How is this NOT housing discrimination?
A young female former Fox News employee has been shunned from two Washington group houses because of her right-leaning politics. Being a scriptwriter for Laura Ingraham — even for a brief two months — can be a turnoff.
“My second time this week being rejected from an apartment/house in D.C. because I worked at Fox,” Pardes Seleh remarked on social media.
Attached was a note from a potential landlord: “Thank you for your interest Pardes. After perusing your various journalistic and social media posts, it’s pretty clear your politics views are diametrically opposed to ours (and we hate Fox). Hopefully you will find a place that will be a good fit.”
Pardes initially took the whole thing in stride.
“At least they were honest tho,” she wrote on Twitter.
Both were group housing situations, she explained to The Mirror by email. One was an apartment with two other roommates and the other was a townhouse. “I don’t think the one who sent me the email owns the apartment. They just wanted someone more closely aligned to their political views,” she said.
In a follow-up email, the guy mentioned to Pardes that he has a huge ‘Fuck Trump’ banner hanging in his kitchen. It might have hard to swallow her oatmeal with a “fuck Trump” sign in her face.
“I respect people’s rights to deny service to anybody they want, but I’m also going to voice my frustration with constantly being rejected from things in D.C. because of my conservative background,” she told me. “I’m just a 25-year-old media reject trying to make it in D.C. on a writer’s savings. They both mentioned that they did not want to rent to Trump supporters or Fox News fans/affiliates.”
Still, Pardes urged the public not to go hunting for the landlords who rejected her.
“Guys, please don’t go looking up these peoples [sic] apartment and harassing them, I am not a victim and I don’t want to punish anybody. I’m just telling u [sic] what it’s like looking for housing in D.C,” she continued.
An hour can feel like a lifetime online.
“U know what, I don’t care about anybody’s sexual orientation or what they look like or where they’re from,” Pardes tweeted. “I never did. I am constantly getting treated like a nazi [sic] for no reason and I’m not even super ideological about anything. I’m just trying to make it in D.C. like anybody my age.”
She said she does not plan to pursue any legal action.