Refusing to Rent to Blacks: Ethics in the Gig Economy

A woman attempting to make an AirBnB reservation was messaged a number of racist insults from the AirBnB host.

The host at first accepted her request and then messaged, “I hate niggers, so I am going to cancel you.”

She expressed how shocked she was an in interview with a blogger, “Never in my wild dreams would I expect this.”

Upon closer inspection, it seems the host, who goes by the nondescript profile name of “Todd Warner,” is a troll of the highest order.  The same profile was involved in another racist incident, when a black person tried to reserve an AirBnB space from a “Todd.” “Mr. Warner” seemingly gets his jollies from trolling, or he has nothing better to do with his life.

More disturbing is this report from Harvard Business School. It revealed requests from those with black-sounding names were 16% less likely to be accepted by hosts. Before anyone cries “racism,” the report also found that African American hosts also discriminated against other African American guests.

AirBnB is part of the rapidly growing “sharing” or “gig” economy, in which companies use the services of everyday people to fill a consumer demand.

An Unregulated Wild West

Gig economy services are an unregulated, wild frontier. A hotel could never get away with any blatant discrimination as is being alleged with AirBnB; a lawsuit was recently filed asserting the company was not addressing racism complaints.

However, if private citizens are putting their homes on AirBnB’s site, is AirBnB legally responsible for any discriminatory practices by a host?

According to FindLaw.com, the study would seem to indicate that many AirBnB hosts are acting in violation of federal and state anti-discrimination laws.

Although, many of the anti-discrimination laws on the books focus on public places, not private homes–as pointed out in The Washington Post.

What if someone chooses to not pick up a particular member of some ethnic group for whatever reason, in a car that they own and use for Lyft or Uber? Yellow cabs in NYC are bound by anti-discrimination laws set by the local government via the Taxi and Limousine Commission. For example, the TLC mandates that vehicles under its licensure must make accommodations for the disabled.

Uber has faced several lawsuits

alleging the company discriminates against blind and wheelchair-using passengers. The suits demand Uber abide by the American with Disabilities Act (ADA), but Uber claims that it’s a technology company, not a transportation service, and doesn’t fall under the ADA’s jurisdiction.

Sharing economy companies– such as Uber, Lyft, and TaskRabbit– are, so far, not regulated as their traditional counterpart companies. This new economic model is bringing up a host of ethical, ownership, and workers’ rights issues that will inevitably have to be hashed out in courts.