2 HUD Civil Rights Lawyers Fired After Criticizing Housing Act Enforcement

Two civil rights lawyers who spoke out against the Trump administration’s efforts to limit enforcement of the Fair Housing Act were removed from their posts recently and said they were escorted out of the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) by administration staff, Debra Kamin reported for The New York Times.

Palmer Heenan, who has worked as a lawyer at HUD since October 2023, and Paul Osadebe, who joined the agency in March 2021, were among six current and former employees of HUD’s fair housing office who told The Times last week that Trump political appointees had made it nearly impossible for them to do their jobs.

Their roles enforcing the Fair Housing Act — a cornerstone of U.S. civil rights law — involved investigating and prosecuting landlords, real estate agents, lenders, and others accused of discrimination based on race, religion, gender, family status, or disability.

Since January, their office has faced severe budget cuts and new procedures that have stalled or halted thousands of legal inquiries.

Letters, memos, and internal documents reviewed by The Times show that the Trump administration has repeatedly described civil rights work in housing as “not a priority of the administration.”

The documents also indicate that lawyers have been blocked from communicating with clients without approval from a Trump appointee and barred from citing certain past housing civil rights cases when researching legal precedent for new prosecutions.