Professor Hayat directs the Housing & Consumer Law Clinic at UDC David A. Clarke School of Law. Prior to joining the faculty in 2015, she worked as a trial attorney in the U.S. Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division, Housing and Civil Enforcement Section, where she led the investigation that resulted in DOJ’s first combined police practices and fair housing settlement between the United States and Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, United States v. County of Los Angeles, No. CV 15-03174, (C.D. California). Prior to joining the DOJ, she was in private practice specializing in civil rights litigation with the firm Booth & Tucker in Philadelphia. She also practiced commercial litigation with the firms DLA Piper and Hogan & Hartson.
Professor Hayat’s litigation, teaching and research interests lie in civil litigation on behalf of protected classes facing housing discrimination and access to affordable housing. Her research agenda seeks to contribute to the scholarly literature examining the effects of persistent segregation and shifting forms of discrimination in housing on economic neighborhood mobility. More specifically, she is concerned with identifying challenges to the eradication of intergenerational poverty among minorities living in metropolitan centers and proposing strategies for using existing civil rights laws to overcome them.
Professor Hayat is a member of the bars of the Supreme Court of the United States, Third Circuit, Eastern District of Pennsylvania, District of Columbia, and Pennsylvania (inactive).