Is it legal to lie about an illegal requirement? As an example, its not legal to discriminate against a person of a certain race while renting out your house. So lets say an Asian person sees a house rented out with a &quot;no Asians&quot; condition. Would it be legal for them to &quot;mask&quot; themselves as a White person, tell the landlord they're White, sign a paper saying they're White and then proceed to rent the place? Now... they'd be outright lying but at the same time what they're lying about is not supposed to have been asked in the first place. So does one wrong (discrimination) trump another (lying) in a court of law? Update: since it’s not clear, I’m talking about a scenario where the “Asian” person is willing to admit they lied in a court of law. This isn’t a question on how race is legally defined.
Lying may be wrong, but it in the United States, it is generally not illegal. United States v. Alvarez, 132 S. Ct. 2537 (2012). For a lie to be illegal, it generally needs to fall into one of a few specific categories, usually involving either fraud or the frustration of legitimate government activities (as in perjury, falsification of records, or lying to a federal agent). In any of these cases, the First Amendment is generally going to prohibit any penalties unless the false statement is material, i.e., it had the potential to change the outcome of the event in which it was uttered. As you noted, it is generally illegal to discriminate against Asians, so I would expect a court to treat the tenant's ethnicity as immaterial and require the landlord to honor the rental contract. Of course, this assumes that the landlord is prohibited from disciminating against Asians, which is not always true. The Fair Housing Act has exemptions for (a) private clubs; (b) for buildings with four or fewer units, one of which the landlord occupies; (c) for single-family homes that the landlord is renting without the help of an agent; and (d) for religious organizations. In such a case, the landlord may be actually be permitted to disciminate against Asians, so the tenant's false statement about their ethnicity would become material the transaction, and a court may therefore permit the landlord to rescind the contract. (Note, though, that even though the FHA permits discrimination in those limited situations, it does not permit advertising discriminatory preferences. The landlord's &quot;No Asians&quot; language is therefore illegal, whether it is communicated on a sign in the window or in a classified ad or by word of mouth.)
Can a state declare: &quot;any violence against insert a group here shall not be prosecuted,&quot; which is pretty much what Nazis and Communists did, and then claim non-involvement in the violence that would ensue? This would be a violation of the Equal Protection Clause. https://www.justice.gov/crt/guidance-regarding-use-race-federal-law-enforcement-agencies goes into exhaustive detail on the topic of what may constitute an illegal abuse of selective enforcement. A key quote is highly relevant to your question: [T]he Constitution prohibits selective enforcement of the law based on considerations such as race. There is a lot of case law on this topic. This is frequently discussed in the context of race (especially profiling).
It is legal, unless the laws of that state say otherwise. Governments are allowed to charge different tuitions to residents vs. non-residents. They can also require proof of residence (not just your say-so). Being physically present in a state for a couple of years is not proof of being a resident. That doesn't mean that the interrogation that you are getting is allowed by law, but it's at least consistent with the general pattern of out of state tuition laws in the US. If you have contradictory elements of &quot;proof&quot; (voter registration in another state), they can demand more evidence. It really depends on what the state laws are, so you could name the state. Also, the full financial disclosure may in fact not be related to tuition rates but to financial aid, where they can demand all sorts of things by way of proof.
If the ability to get a Pannini is conditioned on buying paper towels for money, then he isn't really selling paper towels for $2 and the Pannini for free, he is really selling a package consisting of paper towels and a Pannini for $2, so it would probably still be illegal. The phrase lawyers and judges use to talk about attempts to create loopholes like this one is "too clever by half", which means: "Shrewd but flawed by overthinking or excessive complexity, with a resulting tendency to be unreliable or unsuccessful."
There is no prohibition on lying in general. Misrepresentation If you misrepresent a fact and that misrepresentation is a material inducement to someone entering into a contract with you then there are a number of problems that follow: The (mis)representation may become a term of the contract and if not complied with can allow the aggrieved party to either sue for damages or rescind the contract. If the misrepresentation led to the contract being entered into by mistake then the contract is void for mistake The misrepresentation may have become a collateral contract an innocent or negligent misstatement may give rise to the tort of negligent misstatement misrepresentation may put you in breach of trade practices statutes. Fraud If you knowingly tell a lie with the intention of receiving a benefit then this is both the tort and crime of fraud. You receiving employment or your company securing a contract probably qualifies as intending to receive a benefit.
A promise that a court would not enforce by injunction can still be valid consideration and be part of a valid contract. Failure to carry out such obligations would lead to some measure of money damages, most likely. On the other hand, provisions specifically barred by law, or against public policy, such as a promise to commit a crime, are void from the start, and form no part of a valid contract. Such provisions may be treated by a court as if they had just been left out, or if they were essential to the contract, or formed the sole consideration, the whole contract might be considered void. If a term is too vague for a court to determine if it has been violated or not, the court may try to clarify it, or may just ignore it. Just what it would mean for a tenant to "undermine the leadership" of a landlord is not clear to me, at least. That might well be held to be "too vague". As to "not complain" it may be that a tenant has a legal right to make official complaints, which cannot be waived by contract. Or it may not, depending on the local laws.
The fair housing act does not mention "socially marginalized groups". It says that it shall be unlawful To discriminate against any person in the terms, conditions, or privileges of sale or rental of a dwelling, or in the provision of services or facilities in connection therewith, because of race, color, religion, sex, familial status, or national origin. The U.S. Supreme Court just ruled on a case, Texas Department of Housing &amp; Community Affairs v. The Inclusive Communities Project Inc., that covered disparate impact as a measurement of discrimination. Disparate impact raises the question of whether policies that appear to be neutral but result in a disproportionate impact on protected groups are legal. The Supreme Court, in its ruling, indicated that disparate impact claims can be brought but it also imposed significant limitations. How does this case apply to your question? The underlying situation in the referenced case is one where, from the ruling: The ICP alleged the Department has caused continued segregated housing patterns by its disproportionate allocation of the tax credits, granting too many credits for housing in predominantly black inner-city areas and too few in pre-dominantly white suburban neighborhoods. The basis of the claim, which can now be heard under a disparate impact claim, is that a government organization discriminated against pre-dominantly white neighborhoods. FHA protects against racial discrimination, not against racial discrimination only against certain groups.
It depends on what state this is. In Washington state, there is a form that sellers must fill out, and section 3 addresses sewer connections. This matter could have been disclosed – the allowed answers are &quot;yes; no; don't know&quot; (or NA). These are sellers disclosures, and Zillow / Redfin are free to be unreliable (I personally know that they are wrong about square footage). A real estate agent also doesn't become liable for being misinformed. Assuming your state has this or analogous question, &quot;No&quot; means that you were told (doesn't matter if you didn't notice it), and &quot;Don't know&quot; means you're gambling. Let's say that the answer was &quot;Yes&quot;. Still, you can't necessarily sue (and win): you would have to prove misrepresentation (fraud or negligence) and not innocent error. You could do this by, for instance, proving that seller had the septic tank cleaned out some years earlier. Perhaps an action against buyer's inspector is possible, since that's nominally what they might have been hired to find out. But that is only true if checking the sewer connection can reasonably be considered part of the deal, so you have to look at the contract with the inspector (and the inspector's report).