The Housing and Civil Enforcement Section is responsible for the enforcement of federal statutes that: (1) ban discrimination in housing, credit, and access to places of public accommodation and public facilities; (2) prohibit discriminatory or unjustifiably burdensome enforcement of land use regulations against houses of worship or other religious assemblies; and (3) provide various civil protections for servicemembers. The primary statutes that the Section enforces are the Fair Housing Act (42 U.S.C. §§ 3601 to 3619); the Equal Credit Opportunity Act (15 U.S.C. §§ 1691 to 1691f); Title II of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (42 U.S.C. §§ 2000a to 2000a-6); Title III of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (42 U.S.C. §§ 2000b to 2000b-3); the land use provisions of the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (42 U.S.C. §§ 2000cc to 2000cc-5); the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act (50 U.S.C. §§ 3901-4043); and the Housing Rights subpart of the Violence Against Women Act Reauthorization Act of 2022 (34 U.S.C. §§ 12491-12496). The Housing and Civil Enforcement Section is also responsible for enforcing two statutes that prohibit discrimination in programs receiving federal financial assistance: Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (42 U.S.C. §§ 2000d to 2000d-7), which prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, or national origin in programs receiving federal financial assistance (see JM 8-2.240); and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 (29 U.S.C. § 794), which prohibits discrimination on the basis of disability in programs receiving federal financial assistance (see JM 8-2.400).

[updated December 2022]