April 22. The Browns, along with one of their two sons, were awarded $5,000 for embarrassment and humiliation, $240 for out of pocket expenses, and Hertzler was ordered to begin adhering to federal fair housing practices in renting his property, including proper advertising and annual inspection of rental records.

Raymond Brown, contacted at the family's home in Atglen Friday, said the decision came as a victory for both his family and others confronted with racal discrimination in housing.

“We are pleased this is over,” Raymond Brown said. “We are pleased the commission sided with us. We just hope that people know they do have a mechanism in their defense, and they don't have to sit back and take these kind of things.”

Hertzler, of Little Britain, Lancaster County, could not be reached for comment.

The commission's decision followed a hearing in January at the West Chester Borough Hall in front of Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission (PHRC) hearing examiner Carl Summerson, attended by the Browns, their two sons, their pastor, Hertzler and four other Amish men from Hertzler's church district, including his bishop.

Under questioning from Charles Nier, assistant chief counsel of the PHRC, Glenda Brown said she had seen an advertisement in early May 2007 for a house in a local newspaper and made arraignments to meet Hertzler there. When she toured the house on Little Britain Road across the Lancaster County line from West Nottingham, she said she got very excited that it offered what she and her family had been looking for. It was in the countryside, with a large yard and enough space for all four of them.

Plus, it was $50 cheaper than the $850 rent she and her husband were paying for a row-home in he Westwood section of Valley. “It was like a picture postcard,” she said.

She said she filled out a portion of the lease application and left it with Hertzler, who promised to call and let her know if they were accepted. She said had no reason to believe they would not get the home.
But later that night, Hertzler left her a message on the family's answering machine.

“We talked it over with the neighbors there, my other tenants in the house besides you, and I'm sorry to tell you this,” Hertzler could be heard on the message as it was played back at the hearing. “But they do not want a colored family living next door.

“They are very choosy,” he continued. “They said they would move and it would cost me lots to go looking for people to move in, so I'm sorry,” he said on the tape.

It was later established that the neighbor he spoke of was troublesome man who had earlier brushses with the law, and that Hertzler was afraid of what he might do if the Browns moved in.

But Glenda Brown said the message shocked her. “That in 2007 that someone would have that type of an attitude – it was blatant discrimination,” she testified.

The commission agreed.

“Fear of a white tenant moving if an African American family moves in is not a legal excuse for a landlord's fundamental legal obligation to afford everyone an equal opportunity to secure suitable hosing of their choice,” the opinion read.

In his halting testimony, however, Hertzler defended himself, saying that an incomplete application had been the stumbling block for him, not the couple's race.

Glenda Brown had left out information on vehicles that would be on the property, and financial information about past bankruptcies or missed rent payments, he said. When he ran a credit check later, he found out that she had once filed for bankruptcy and that the couple had had some rent payment problems in 2006.

However, the commission found that those considerations did not outweigh his initial hesitation to rent to the family based on their race.

The opinion noted that Amish landlords are at times not fully versed in the law and that Hertzler seem to act with a “ misplaced paternalistic attitude” to keep the Brown's away from the neighbor who did not want to live near blacks.

“Hertzler, being Amish, can best be described as naïve,” it stated, ading tat his motivation not to rent to the Brown's “was not borne out of a personal ill will, malice, or desire to harm the Brown family.”

In assessing the penalty for the Brown's humiliation, the commission noted that there had been little testimony to show that the family suffered and physical, psychological or emotional turmoil over the matter.

Glenda Brown had testified that she spoke with friends and acquaintances about the matter, and that while hers sons were “dumbfounded” to be confronted with such racially tinged attitudes, she believed they handled the situation with maturity.

The couple said that the size of the award was not the most important thing for them, but rather the recognition that what had happened to them was wrong.

“We are excited that justice has been done,” said Glenda Brown. “We are grateful that this type of thing has been exposed.”

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