A report by the National Fair Housing Alliance, a consortium, which is working against housing discrimination, said yesterday that the Corcoran Group in Brooklyn Heghts had engaged in
discriminatory sales practices, including racial steering and
withholding information from African-American clients. This from the New York Times.

“During
our 16 years of existence, the National Fair Housing Alliance has never
seen such a literal and blatant example of sales steering,” the group
wrote in a report detailing its allegations. In that particular
instance, the report said, an agent “produced a map of Brooklyn and
drew a red outline of the areas in which the white home seeker should
consider living.” The agent used arrows to indicate neighborhoods that
were “changing.”

“This racial steering tactic is reminiscent of
discriminatory conduct from the 1970’s, when real estate agents would
go into white neighborhoods with the specific intention of triggering
white flight by showing on a map where an African-American family had
bought a house,” the alliance wrote. “This Corcoran Group agent applied
a new trick — he used a map to tell whites instead where they should
‘flee to.’ ”

Pamela Liebman, president and chief executive
officer of Corcoran, said in an interview yesterday that her firm “has
always been devoted to fair housing” and recently required all of its
agents to undergo four hours of training in fair housing law and
practices.

She said, “I have never been given the specific
charges as they relate to the Corcoran Group and I anxiously await them
as we intend to defend ourselves vigorously.”

She said she could not comment further on the allegations because she had not seen them