Professor Rigel Oliveri was among the presenters at the City of Columbia Fair Housing and Lending Seminar in early April. According to a KOMU-TV story, Oliveri spoke in depth about housing discrimination and equal housing initiatives at the event.

“Out of over 28,000 complaints filed in 2016, it is estimated that that is such a small fraction of the universe of actual acts of discrimination,” Oliveri said. “Statisticians that know how to extrapolate the numbers estimate that it’s more like 4 million individual acts of housing discrimination that occur each year.” According to Oliveri and the Missouri Department of Labor, federal law prohibits housing discrimination based on race, sex, religion, disability, national origin and familial status. Columbia law extends the anti-discrimination law to sexual orientation, marital status, and gender identity.