WASHINGTON – Senators weighing the confirmation of Ben Carson as secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development on Thursday repeatedly questioned whether he would enforce the Fair Housing Act and a new rule requiring communities to assess whether they have patterns of segregation.
“I don’t have any problem with affirmative action or integration,” Carson testified. “But I do have a problem with people on high dictating it when they don’t know what’s going on in the area.”
Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, D-Nev., asked Carson if he would aggressively enforce the Fair Housing Act, which provides access to the country’s housing free of discrimination and investigates race and national origin complaints.
“Absolutely,” he said.
But when she brought up the new HUD rule that requires local communities to assess patterns of racial and income segregation and make genuine plans to address them, Carson was not so absolute.
“I will be working with local HUD officials and communities to make sure fairness is carried out,” Carson said.
Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown, who is the top Democrat on Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs, questioned Carson’s statement that he would make communities more inclusive. “This seems at odds with one of the only housing policies that prior to this nomination, you have taken a public stance on,” Brown said.
Carson wrote a 2015 op-ed piece for the Washington Times that criticized President Barack Obama’s rules to desegregate and “affirmatively further” fair housing. Brown said Carson “likened” the policy “to a failed social experiment.”
Carson, who noted during the hearing that he has “understood in my life what housing insecurity was” and is President-elect Donald Trump’s only African-American cabinet appointment, said that his position has been “distorted.”
“My objection is central dictation of people’s lives,” Carson said.
Carson was also asked whether he would promote equal access to housing opportunities for LGBTQ people.
Carson responded that he would “enforce all the laws of the land,” adding that “no one gets extra rights.
“Extra rights means you get to redefine everything for everybody else.”
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