The John Marshall Law School’s Fair Housing Legal Support Center will educate undergraduates during the fall 2017 semester about fair housing and fair lending laws under a grant titled Fair Housing & Fair Lending: The Next Generation from the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development.* This is the seventh time John Marshall will offer the course.
The grant provides scholarships to students to take the course, which may be counted toward the student’s undergraduate degree. The Center is proactively preparing the next generation of advocates to fight the rampant discrimination that continues to exist in housing and in educating citizens about fair-housing laws.
Last year, the Center recruited and selected 19 students from the following colleges and universities: Concordia University Chicago, River Forest; Dominican University, River Forest; Elmhurst College, Elmhurst; Northeastern University, Chicago; North Park University, Chicago; Robert Morris University, Chicago; Roosevelt University, Chicago; Triton College, River Grove; and the University of Illinois at Chicago.
As a required part of their course work, students will assist the Center staff in making presentations at local schools and to community groups and senior organizations. These presentations are designed to educate other students, professors and community members about housing rights. This program aspect also affords the students opportunities to develop public-speaking skills and to share their knowledge with others.
At the end of the course, the Fair Housing Legal Support Center will host a career night for program students and alumni to explore job and career opportunities in civil rights and fair housing. Previous career events included panelists from the U.S. Department of HUD Region V FHEO Office, Illinois Department of Human Rights, Access Living, Chicago Commission on Human Relations, HOPE Fair Housing Center, The John Marshall Law School Fair Housing Legal Clinic, The University of Illinois at Chicago-Department of Urban Planning and Development and the law firm of Gartner & Bondavalli. The Center also assists interested students in obtaining internships with organizations that promote fair housing.
Interested students must submit applications by March 31, 2017. To learn more about the Fair Housing & Fair Lending Course, please call Professor Michael Seng at (312) 987-1446, or visit www.jmls.edu/fairhousing
*The work that provided the basis for this publication was supported by funding under a grant with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. The substance and findings of the work are dedicated to the public. The author and publisher are solely responsible for the accuracy of the statements and interpretations contained in this publication. Such interpretations do not necessarily reflect the views of the Federal government.