Background: Founded by community leaders and interdenominational clergy, the Equal Rights Center (ERC) was formed in 1999 when the Fair Housing Council of Greater Washington merged with the Fair Employment Council of Greater Washington. The ERC is the first private civil rights organization in the nation dedicated to advancing the principles of fair housing, fair employment, and equal access to public accommodations.

 

Our Work: The Equal Rights Center has been aggressively combating persistent discriminatory practices that place many Washington area residents at a disadvantage or illegally deny them access to opportunity. Partnering with fair housing groups from across the nation and with a variety of local and national community organizations, academics, researchers, the Washington Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs and other civil rights litigators, the ERC implements effective enforcement, education, and outreach programs. Experts on civil rights law, students, and volunteers use both traditional and novel techniques to identify, test, and document discriminatory practices in areas of housing, employment, and public accommodations.

 

· Fair Housing: The ERC targets home warranty coverage, homeowners insurance, predatory lending, reverse redlining, and inaccessible housing for persons with disabilities. Recognized by the U.S. Department of Housing & Urban Development as a “Full Service Qualified Fair Housing Organization,” the ERC has over 20 years of experience in complaint based and systemic testing for fair housing violations and the enforcement of meritorious claims. The ERC has developed a national reputation for its successful fair housing investigations and testing initiatives that have led to widely publicized and precedent-setting civil rights cases in the areas of sales; rentals; predatory lending and reverse redlining; homeowners’ and renters insurance; home warranty services; and accessible housing for persons with physical disabilities.

 

· Fair Employment: The Fair Employment Project surveys employment practices utilizing traditional and novel testing techniques, works to redress workplace discrimination, and provides targeted anti-discrimination training programs and educational products.  Utilizing testing, an ERC predecessor agency, the Fair Employment Council of Greater Washington, set national standards for the use of employment discrimination testing and was responsible for the country’s first judicial precedents upholding the standing of private organizations and testers to litigate equal employment opportunity claims on the basis of tester-generated evidence.

 

· Public Accommodations: The ERC targets discriminatory actions in the taxicab industry and internet-based delivery services, and enforces the laws regarding access to goods and services in the retail and restaurant industries. The Public Accommodations Project is responsible for developing the nation’s first formal testing program to uncover differences in treatment to consumers based on unlawful practices. Tests are conducted in response to complaints received and at the requests of private and public organizations and public interest law firms. The Public Accommodations program has received both local and national attention and recognition. Past areas of focus have included gender discrimination by the home repair industry, race discrimination by the taxicab companies, racial redlining by dot.com companies, denial of and inferior service based on race and national origin in restaurants, and national origin and language access testing of services provided by government facilities.

About Us

To learn more about the ERC, visit these pages