Debra Kamin

There's very few people working there, and the ones who are working there are either not allowed to investigate cases because rules have changed, or they simply don't have the manpower to do so.

And the cases they want to take up have to be approved by the Trump administration.

So with this administration, diversity and discrimination have become conflated.

And there has been a directive that's come down from the top that within housing, diversity is a type of discrimination, and therefore they are not able to investigate these cases the way that they used to.

There are dozens of cases affecting hundreds of people across America, people who are already expecting relief for discrimination.

And now they're either stalled or they're going to fizzle out or they're simply just not going to move forward because the people who work there have either been fired because of Doge or they're not allowed to investigate them.

Wow.

Whereas this office in the past maybe hypothetically would have brought a case, the way to actually see if return of the land are going to be allowed to circumvent the fair housing rules is to go, like Michelle did, with a private attorney.

That is the best way to get this case into a courtroom in front of a judge.

Yes, absolutely.

It would take a law that has been on life support and essentially unplug it.

The Fair Housing Act is barely succeeding and barely being enforced at this point because of all the cuts, because of the climate of this country.

And if a case this high profile and a case of discrimination this blatant is granted the right to proceed, it would essentially be the end of the Fair Housing Act in the U.S.,

Give me a second to think about how to answer.

It's such a good question.

You know, we talked earlier about how these ideas have trickled down from the federal government all the way down to the state and the local level and the cues that people are taking about what's acceptable and what's not.

And if there's anything I've learned from reporting on this story,

It's that it's not just about the Erics and the Peters and the people at the front of the movement.

It's also about the Michelles and all the people who know about it, who are willing to invest, who are willing to look the other way.

And in this case, she decided to stop herself and to do something.