A small number of current and former employees of the Department of Housing and Urban Development launched a website Thursday accusing the Trump administration of blocking enforcement of federal fair housing laws. The anonymous posts describe what the employees characterize as a systematic narrowing of the categories of discrimination the agency will pursue.

"This administration has ground fair housing enforcement to a halt," one anonymous HUD employee wrote on the site. "Worse, they're picking and choosing which protected classes count," the employee wrote. Another wrote: "We no longer consider sex as a protected class to include LGBTQ people."

HUD Secretary Scott Turner defended the administration's approach. "The Biden administration weaponized the Fair Housing Act to target Americans. They assumed too many Americans were racists until proven innocent," Turner said. "They followed the broken compass of DEI instead of the plain intent of the law," he said. Turner said the administration plans to change fair housing enforcement priorities.

The 1968 Fair Housing Act bans housing discrimination based on race, national origin, religion, gender, family status or disability. By law, HUD must investigate all complaints of housing discrimination and pursue legal action or settlements if it finds discrimination.

HUD internal memos from last year stated the agency aimed to reduce compliance burdens and identified practices to be eliminated. Those practices included cases involving gender identity, environmental justice, and race-based cases that focused on protecting a group of people rather than an individual. HUD also proposed ending liability for unintentional discrimination under the disparate impact standard.

Union steward Paul Osadebe said the restrictions are ongoing. "It's still happening," he said. "We're not being allowed to help the people that we're supposed to be serving," Osadebe said. "If it's something to do with race, if it's anything to do with gender, you're just not allowed to touch that anymore," he added. Osadebe also said HUD has directed employees to speak only English with clients. "We're all experiencing the same things," he said.

Two HUD civil rights lawyers were fired last fall after going to Congress with concerns that the agency was unlawfully restricting fair housing enforcement. One anonymous employee on the website wrote: "Months later, I still think about the people impacted by the work I was forced to abandon." Another wrote: "I pray for justice for every person unfairly denied a safe place to live."

HUD is also investigating Boston, Minneapolis, and Washington state over housing plans that address historical racial discrimination. Separately, the department said it will not reimburse states for discrimination cases based on sexual orientation, gender identity, criminal record, use of a housing voucher, or English-language proficiency. Fifteen states and the District of Columbia have filed a lawsuit over that reimbursement policy, alleging it is arbitrary and unconstitutional.

Civil rights attorney Sara Pratt said the administration has reversed the purpose of federal civil rights law. "They've turned [civil rights law] on its head," Pratt said. "You can only do what we say," she said.