Lexis Civil Rights Law & Strategy Series: Housing Discrimination

Professor Carol N. Brown is a tenured law professor at the University of Richmond School of Law, where she teaches property law, housing law, real estate transactions, and land use planning. A nationally recognized scholar, she is co-author of several leading texts including the forthcoming Fair Housing Treatise (LexisNexis, 2025), Cases and Materials on American Property Law (West Academic, 8th ed. forthcoming 2025), Planning and Control of Land Development: Cases and Materials (Carolina Academic Press, 11th ed. forthcoming 2026), and Experiencing Housing Law (West Academic, 2nd ed., 2022).

Professor Brown’s scholarship encompasses housing discrimination, fair housing enforcement, land use regulation, real estate transfer and finance, and property theory, spanning prominent law review articles and legal practice resources. She serves in leadership roles across professional legal organizations, including as a Fellow of the American College of Real Estate Lawyers and past Chair of both the Association of American Law Schools’ Sections on Property Law and Real Estate Transactions. She is also a long-standing member of the National Conference of Bar Examiners Real Property Drafting Committee, contributing to the development of property law exam content for the Multistate Bar Examination.

In academia, public service, and advocacy, Professor Brown serves on the boards of Housing Opportunities Made Equal (HOME) and the Inclusivity Institute, reflecting her enduring commitment to housing affordability and inclusion.

Notably, since March 2022, Professor Brown has served as an Independent Director on the Board of SL Green Realty Corp., Manhattan’s largest office landlord and a fully integrated real estate investment trust. In this capacity, she contributes to strategic governance across acquisition, development, financing, leasing, property management, and commercial real estate oversight for a premier portfolio of Manhattan office properties.

Professor Brown is a frequent speaker at legal conferences and symposia, bringing significant prior experience in real estate law to her teaching and scholarship, as well as decades of engagement in public service and housing advocacy.

Sara Pratt retired from the law firm Relman Colfax PLLC in Washington, D.C.in 2025 and is working as a consultant, speaker and trainer on fair housing and related issues. During her time at Relman Colfax she developed and settled cases involving race, national origin, familial status and disability discrimination, lending redlining, and zoning and handled cases at HUD and in litigation. 

Prior to joining Relman Colfax she was Deputy Assistant Secretary for Enforcement and Programs and Senior Advisor to the Assistant Secretary at the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Office of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity in Washington DC. 

During her time at HUD as a member of the Senior Executive Service, she directed national enforcement activities relating to fair housing and civil rights, directed the Fair Housing Initiatives and led the negotiations that led to the settlement of Assistant Secretary v. Associated Bank, HUD’s largest settlement involving lending redlining because of race, FairShare v. New Jersey, a significant settlement challenging racial and national origin discrimination in the expenditure of disaster recovery funds following Superstorm Sandy, and Secretary v. Wells Fargo, the largest settlement involving lending discrimination against women on maternity leave, among other cases. 

Sara also led numerous policy development initiatives during her time at HUD, including addressing sex and race discrimination against victims of domestic violence under the Fair Housing Act, and she participated in the development of fair housing regulations including HUD’s rules defining discriminatory effects under the Fair Housing Act, prohibiting harassment in housing, and describing housing for older persons under the Act. She is author of “Civil Rights Strategies To Increase Mobility,” a 2017 article in the Yale Law Forum, https://www.yalelawjournal.org/forum/civil-rights-strategies-to-increase-mobility, and she is primary author and editor of Damages for Embarrassment and Humiliation in Housing Discrimination Cases published by the Kentucky Commission on Human Rights. 
She has published several articles about fair housing topics, including developing law in exclusionary zoning and an article describing how landlords who ban applicants because of their involvement with the criminal justice system through arrests and convictions risk violating the Fair Housing Act.