ABC Faces Reality, Pulls Welcome Mat on 'Neighborhood'

GLAAD entertainment media director Damon Romine, who has seen the entire series, said that although it's clear "the producers intended to send a powerful message about the value of diversity and embracing the differences of others," the episodic format "created serious issues in terms of depicting the neighbors' journey from intolerance to acceptance. . . .

"If they only watched the first episode or two, viewers could come away with a message that prejudice and discrimination are not that big a deal," Romine said. "Regardless of how things turn out at the end of the last show, it's dangerous to let intolerance and bigotry go unchallenged for weeks at a time."

In the first episode, the homeowners are introduced to the would-be neighbors, one family at a time.

After meeting the white family with the stripper mom -- still a secret at that point -- one resident comments: "My first impression of the Morgans was, very ordinary, very like us, white family, two kids, good-looking -- this is going to be easy if they are all like this."

But, of course, they aren't. When the same resident meets the Gonzalezes, she says:

"When the family came around the corner in their very large vehicle, kids kept coming, and kept coming and kept tumbling, and I realized right away, okay this is a Hispanic family."

"I was afraid they'd left somebody in [the car]," her husband chimed in. The Gonzalez family has four children; other families have three.

In the second episode, the residents decide unanimously to boot the Eckhardt family because they are Wiccan.

Smith said she was told that ABC's lawyers advised them the show did not violate the Fair Housing Act because it did not involve the sale or rental of a home.

"But they ignored the case law and the language about 'otherwise make unavailable,' " she said.

Whether the show airs or not, one of the families was awarded the house. The other contestants probably cannot challenge the outcome based on discrimination under fair housing laws, Smith speculated, because they probably had to sign waivers to appear on the series.

But her organization could sue because, Smith said, it would be harmed if the show airs. The National Fair Housing Alliances' injury comes in the form of "frustration of mission" and "diversion of resources," she says.

That's because the organization has spent millions of dollars trying to educate real estate agents and the general public about housing discrimination.

"Airing a program that gives viewers the idea that they can choose their neighbors . . . means we have to redouble our efforts to educate people that it's not true, and change our spending in order to conduct that education," Smith said.

Other families in the neighborhood could also sue if the series hit the airwaves and they felt their neighborhood was stigmatized by comments made on the air.

"They may have a standing [to sue] under the Fair Housing Act if . . . one of those families says, 'I want to live in an integrated neighborhood and now [minorities] might not come because of this show.' "