DOJ Sues Trump and Father for Systemic Housing Discrimination

The U.S. Department of Justice filed a major civil rights lawsuit against Donald Trump, his father Fred Trump, and their real estate company, Trump Management Inc., for systematic racial discrimination in housing. The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York, accused the Trumps of violating the Fair Housing Act of 1968 across 39 apartment buildings in Brooklyn, Queens, and Staten Island.

The Evidence

The DOJ’s investigation uncovered a pattern of discriminatory practices designed to exclude Black tenants. According to court documents, Trump rental agents coded applications from Black applicants with the letter “C” for “Colored.” When the Urban League conducted testing in 1972, white applicants were repeatedly shown available apartments and given applications, while Black applicants at the same properties were told no vacancies existed.

Testimony from Trump employees revealed systematic discrimination: doormen were instructed to tell Black prospective tenants that the superintendent was unavailable or that apartments had already been rented, even when units remained vacant. One rental supervisor testified that Fred Trump explicitly directed him not to rent to Black people and wanted existing Black tenants removed from properties.

Trump’s Response

Donald Trump, then 27 years old and increasingly involved in running the family business, responded aggressively to the lawsuit. He hired notorious attorney Roy Cohn, who would become Trump’s longtime mentor and legal advisor. Rather than settle immediately, Trump filed a $100 million countersuit against the federal government, claiming the DOJ had made false and damaging statements. The countersuit was quickly dismissed by the court.

Significance

This lawsuit marked the first major public controversy of Donald Trump’s business career and established patterns that would recur throughout his life: deny wrongdoing despite substantial evidence, attack investigators rather than address allegations, and use aggressive legal tactics to delay accountability. The case also introduced Trump to Roy Cohn, whose mentorship would profoundly shape Trump’s combative approach to legal and political challenges.

The DOJ’s action represented one of the largest housing discrimination cases filed during the early years of Fair Housing Act enforcement, targeting properties that housed thousands of families and setting precedent for civil rights enforcement in private real estate. The systemic nature of the discrimination—with coded applications, explicit instructions to employees, and coordinated efforts across multiple properties—demonstrated the depth of racial bias in Trump’s business operations.