NAR Professional Standards Committee Recommendations
On November 13th, the NAR Board of Directors approved recommendations from its Professional Standards Committee to broaden the applicability of Article 10 to include discriminatory speech and conduct.
At the heart of the approved recommendations is a new Standard of Practice 10-5 “Realtors® must not use harassing speech, hate speech, epithets or slurs based on race, color, religion, sex, handicap, familial status, national origin, sexual orientation or gender identity.”
A related change Policy Statement 29 of the NAR Code of Ethics and Arbitration Manual broadens the scope of Article 10 as follows: “A Realtor® shall be subject to disciplinary action under the Code of Ethics with respect to all of their activities.”
According to NAR’s FAQ on this subject, “Standard of Practice 10-5 directly flows from the requirement to not deny equal professional services or be parties to a plan to discriminate. Specifically, disparaging a particular protected class is evidence of one’s inability to treat them equally. In addition, bias against protected classes revealed through the public posting of hate speech could result in REALTORS® not taking clients from certain protected classes or not treating them equally, which would lead to violations of the Fair Housing Act due to overt discrimination or disparate impact.”
More resource and training materials will be available soon.
