One aspect of insti­tu­tion­al­ized racism has been termed petit apartheid. This con­cept includes dai­ly infor­mal or hid­den inter­ac­tions between police and minori­ties, such as stop-and-ques­tion and stop-and-search law enforce­ment prac­tices, which may or may not result in an arrest and con­se­quent entry into the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem (Zatz and Mann 1998: 4). The notion of petit apartheid has recent­ly been explored both the­o­ret­i­cal­ly and in terms of those activ­i­ties that might fall with­in its def­i­n­i­tion­al scope (Milovanovic and Russell 2001). The focus of petit apartheid appears to be atti­tu­di­nal fac­tors that influ­ence polic­ing and oth­er deci­sions with­in the sys­tem, that is, “cul­tur­al­ly biased beliefs and actions” extend­ing, in the view of Daniel Georges-Abeyie (2001: x), to insults, rough treat­ment, and lack of civil­i­ty faced by black sus­pects, the qual­i­ty and objec­tiv­i­ty of judi­cial instruc­tions to a jury when an African American is on tri­al, and oth­er dis­cre­tionary acts with­in the sys­tem. Petit apartheid con­trasts with grand apartheid. The lat­ter encom­pass­es overt racism. Studies on racism with­in the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem have been cri­tiqued for giv­ing undue empha­sis to overt racism and ignor­ing petit apartheid (Georges-Abeyie 2001: x). This chap­ter aims to explore overt racism with­in the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem. Issues such as racial pro­fil­ing and racial slurs, which appear to con­sti­tute an aspect of petit apartheid as well as being dis­crim­i­na­to­ry prac­tices, have already been dis­cussed in Chapter 2.

HISTORICAL CONTEXT.

™ Historical Context African Americans have suf­fered dis­crim­i­na­tion on grounds of race, ini­tial­ly through the sys­tem of slav­ery, and then through a pat­tern of exclu­sion and seg­re­ga­tion, both infor­mal and for­mal, in the shape of leg­is­la­tion and court deci­sions that have his­tor­i­cal­ly endorsed overt racial dis­crim­i­na­tion. From the time of the incep­tion of slav­ery in the ear­ly 17^th cen­tu­ry until 1865, slaves were con­sid­ered the prop­er­ty of their mas­ters based on a view that they were nat­u­ral­ly unequal and infe­ri­or peo­ple. They were sub­ject­ed to slave codes, which pro­hib­it­ed the pos­ses­sion of any rights or free­doms enjoyed by whites; expe­ri­enced bru­tal and inhu­mane treat­ment of an extrale­gal nature; and were exploit­ed for their labor. Following the Civil War, amend­ments to the Bill of Rights pro­hib­it­ed slav­ery and grant­ed all per­sons, regard­less of race, a right to equal pro­tec­tion. However, despite these legal state­ments of free­dom, pat­terns of dis­crim­i­na­tion per­sist­ed after the war because many states passed Jim Crow laws, which had the effect of main­tain­ing forms of dis­crim­i­na­tion in legal, social, and eco­nom­ic forums. For exam­ple, African Americans were denied the right to vote or to enter into con­tracts, and the doc­trine of sep­a­rate but equal was applied to keep the races sep­a­rate. The courts con­tin­ued to enforce Jim Crow laws until the mid-1900s, and African Americans were also sub­ject­ed to extrale­gal treat­ment in the form of phys­i­cal assaults and prac­tices such as lynch­ing, where police were often present. About 3,000 African Americans were lynched between the mid-1800s and the ear­ly 1900s (B. Smith 2000: 75), and those per­form­ing the lynch­ings were sel­dom pros­e­cut­ed. During the 20^th cen­tu­ry, legal rights were accord­ed to African Americans and have been pro­tect­ed by the courts. In the land­mark case of Brown v. Board of Education in 1954, the Supreme Court struck down the “sep­a­rate but equal” doc­trine, and the civ­il rights acts passed in the mid-20^th cen­tu­ry attempt­ed to restate and rein­force a pol­i­cy against seg­re­ga­tion. Today, the black com­mu­ni­ty in the United States is diverse, com­pris­ing, for exam­ple, Jamaicans, Nigerians, Ethiopians, Somalis, and oth­er African and West Indies nation­al­i­ties, each with its own cul­ture dis­tin­guish­able from that of African Americans. Nevertheless, despite this het­ero­gene­ity, racist atti­tudes con­tin­ue to be man­i­fest­ed based on skin col­or. The his­to­ry of Latinos in the United States has been one of con­tention with the Anglo American cul­ture. Spanish colonies were estab­lished in the United States in the late 16^th cen­tu­ry, pre­dat­ing the Anglo American pres­ence; how­ev­er, in 1847, Mexico lost approx­i­mate­ly half of its ter­ri­to­ry to the United States. In recent times, it has been com­mon to asso­ciate Latinos with the Chapter 3 Racial Discrimination in the Criminal Justice System 67 issue of immi­gra­tion, and Mexicans in par­tic­u­lar are con­struct­ed as an ille­gal immi­grant group (De Uriarte in Alvarez 2000: 88). Racist stereo­typ­ing of Latinos depicts them as sneaky, lazy, and thiev­ing (Levin in Alvarez 2000: 88), and law enforce­ment prac­tices and the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem have been shown to col­lab­o­rate in dis­crim­i­na­tion against Latinos in the form of police harass­ment of Mexican Americans (Turner in Alvarez 2000: 88). It is impor­tant to appre­ci­ate the het­ero­gene­ity of the Latino pop­u­la­tion in the United States, because issues affect­ing Mexican Americans may dif­fer from those impact­ing Puerto Ricans, Cubans, or immi­grants from Central America. For exam­ple, Puerto Ricans are the most eco­nom­i­cal­ly dis­ad­van­taged group (Myers et al. in Alvarez 2000: 89), where­as Cuban immi­grants to the United States have tend­ed to come from the mid­dle class, be well edu­cat­ed, and pos­sess sig­nif­i­cant eco­nom­ic resources. Nevertheless, like African Americans and oth­er black groups, the het­ero­ge­neous Latino pop­u­la­tion tends to be viewed as homo­ge­neous. American Indians and Alaska Natives are the only indige­nous groups in the United States. The his­to­ry of con­tact between American Indians and Anglo Americans is replete with acts of vio­lence against American Indians and with the dis­pos­ses­sion of their lands. Alaska Natives, as a col­o­nized and mar­gin­al­ized peo­ple, have expe­ri­enced and con­tin­ue to expe­ri­ence severe trau­ma gen­er­at­ed by social change, with high rates of sui­cide, alco­hol abuse, and a dis­pro­por­tion­ate rep­re­sen­ta­tion in the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem (see, e.g., Banks 2002; Brod 1975; Fienup-Riordan 1994; Kraus and Buffler 1979; Travis in Phillips and Inui 1986; Schafer, Curtis, and Atwell 1997). Similarly, American Indians con­tin­ue to be dis­pro­por­tion­ate­ly rep­re­sent­ed in arrest and incar­cer­a­tion data in those states where they are pri­mar­i­ly locat­ed (see, e.g., Greenfeld and Smith 1999; Grobsmith 1994; Perry 2004; Ross 2000). Both groups suf­fer eco­nom­ic, edu­ca­tion­al, and social stereo­typ­ing, which is revealed in their treat­ment by the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem. In terms of crim­i­nal vic­tim­iza­tion, blacks dis­pro­por­tion­ate­ly com­mit and are vic­tim­ized by vio­lent crime. They are almost 7 times as like­ly as whites to be mur­dered and about twice as like­ly to be robbed, raped, or sex­u­al­ly assault­ed (Banks, Eberhardt, and Ross 2006: 1177). Although they make up less than 13% of the pop­u­la­tion, in 2004 blacks were arrest­ed for 47.2% of mur­ders, 53.3% of rob­beries, 31.9% of rapes, and 32.7% of assaults (p. 1178). Blacks rep­re­sent­ed 45% of the incar­cer­at­ed pop­u­la­tion in state and fed­er­al pris­ons in 2002 (Harrison and Beck 2003) and more than 40% in 2004 (Harrison and Beck 2005). In 2001, American Indians rep­re­sent­ed 2.4% of all offend­ers enter­ing fed­er­al prison and about 16% of all vio­lent offend­ers in fed­er­al pris­ons (Perry 2004: 21), and they made up 0.9% of the total U.S. pop­u­la­tion in the 2000 Census (p.
IS THERE RACIAL DISCRIMINATION IN THE CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM?

™ Is There Racial Discrimination in the Criminal Justice System? One report sug­gests that racial dis­crim­i­na­tion does occur at some points in the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem. Following the Rodney King inci­dent, the report of the Independent Commission on the Los Angeles Police Department (also called the Christopher Commission) (1991) found that there was exces­sive use of force by LAPD offi­cers and that this was com­pound­ed by racism and bias. One quar­ter of the 960 LAPD offi­cers sur­veyed by the com­mis­sion agreed that offi­cers held a racial bias toward minori­ties, and more than one quar­ter agreed that this racial bias could lead to the use of exces­sive force. The com­mis­sion also reviewed radio trans­mis­sions with­in the LAPD, which revealed dis­turb­ing and recur­rent racial remarks, often made in the con­text of dis­cussing vehi­cle pur­suits or beat­ing sus­pects. Testimony from wit­ness­es depict­ed the LAPD as an orga­ni­za­tion whose prac­tices and pro­ce­dures tol­er­at­ed dis­crim­i­na­to­ry treat­ment, and wit­ness­es repeat­ed­ly tes­ti­fied about LAPD offi­cers who ver­bal­ly harassed minori­ties, detained African American and Latino men who fit gen­er­al­ized descrip­tions of sub­jects, and employed inva­sive and humil­i­at­ing tac­tics against minori­ties in minor­i­ty neigh­bor­hoods. As well as racism in rela­tions with the pub­lic, racial bias was also reflect­ed in con­duct direct­ed at fel­low offi­cers who were mem­bers of 68 Part I The Interaction Between Ethics and the Criminal Justice System racial or eth­nic minor­i­ty groups. These offi­cers were sub­ject­ed to racial slurs and com­ments in radio mes­sages and to dis­crim­i­na­to­ry treat­ment with­in the depart­ment. In anoth­er report, that of the New York State Judicial Commission on Minorities (1991), a pan­el of judges, attor­neys, and law pro­fes­sors found that “there are two jus­tice sys­tems at work in the courts of New York State; one for whites, and a very dif­fer­ent one for minori­ties and the poor” (p. 1). The pan­el found inequal­i­ty, dis­parate treat­ment, and injus­tice based on race. It report­ed that many minori­ties received “base­ment jus­tice” in that court facil­i­ties were infest­ed with rats and cock­roach­es, fam­i­ly mem­bers of minori­ties were often treat­ed with dis­re­spect and lack of cour­tesy by court offi­cers, and racist graf­fi­ti appeared on the walls of court facil­i­ties. The pan­el also con­clud­ed that minor­i­ty cas­es often take only 4 or 5 min­utes in court, sug­gest­ing a form of assem­bly line jus­tice, and that black defen­dants out­side of New York City fre­quent­ly have their cas­es heard by an all-white jury. To deter­mine whether racial dis­crim­i­na­tion exists with­in the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem, crim­i­nol­o­gists have con­duct­ed research stud­ies that have exam­ined the major deci­sion points with­in crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tems in the United States. Most researchers agree with William Wilbanks (1987) and Joan Petersilia (1983) that although there is racial dis­crim­i­na­tion with­in the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem, the sys­tem itself is not char­ac­ter­ized by racial dis­crim­i­na­tion; that is, dis­crim­i­na­tion is not sys­tem­at­ic (Blumstein 1993; DiIulio 1996; Russell-Brown 1998; Tonry 1995). There are, how­ev­er, indi­vid­ual cas­es occur­ring with­in the sys­tem that appear to demon­strate racial dis­crim­i­na­tion at cer­tain deci­sion-mak­ing points (Wilbanks 1987). According to Petersilia (1983), racial dis­par­i­ties have come about because pro­ce­dures were adopt­ed with­in the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem pri­or to any real assess­ment about the effect of those pro­ce­dures on minori­ties. For exam­ple, she found that although the case pro­cess­ing sys­tem gen­er­al­ly treat­ed offend­ers sim­i­lar­ly … we found racial dif­fer­ences at two key points: Minority sus­pects were more like­ly than whites to be released after arrest; how­ev­er, after a felony con­vic­tion, minor­i­ty offend­ers were more like­ly than whites to be giv­en longer sen­tences and to be put in prison instead of jail (p. vi). Petersilia also sug­gest­ed that “racial dif­fer­ences in plea bar­gain­ing and jury tri­als may explain some of the dif­fer­ence in length and type of sen­tence” (p. ix). The con­tention that there is no sys­tem­at­ic bias in the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem based on race has been chal­lenged by oth­er researchers who dis­pute this con­clu­sion on a num­ber of grounds (Russell-Brown 1998: 28). These include the fact that pri­or stud­ies have assessed dis­crim­i­na­tion at a sin­gle stage in the sys­tem and have there­fore been inef­fec­tive in detect­ing dis­crim­i­na­tion that might exist at oth­er stages. For exam­ple, the find­ing that there is no racial dis­par­i­ty in sen­tenc­ing with­in a sys­tem does not exclude the pos­si­bil­i­ty of dis­crim­i­na­tion in oth­er parts of the sys­tem. As already dis­cussed, Georges-Abeyie (in Russell-Brown 1998: 32) has drawn atten­tion to how research on racial dis­crim­i­na­tion in the sys­tem focus­es on for­mal, eas­i­ly observed deci­sion­mak­ing points and fails to take account of more infor­mal law enforce­ment action. He argues that this infor­mal deci­sion mak­ing deter­mines who will be arrest­ed and who will enter the sys­tem and that these encoun­ters should be includ­ed in any assess­ment of whether the sys­tem oper­ates in a dis­crim­i­na­to­ry man­ner. If such infor­mal action were to be includ­ed, he sug­gests that a sys­tem of petit apartheid would be revealed that would demon­strate that African Americans are con­sis­tent­ly treat­ed in a dis­crim­i­na­to­ry man­ner as com­pared to whites. Another crit­i­cism is that offi­cial sta­tis­tics on race and crime do not pro­vide a prop­er basis for research on dis­crim­i­na­tion in the jus­tice sys­tem, because the data col­lec­tion pro­ce­dures make these sta­tis­tics unre­li­able and dis­tort analy­sis derived from them (Knepper 2000: 16). This argu­ment points out that the pri­ma­ry clas­si­fi­ca­tion scheme employed in crime sta­tis­tics des­ig­nates four offi­cial races — white, black, American Indian/​Alaskan Native, and Asian and Pacific Islander — as well as two offi­cial eth­nic groups, “Hispanic ori­gin” and “not of Hispanic Chapter 3 Racial Discrimination in the Criminal Justice System 69 ori­gin.” In con­trast, the 1990 cen­sus includes 43 racial cat­e­gories and sub­cat­e­gories. If race is made the focus of inquiry, there is an assump­tion that races con­sti­tute dis­crete groups, but in fact, the races in America are not mono­lith­ic. For exam­ple, the des­ig­na­tion “black” fails to cap­ture the most sig­nif­i­cant aspects of what it means to be black in the United States, because the des­ig­na­tion “black” includes per­sons of Caribbean, African, and Central and South American ori­gin, and with­in each of these groups are pop­u­la­tions dis­tin­guished by cul­ture, lan­guage, and shades of col­or (p. 19). Paul Knepper argues that no objec­tive state­ments can be made based on these race cat­e­gories, which are essen­tial­ly polit­i­cal rather than social def­i­n­i­tions of races derived from a legal ide­ol­o­gy of sep­a­rate races ground­ed in the insti­tu­tion of slav­ery (p. 23). In rela­tion to the juve­nile jus­tice sys­tem, it has been argued that any dis­crim­i­na­tion with­in that sys­tem should be con­sid­ered sep­a­rate­ly from the adult sys­tem for two basic rea­sons (Pope and Feyerherm 1990). First, a high lev­el of dis­cre­tion is per­mit­ted in the juve­nile jus­tice sys­tem, and this may tend to pro­duce more dis­crim­i­na­tion. Second, because most adult offend­ers begin their con­tact with the adult sys­tem through the juve­nile jus­tice sys­tem, char­ac­ter­is­tics acquired in the juve­nile sys­tem, such as a pri­or record, may influ­ence their treat­ment in the adult sys­tem. As to whether racial dis­crim­i­na­tion exists with­in the juve­nile jus­tice sys­tem, after a review of the lit­er­a­ture, Carl Pope and William Feyerherm (1990) con­clude that two thirds of the stud­ies reviewed sug­gest­ed evi­dence of direct or indi­rect dis­crim­i­na­tion against minori­ties, or a mixed pat­tern of bias, espe­cial­ly in the pro­cess­ing of juve­niles through the sys­tem. Their sur­vey also sug­gests there is evi­dence that race dif­fer­ences in out­come may seem to be minor at a cer­tain deci­sion-mak­ing stage in the sys­tem but that these dif­fer­ences have more seri­ous impli­ca­tions as ear­li­er deci­sions in the sys­tem move toward a final dis­po­si­tion. Third, Pope and Feyerherm state that although the rela­tion­ship between race and juve­nile jus­tice deci­sion mak­ing is com­plex, their analy­sis sug­gests that var­i­ous fac­tors do inter­act to pro­duce racial dif­fer­ences in juve­nile jus­tice dis­po­si­tions. Certainly, race seems to con­tin­ue as a fac­tor in respons­es to juve­nile crime. Information col­lect­ed by the orga­ni­za­tion Building Blocks for Youth (2000) revealed that African Americans rep­re­sent 15% of the pop­u­la­tion nation­wide, 26% of juve­nile arrests, 44% of youth who are detained, 46% of youth who are judi­cial­ly waived to crim­i­nal court, and 58% of youth admit­ted to state pris­ons. In con­sid­er­ing racial dis­crim­i­na­tion with­in the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem, researchers have iso­lat­ed and exam­ined var­i­ous deci­sion-mak­ing points, includ­ing arrest, bail, jury selec­tion, con­vic­tion, and sen­tenc­ing. These deci­sion-mak­ing points will be con­sid­ered in the fol­low­ing sections.

POLICE ENCOUNTERS WITH CITIZENS AND POLICE ARRESTS:

Racial ori­gin may some­times influ­ence police deci­sions about mak­ing an arrest. In the case of sus­pect­ed juve­nile offens­es, research has shown that for minor offens­es, police offi­cers may take into account the demeanor of a juve­nile in decid­ing whether to make an arrest (Black and Reiss 1970; Piliavin and Briar 1964). If the police per­ceive the sus­pect­ed offend­er as show­ing them dis­re­spect, this may increase the like­li­hood of an arrest. Along with racial ori­gin, Douglas Smith (1986) found that the con­text of a par­tic­u­lar neigh­bor­hood also influ­enced police deci­sions about arrest or use of force, because police were more like­ly to arrest, threat­en, or use force against sus­pects in racial­ly mixed or minor­i­ty neigh­bor­hoods. Research into how police use their pow­ers against minori­ties, what­ev­er may be the race of the offi­cer, has been an impor­tant issue in polic­ing research, and the approach has been to explore whether white offi­cers treat black cit­i­zens dif­fer­ent­ly than non­black cit­i­zens (R. Brown and Frank 2006: 104). In one study of police employed by the Cincinnati Police Division between 1997 and 1998, where about 65% of the pop­u­la­tion was white and 35% black, researchers exam­ined 614 police – sus­pect encoun­ters dur­ing which 104 cit­i­zens were arrest­ed. They dis­cov­ered that about 18% of the white offi­cer – sus­pect encoun­ters end­ed in arrest com­pared to 15% of the black offi­cer – sus­pect inter­ac­tions. Further, male and juve­nile sus­pects were 70 Part I The Interaction Between Ethics and the Criminal Justice System sig­nif­i­cant­ly more like­ly to be arrest­ed than females or adults, and police were sig­nif­i­cant­ly more like­ly to arrest black sus­pects than white sus­pects (p. 118). They also found that cit­i­zens who show dis­re­spect to the police increase their like­li­hood of arrest. Interactions involv­ing black offi­cers and black sus­pects were sig­nif­i­cant­ly more like­ly to result in arrest than inter­ac­tions involv­ing black offi­cers and white sus­pects (p. 119). Thus, the authors sug­gest that black offi­cers are more like­ly to use coer­cion with black cit­i­zens than white cit­i­zens. The authors are unable to offer any expla­na­tion for this dif­fer­en­tial arrest­ing behav­ior oth­er than that race seems to make a dif­fer­ence and that more research is required (pp. 120 – 121). In con­sid­er­ing the pro­por­tion of blacks involved in police shoot­ings of crim­i­nal sus­pects, James Fyfe (1982) demon­strat­ed that in New York City, blacks were more like­ly than whites to be shot by police, because they were dis­pro­por­tion­ate­ly involved in armed inci­dents that involved shoot­ing. In con­trast, research in Memphis showed that blacks were no more like­ly than whites to be involved in armed inci­dents, but nev­er­the­less, police shot dis­pro­por­tion­ate­ly more blacks when they were flee­ing. Fyfe con­cludes that police use of dead­ly force in Memphis is influ­enced by the race of a sus­pect. In Seattle, a study of race and drug-deliv­ery arrests revealed that most drugs, includ­ing pow­der cocaine and hero­in, are deliv­ered by whites, and that blacks are the major­i­ty deliv­er­ing only one drug, name­ly, crack cocaine (Beckett, Nyrop, and Pfingst 2006: 129). However, 64% of those arrest­ed for deliv­er­ing drugs oth­er than crack cocaine are black. The expla­na­tion sug­gest­ed for this dis­par­i­ty is the law enforce­ment focus on crack cocaine and also the fact that the white drug mar­kets in Seattle receive less atten­tion from law enforce­ment than the more racial­ly diverse mar­kets in the city (p. 129). Thus, the researchers con­clude, “Race shapes per­cep­tions of who and what con­sti­tute Seattle’s drug prob­lem” (p. 105). Why have police in many states pri­or­i­tized drug enforce­ment as a police func­tion and engaged in repeat­ed traf­fic stops to con­duct drug search­es? Some com­men­ta­tors have argued that the Comprehensive Crime Act of 1984 has been the cause of this high rank­ing enjoyed by drug enforce­ment. The rea­son is that this act per­mit­ted local police agen­cies to retain the pro­ceeds from assets seized in drug-enforce­ment activ­i­ty where fed­er­al and local police coop­er­at­ed in the inves­ti­ga­tion (Mast, Benson, and Rasmussen 2000: 287). As Brent Mast, Bruce Benson, and David Rasmussen put it, “Entrepreneurial local police shift[ed] pro­duc­tion efforts into drug con­trol in order to expand their rev­enues” (p. 287). In fact, the Department of Justice went fur­ther than the act’s pro­vi­sions, because it decid­ed that local police could arrange for fed­er­al author­i­ties to “adopt” local police forces’ drug seizures, even when fed­er­al agents were not involved in the inves­ti­ga­tion. Interestingly, drug arrests per 100,000 pop­u­la­tion in states with lim­its on the assets that local police could retain aver­aged 363 dur­ing 1989, while the arrest rate in such cas­es where police were able to keep seized assets aver­aged 606 per 100,000 (p. 289). Mast et al., after con­duct­ing an empir­i­cal study, found that where leg­is­la­tion per­mits police to keep assets seized in drug inves­ti­ga­tions rais­es the drug arrest rate as a pro­por­tion of total arrests by about 20% and drug arrest rates them­selves by about 18% (p. 285).

BAIL

For most offens­es charged, pros­e­cu­tors and judges have a wide dis­cre­tion about whether defen­dants should be released on bail, and the courts may use fac­tors such as dan­ger­ous­ness to the com­mu­ni­ty and the pos­si­bil­i­ty of flight in mak­ing bail deci­sions. Generally, the court looks at the employ­ment, mar­i­tal sta­tus, and length of res­i­dence in an area of the accused as an illus­tra­tion of com­mu­ni­ty ties, which may allow the court to con­clude that the accused is unlike­ly to flee (Albonetti, Hauser, Hagan, and Nagel 1989). Studies tend to show that race is not a fac­tor in bail appli­ca­tions once an accused’s dan­ger­ous­ness to the com­mu­ni­ty and pri­or his­to­ry of appear­ance at tri­al are con­trolled for. However, race does relate to the deci­sion to grant bail in oth­er ways. For exam­ple, in a study of more than 5,000 male defen­dants, Albonetti et al. (1989) reveal that defen­dants with low­er lev­els Chapter 3 Racial Discrimination in the Criminal Justice System 71 of edu­ca­tion and income were less like­ly to get bail and more like­ly to receive oner­ous bail terms. They also found that white defen­dants with the same edu­ca­tion, back­ground, and income as black defen­dants were more like­ly to be grant­ed bail, and that in con­sid­er­ing bail appli­ca­tions, a pri­or crim­i­nal record count­ed against blacks more than whites. However, in assess­ing the cri­te­ria for bail, dan­ger­ous­ness and seri­ous­ness of the offense were of greater weight for whites than for blacks. Overall, the study shows that under cer­tain con­di­tions, whites are treat­ed more severe­ly on bail appli­ca­tions but that, gen­er­al­ly, white defen­dants receive bet­ter treat­ment. Samuel Walker, Cassia Spohn, and Miriam DeLone (2000: 135) note that it is impos­si­ble to guar­an­tee that judges will refrain from tak­ing race into account in deter­min­ing appli­ca­tions for bail, and that the sim­ple stereo­typ­ing of minori­ties as less reli­able and more prone to vio­lence than whites will like­ly result in a high­er rate of bail denial regard­less of any oth­er assessed factors.

JURY SELECTION

Is there any evi­dence of racial dis­crim­i­na­tion in the jury selec­tion process? Historically, laws have tried to entrench racial dis­crim­i­na­tion into the process of jury selec­tion. In Strauder v. West Virginia (1880), the court struck down a statute that lim­it­ed jury ser­vice to white men on the grounds that it vio­lat­ed the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution. However, this rul­ing did not pre­vent some states from attempt­ing to pre­serve the law­ful­ness of an all-white jury by oth­er means. For exam­ple, in Delaware, jury selec­tion was drawn from lists of tax­pay­ers, and jury mem­bers were required to be “sober and judi­cious.” Although African Americans were eli­gi­ble for selec­tion under this rule, they were sel­dom if ever select­ed, because the state author­i­ties argued that few African Americans in the state were intel­li­gent, expe­ri­enced, or moral enough to serve as jurors (Walker et al. 2000: 156). The Supreme Court sub­se­quent­ly ruled this prac­tice in Delaware as uncon­sti­tu­tion­al. Since the mid-1930s, the Supreme Court has ruled on jury selec­tion issues in a way that has made it dif­fi­cult for court sys­tems to prac­tice racial dis­crim­i­na­tion in jury selec­tion. For exam­ple, the Court has ruled it uncon­sti­tu­tion­al to put the names of white poten­tial jurors on white cards and the names of African American poten­tial jurors on yel­low cards and then to sup­pos­ed­ly make a ran­dom draw of cards to deter­mine who would be sum­moned for jury duty (Walker et al. 2000: 157). Walker et al. argue that many states still prac­tice dis­crim­i­na­to­ry pro­ce­dures in select­ing jury pools. For exam­ple, obtain­ing the names of poten­tial jurors from reg­is­tered vot­ers, the Department of Motor Vehicles, or prop­er­ty tax rolls seems to be an objec­tive process, but in some juris­dic­tions, racial minori­ties are less like­ly to be reg­is­tered vot­ers, own auto­mo­biles, or own tax­able prop­er­ty (p. 157). The effect, there­fore, is to stack the jury pool with mid­dle-class white per­sons and to mar­gin­al­ize minori­ties. Prosecutors and defense lawyers are able to use peremp­to­ry chal­lenges to excuse poten­tial jurors with­out iden­ti­fy­ing any cause or expla­na­tion and with­out any account­abil­i­ty to the court, so it is there­fore pos­si­ble to employ peremp­to­ry chal­lenges in the prac­tice of racial dis­crim­i­na­tion in jury selec­tion. According to Samuel R. Sommers and Michael I. Norton, such is the force of stereo­types con­cern­ing jurors of dif­fer­ent races, espe­cial­ly in rela­tion to judg­ments that are made on the basis of lim­it­ed knowl­edge, under “cog­ni­tive load,” and under pres­sure of time (all fac­tors present in a voir dire), that “the dis­cre­tionary nature of the peremp­to­ry chal­lenge ren­ders it pre­cise­ly the type of judg­ment most like­ly to be biased by race” (2008: 527). Initially, the Supreme Court was unwill­ing to restrict a prosecutor’s right to use peremp­to­ry chal­lenges to excuse poten­tial jurors on racial grounds, pre­fer­ring to rely on the pre­sump­tion that the pros­e­cu­tor was always act­ing in good faith in mak­ing such chal­lenges. However, the Court deter­mined that it would inter­vene if a defen­dant could estab­lish a case of delib­er­ate dis­crim­i­na­tion by show­ing that elim­i­nat­ing African Americans from a par­tic­u­lar jury was part of a pat­tern of dis­crim­i­na­tion in a juris­dic­tion. Not sur­pris­ing­ly, this strin­gent test has proved dif­fi­cult to sat­is­fy, because few defense lawyers pos­sess infor­ma­tion prov­ing a pat­tern of dis­crim­i­na­tion. In 1986, the Supreme Court reject­ed this test, rul­ing that it was not nec­es­sary to estab­lish a pat­tern to show dis­crim­i­na­tion and that a defen­dant need only bring evi­dence show­ing the pros­e­cu­tor 72 Part I The Interaction Between Ethics and the Criminal Justice System had exer­cised his or her peremp­to­ry chal­lenges on racial grounds. Once a pri­ma facie case of dis­crim­i­na­tion has been made out, the state must explain why an African American has been exclud­ed from the jury pool. Even so, Walker et al. (2000: 160) con­tend that judges have giv­en the ben­e­fit of the doubt to pros­e­cu­tors and have shown them­selves will­ing to accept the prosecutor’s expla­na­tions rather than make a find­ing of delib­er­ate dis­crim­i­na­tion. Case Study 3.1, derived from a New York Times report, illus­trates an alleged case of racial dis­crim­i­na­tion in jury selection.

Case Study 3.1 In Dallas, Dismissal of Black Jurors Leads.

Case Study 3.1 In Dallas, Dismissal of Black Jurors Leads to Appeal by Death Row Inmate Thomas Miller-El is an African American charged with shoot­ing two white hotel clerks dur­ing a rob­bery in 1985. One of the hotel clerks died, and Miller-El, age 50, is due to be exe­cut­ed by the State of Texas on February 21. He has asked the Texas Board of Pardons to com­mute his sen­tence and has appealed his case to the U.S. Supreme Court on the ground that the jury that con­vict­ed him was cho­sen using racial dis­crim­i­na­to­ry stan­dards that have been applied by the Dallas County dis­trict attorney’s office in many cas­es. The dis­trict attorney’s office oppos­es the appeal, argu­ing that there is no evi­dence of any racial dis­crim­i­na­tion. The jury in the tri­al com­prised nine whites, one Filipino, one Hispanic, and one African American. Three oth­er African Americans were exclud­ed from the jury by pros­e­cu­tors, as were sev­en of eight oth­er African Americans inter­viewed as prospec­tive jurors. Racial dis­crim­i­na­tion in jury selec­tion is pro­hib­it­ed by the Constitution, and until 1986, to estab­lish race dis­crim­i­na­tion, an accused had to meet a heavy bur­den of proof, because he or she had to show a pat­tern of dis­crim­i­na­tion. In 1986, in Batson v. Kentucky, the U.S. Supreme Court low­ered the stan­dard, deter­min­ing that if the accused was able to show that the pros­e­cu­tion appeared to be using its peremp­to­ry chal­lenges to jurors to exclude minori­ties, the tri­al judge could call for an expla­na­tion. Miller-El was con­vict­ed and sen­tenced 1 month before the Batson rul­ing, but the deci­sion applies to his case retroac­tive­ly. To date, both state and fed­er­al courts have upheld his death sen­tence, deter­min­ing that no racial dis­crim­i­na­tion occurred dur­ing jury selec­tion. Miller-El’s argu­ment is that the courts con­sid­ered only the num­ber of chal­lenges to jurors (10 out of 11 prospec­tive African American jurors) and failed to con­sid­er oth­er evi­dence show­ing that pros­e­cu­tors in Dallas County had for years exclud­ed blacks from juries as a mat­ter of rou­tine prac­tice. This argu­ment is sup­port­ed by four for­mer pros­e­cu­tors whose terms of office cov­er the peri­od from 1977 to 1989 and who con­firmed that the Dallas County office did apply a pol­i­cy of exclud­ing blacks from juries. Further sup­port­ing this argu­ment is a 1986 arti­cle in a local news­pa­per cit­ing a 1963 inter­nal memo in the dis­trict attorney’s office advis­ing pros­e­cu­tors not to include “Jews, negroes, Dagos, Mexicans or a mem­ber of any minor­i­ty race” as a jury mem­ber. Further, in the ear­ly 1970s, the prosecutor’s office employed a train­ing man­u­al that con­tained advice on jury selec­tion to the effect that a pros­e­cu­tor should not include any mem­ber of a minor­i­ty group because “they almost always empathize with the accused.” The Dallas Morning News has exam­ined 15 cap­i­tal mur­der tri­als from 1980 through 1986 and has revealed that pros­e­cu­tors exclud­ed 90% of African Americans qual­i­fied for jury selec­tion. Nevertheless, the assis­tant dis­trict attor­ney in the Miller-El case dis­claimed any notion that he had chal­lenged the 10 African American jurors on grounds of race. He claimed that he was try­ing to assem­ble the best pos­si­ble jury and that his office had no pol­i­cy of racial dis­crim­i­na­tion. Despite these claims, at least three of the poten­tial African American jurors chal­lenged in the Miller-El case sup­port­ed cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment and want­ed to be on the jury. SOURCE: Rimer 2002.
Read more @ http://​www​.sagepub​.com/​u​p​m​-​d​a​t​a​/​4​6​9​4​6​_​C​H​_​3​.​pdf

Created by Martin Luther King, Jr., National Historic Site Interpretive Staff.

From the 1880s into the 1960s, a major­i­ty of American states enforced seg­re­ga­tion through “Jim Crow” laws (so called after a black char­ac­ter in min­strel shows). From Delaware to California, and from North Dakota to Texas, many states (and cities, too) could impose legal pun­ish­ments on peo­ple for con­sort­ing with mem­bers of anoth­er race. The most com­mon types of laws for­bade inter­mar­riage and ordered busi­ness own­ers and pub­lic insti­tu­tions to keep their black and white clien­tele separated.

Here is a sam­pling of laws from var­i­ous states:

Nurses No per­son or cor­po­ra­tion shall require any white female nurse to nurse in wards or rooms in hos­pi­tals, either pub­lic or pri­vate, in which negro men are placed. Alabama

Buses All pas­sen­ger sta­tions in this state oper­at­ed by any motor trans­porta­tion com­pa­ny shall have sep­a­rate wait­ing rooms or space and sep­a­rate tick­et win­dows for the white and col­ored races. Alabama

Railroads The con­duc­tor of each pas­sen­ger train is autho­rized and required to assign each pas­sen­ger to the car or the divi­sion of the car, when it is divid­ed by a par­ti­tion, des­ig­nat­ed for the race to which such pas­sen­ger belongs. Alabama

Restaurants It shall be unlaw­ful to con­duct a restau­rant or oth­er place for the serv­ing of food in the city, at which white and col­ored peo­ple are served in the same room, unless such white and col­ored per­sons are effec­tu­al­ly sep­a­rat­ed by a sol­id par­ti­tion extend­ing from the floor upward to a dis­tance of sev­en feet or high­er, and unless a sep­a­rate entrance from the street is pro­vid­ed for each com­part­ment.Alabama

Pool and Billiard Rooms It shall be unlaw­ful for a negro and white per­son to play togeth­er or in com­pa­ny with each oth­er at any game of pool or bil­liards.Alabama

Toilet Facilities, Male Every employ­er of white or negro males shall pro­vide for such white or negro males rea­son­ably acces­si­ble and sep­a­rate toi­let facil­i­ties.Alabama

Intermarriage The mar­riage of a per­son of Caucasian blood with a Negro, Mongolian, Malay, or Hindu shall be null and void. Arizona

Intermarriage All mar­riages between a white per­son and a negro, or between a white per­son and a per­son of negro descent to the fourth gen­er­a­tion inclu­sive, are here­by for­ev­er pro­hib­it­ed. Florida

Cohabitation Any negro man and white woman, or any white man and negro woman, who are not mar­ried to each oth­er, who shall habit­u­al­ly live in and occu­py in the night­time the same room shall each be pun­ished by impris­on­ment not exceed­ing twelve (12) months, or by fine not exceed­ing five hun­dred ($500.00) dol­lars. Florida

Education The schools for white chil­dren and the schools for negro chil­dren shall be con­duct­ed sep­a­rate­ly. Florida

Juvenile Delinquents There shall be sep­a­rate build­ings, not near­er than one fourth mile to each oth­er, one for white boys and one for negro boys. White boys and negro boys shall not, in any man­ner, be asso­ci­at­ed togeth­er or worked togeth­er.Florida

Mental Hospitals The Board of Control shall see that prop­er and dis­tinct apart­ments are arranged for said patients, so that in no case shall Negroes and white per­sons be togeth­er. Georgia

Intermarriage It shall be unlaw­ful for a white per­son to mar­ry any­one except a white per­son. Any mar­riage in vio­la­tion of this sec­tion shall be void. Georgia

Barbers No col­ored bar­ber shall serve as a bar­ber [to] white women or girls.Georgia

Burial The offi­cer in charge shall not bury, or allow to be buried, any col­ored per­sons upon ground set apart or used for the bur­ial of white per­sons. Georgia

Restaurants All per­sons licensed to con­duct a restau­rant, shall serve either white peo­ple exclu­sive­ly or col­ored peo­ple exclu­sive­ly and shall not sell to the two races with­in the same room or serve the two races any­where under the same license.Georgia

Amateur Baseball It shall be unlaw­ful for any ama­teur white base­ball team to play base­ball on any vacant lot or base­ball dia­mond with­in two blocks of a play­ground devot­ed to the Negro race, and it shall be unlaw­ful for any ama­teur col­ored base­ball team to play base­ball in any vacant lot or base­ball dia­mond with­in two blocks of any play­ground devot­ed to the white race. Georgia

Parks It shall be unlaw­ful for col­ored peo­ple to fre­quent any park owned or main­tained by the city for the ben­e­fit, use and enjoy­ment of white persons…and unlaw­ful for any white per­son to fre­quent any park owned or main­tained by the city for the use and ben­e­fit of col­ored per­sons. Georgia

Wine and Beer All per­sons licensed to con­duct the busi­ness of sell­ing beer or wine…shall serve either white peo­ple exclu­sive­ly or col­ored peo­ple exclu­sive­ly and shall not sell to the two races with­in the same room at any time. Georgia

Reform Schools The chil­dren of white and col­ored races com­mit­ted to the hous­es of reform shall be kept entire­ly sep­a­rate from each oth­er. Kentucky

Circus Tickets All cir­cus­es, shows, and tent exhi­bi­tions, to which the atten­dance of…more than one race is invit­ed or expect­ed to attend shall pro­vide for the con­ve­nience of its patrons not less than two tick­et offices with indi­vid­ual tick­et sell­ers, and not less than two entrances to the said per­for­mance, with indi­vid­ual tick­et tak­ers and receivers, and in the case of out­side or tent per­for­mances, the said tick­et offices shall not be less than twen­ty-five (25) feet apart. Louisiana

Housing Any person…who shall rent any part of any such build­ing to a negro per­son or a negro fam­i­ly when such build­ing is already in whole or in part in occu­pan­cy by a white per­son or white fam­i­ly, or vice ver­sa when the build­ing is in occu­pan­cy by a negro per­son or negro fam­i­ly, shall be guilty of a mis­de­meanor and on con­vic­tion there­of shall be pun­ished by a fine of not less than twen­ty-five ($25.00) nor more than one hun­dred ($100.00) dol­lars or be impris­oned not less than 10, or more than 60 days, or both such fine and impris­on­ment in the dis­cre­tion of the court. Louisiana

The Blind The board of trustees shall…maintain a sep­a­rate building…on sep­a­rate ground for the admis­sion, care, instruc­tion, and sup­port of all blind per­sons of the col­ored or black race. Louisiana

Intermarriage All mar­riages between a white per­son and a negro, or between a white per­son and a per­son of negro descent, to the third gen­er­a­tion, inclu­sive, or between a white per­son and a mem­ber of the Malay race; or between the negro a nd a mem­ber of the Malay race; or between a per­son of Negro descent, to the third gen­er­a­tion, inclu­sive, and a mem­ber of the Malay race, are for­ev­er pro­hib­it­ed, and shall be void. Maryland

Railroads All rail­road com­pa­nies and cor­po­ra­tions, and all per­sons run­ning or oper­at­ing cars or coach­es by steam on any rail­road line or track in the State of Maryland, for the trans­porta­tion of pas­sen­gers, are here­by required to pro­vide sep­a­rate cars or coach­es for the trav­el and trans­porta­tion of the white and col­ored pas­sen­gers. Maryland

Education Separate schools shall be main­tained for the chil­dren of the white and col­ored races. Mississippi

Promotion of Equality Any person…who shall be guilty of print­ing, pub­lish­ing or cir­cu­lat­ing print­ed, type­writ­ten or writ­ten mat­ter urg­ing or pre­sent­ing for pub­lic accep­tance or gen­er­al infor­ma­tion, argu­ments or sug­ges­tions in favor of social equal­i­ty or of inter­mar­riage between whites and negroes, shall be guilty of a mis­de­meanor and sub­ject to fine or not exceed­ing five hun­dred (500.00) dol­lars or impris­on­ment not exceed­ing six (6) months or both. Mississippi

Intermarriage The mar­riage of a white per­son with a negro or mulat­to or per­son who shall have one-eighth or more of negro blood, shall be unlaw­ful and void.Mississippi

Hospital Entrances There shall be main­tained by the gov­ern­ing author­i­ties of every hos­pi­tal main­tained by the state for treat­ment of white and col­ored patients sep­a­rate entrances for white and col­ored patients and vis­i­tors, and such entrances shall be used by the race only for which they are pre­pared. Mississippi

Prisons The war­den shall see that the white con­victs shall have sep­a­rate apart­ments for both eat­ing and sleep­ing from the negro con­victs. Mississippi

Education Separate free schools shall be estab­lished for the edu­ca­tion of chil­dren of African descent; and it shall be unlaw­ful for any col­ored child to attend any white school, or any white child to attend a col­ored school. Missouri

Intermarriage All mar­riages between…white per­sons and negroes or white per­sons and Mongolians…are pro­hib­it­ed and declared absolute­ly void…No per­son hav­ing one-eighth part or more of negro blood shall be per­mit­ted to mar­ry any white per­son, nor shall any white per­son be per­mit­ted to mar­ry any negro or per­son hav­ing one-eighth part or more of negro blood. Missouri

Education Separate rooms [shall] be pro­vid­ed for the teach­ing of pupils of African descent, and [when] said rooms are so pro­vid­ed, such pupils may not be admit­ted to the school rooms occu­pied and used by pupils of Caucasian or oth­er descent. New Mexico

Textbooks Books shall not be inter­change­able between the white and col­ored schools, but shall con­tin­ue to be used by the race first using them. North Carolina

Libraries The state librar­i­an is direct­ed to fit up and main­tain a sep­a­rate place for the use of the col­ored peo­ple who may come to the library for the pur­pose of read­ing books or peri­od­i­cals. North Carolina

Militia The white and col­ored mili­tia shall be sep­a­rate­ly enrolled, and shall nev­er be com­pelled to serve in the same orga​ni​za​tion​.No orga­ni­za­tion of col­ored troops shall be per­mit­ted where white troops are avail­able, and while white per­mit­ted to be orga­nized, col­ored troops shall be under the com­mand of white offi­cers. North Carolina

Transportation The…Utilities Commission…is empow­ered and direct­ed to require the estab­lish­ment of sep­a­rate wait­ing rooms at all sta­tions for the white and col­ored races. North Carolina

Teaching Any instruc­tor who shall teach in any school, col­lege or insti­tu­tion where mem­bers of the white and col­ored race are received and enrolled as pupils for instruc­tion shall be deemed guilty of a mis­de­meanor, and upon con­vic­tion there­of, shall be fined in any sum not less than ten dol­lars ($10.00) nor more than fifty dol­lars ($50.00) for each offense. Oklahoma

Fishing, Boating, and Bathing The [Conservation] Commission shall have the right to make seg­re­ga­tion of the white and col­ored races as to the exer­cise of rights of fish­ing, boat­ing and bathing. Oklahoma

Mining The baths and lock­ers for the negroes shall be sep­a­rate from the white race, but may be in the same build­ing. Oklahoma

Telephone Booths The Corporation Commission is here­by vest­ed with pow­er and author­i­ty to require tele­phone companies…to main­tain sep­a­rate booths for white and col­ored patrons when there is a demand for such sep­a­rate booths. That the Corporation Commission shall deter­mine the neces­si­ty for said sep­a­rate booths only upon com­plaint of the peo­ple in the town and vicin­i­ty to be served after due hear­ing as now pro­vid­ed by law in oth­er com­plaints filed with the Corporation Commission. Oklahoma

Lunch Counters No per­sons, firms, or cor­po­ra­tions, who or which fur­nish meals to pas­sen­gers at sta­tion restau­rants or sta­tion eat­ing hous­es, in times lim­it­ed by com­mon car­ri­ers of said pas­sen­gers, shall fur­nish said meals to white and col­ored pas­sen­gers in the same room, or at the same table, or at the same counter. South Carolina

Child Custody It shall be unlaw­ful for any par­ent, rel­a­tive, or oth­er white per­son in this State, hav­ing the con­trol or cus­tody of any white child, by right of guardian­ship, nat­ur­al or acquired, or oth­er­wise, to dis­pose of, give or sur­ren­der such white child per­ma­nent­ly into the cus­tody, con­trol, main­te­nance, or sup­port, of a negro. South Carolina

Libraries Any white per­son of such coun­ty may use the coun­ty free library under the rules and reg­u­la­tions pre­scribed by the com­mis­sion­ers court and may be enti­tled to all the priv­i­leges there­of. Said court shall make prop­er pro­vi­sion for the negroes of said coun­ty to be served through a sep­a­rate branch or branch­es of the coun­ty free library, which shall be admin­is­tered by [a] cus­to­di­an of the negro race under the super­vi­sion of the coun­ty librar­i­an. Texas

Education [The County Board of Education] shall pro­vide schools of two kinds; those for white chil­dren and those for col­ored chil­dren. Texas

Theaters Every person…operating…any pub­lic hall, the­atre, opera house, motion pic­ture show or any place of pub­lic enter­tain­ment or pub­lic assem­blage which is attend­ed by both white and col­ored per­sons, shall sep­a­rate the white race and the col­ored race and shall set apart and designate…certain seats there­in to be occu­pied by white per­sons and a por­tion there­of , or cer­tain seats there­in, to be occu­pied by col­ored per­sons. Virginia

Railroads The con­duc­tors or man­agers on all such rail­roads shall have pow­er, and are here­by required, to assign to each white or col­ored pas­sen­ger his or her respec­tive car, coach or com­part­ment. If the pas­sen­ger fails to dis­close his race, the con­duc­tor and man­agers, act­ing in good faith, shall be the sole judges of his race.Virginia

Intermarriage All mar­riages of white per­sons with Negroes, Mulattos, Mongolians, or Malaya here­after con­tract­ed in the State of Wyoming are and shall be ille­gal and void. Wyoming>

Thanks to the copy­right own­er : We take the lib­er­ty to dis­sem­i­nate this vital infor­ma­tion for pub­lic con­sump­tion so that both races may be aware of where America was and how much more is need­ed to reach a just society.MB.

Copyright © 1996 Journal of Land Use & Environmental LawI. INTRODUCTIONThe word “seg­re­ga­tion” is used while describ­ing the con­tentious changes of the 1960s, the Civil Rights move­ment, and the America of the past.[1] It is also a word that is now gone from the American social and polit­i­cal land­scape. In actu­al­i­ty, how­ev­er, the word seg­re­ga­tion con­tin­ues to char­ac­ter­ize the present lives of many minori­ties in America.[2] Segregation is the link to under­stand­ing the per­pet­u­a­tion of urban pover­ty in America and is attrib­ut­able to the present lack of afford­able hous­ing in safe and eco­nom­i­cal­ly pros­per­ous sub­ur­ban com­mu­ni­ties.[3] The exis­tence of iso­lat­ed and racial­ly seg­re­gat­ed hous­ing has pre­served racial mis­trust, fur­ther­ing igno­rant stereo­types that inhib­it our soci­ety from attain­ing true racial equal­i­ty. As Thomas Petigrew stat­ed: “Residential seg­re­ga­tion has proven to be the most resis­tant to change of all realms — per­haps because it is so crit­i­cal to racial change in gen­er­al.”[4]This com­ment dis­cuss­es the his­to­ry and effects of res­i­den­tial racial seg­re­ga­tion in America and offers spe­cif­ic reme­dies that have already been imple­ment­ed effec­tive­ly in a few U.S. cities. First, the com­ment exam­ines the his­to­ry of res­i­den­tial racial seg­re­ga­tion in America by explor­ing the role of fed­er­al and state gov­ern­ments, exclu­sion­ary zon­ing leg­is­la­tion, and pri­vate dis­crim­i­na­tion in cre­at­ing and per­pet­u­at­ing the prob­lems asso­ci­at­ed with seg­re­gat­ed hous­ing. Next, the com­ment address­es the harm­ful social and eco­nom­ic costs to minori­ties, par­tic­u­lar­ly African Americans, from decades of seg­re­ga­tion­ist and dis­crim­i­na­to­ry hous­ing poli­cies. Additionally, this sec­tion ana­lyzes the prospects of improv­ing race rela­tions giv­en the exis­tence of pre­dom­i­nate­ly homoge­nous white sub­ur­ban com­mu­ni­ties and low-income minor­i­ty inner-city neigh­bor­hoods. The third sec­tion elu­ci­dates pol­i­cy rea­sons to sup­port hous­ing inte­gra­tion, and ana­lyzes the costs of seg­re­ga­tion on white-Americans. Further, the third sec­tion details the eco­nom­ic and social ben­e­fits not only to minori­ties, but also to our entire pop­u­la­tion. Finally, the fourth sec­tion dis­cuss­es reme­dies to elim­i­nate hous­ing seg­re­ga­tion, specif­i­cal­ly by facil­i­tat­ing an increase in afford­able hous­ing prospects in sub­ur­ban com­mu­ni­ties. This first part exam­ines inclu­sion­ary zon­ing tech­niques, includ­ing the use of manda­to­ry set-asides, afford­able hous­ing appeals leg­is­la­tion, and state inclu­sion­ary laws. Concrete exam­ples of suc­cess­ful inclu­sion­ary zon­ing tech­niques are offered from a num­ber of U.S. cities. The sec­ond part then ana­lyzes the impor­tance and effec­tive­ness of mobil­i­ty pro­grams. Additionally, a detailed review is offered, delin­eat­ing the strengths of indi­vid­ual mobil­i­ty pro­grams, exist­ing obsta­cles, and the suc­cess­es of mobil­i­ty pro­grams in cre­at­ing afford­able hous­ing for minori­ties in pre­vi­ous­ly white sub­ur­ban enclaves.

II. HISTORICAL SEGREGATION OF HOUSING IN AMERICAA. Development of Housing Segregation — The Urban GhettoHousing seg­re­ga­tion in the United States devel­oped slow­ly and delib­er­ate­ly. In fact, pri­or to 1900, African Americans were scat­tered wide­ly through­out white neigh­bor­hoods.[5] In south­ern cities in the United States, for exam­ple, African American ser­vants and labor­ers lived side by side with their white employ­ers, and in north­ern urban areas, African Americans were more like­ly to share a neigh­bor­hood with whites than to live in racial­ly seg­re­gat­ed com­mu­ni­ties.[6] Although the evils of dis­crim­i­na­tion con­tin­ued after the Civil War, African Americans were gen­er­al­ly res­i­den­tial­ly inte­grat­ed with whites in the North.[7] The two racial groups reg­u­lar­ly inter­act­ed in a com­mon social world, shar­ing cul­tur­al traits and val­ues through per­son­al and fre­quent inter­ac­tion.[8]

However, as African Americans moved north into indus­tri­al com­mu­ni­ties after World War I and II, the pic­ture of the urban ghet­to began to devel­op. At the turn of the cen­tu­ry, meth­ods such as pub­lic improve­ment projects, rede­vel­op­ment projects, pub­lic hous­ing pro­grams, and urban renew­al poli­cies were uti­lized to accom­plish racial seg­re­ga­tion.[9] Other fac­tors also con­tributed to the for­ma­tion of the urban ghet­to. Manufacturing jobs were lured away from the inner city with cheap land and low tax­es.[10] Industry mov­ing from the city to the sub­urbs result­ed in the cre­ation of all-white sub­ur­ban towns.[11] Segregationist zon­ing ordi­nances, which divid­ed city streets by race, cou­pled with racial­ly restric­tive covenants between pri­vate indi­vid­u­als became the com­mon method of legal­ly enforc­ing racial seg­re­ga­tion.[12]

Racial seg­re­ga­tion soon became the de fac­to pol­i­cy of local gov­ern­ments and stan­dard oper­at­ing pro­ce­dure for indi­vid­ual landown­ers. The emer­gence of the black ghet­to did not hap­pen by chance, but was the result of the delib­er­ate hous­ing poli­cies of the fed­er­al, state, and local gov­ern­ments and the inten­tion­al actions of indi­vid­ual American cit­i­zens.[13] As a result, the cre­ation of the urban ghet­to has had a last­ing impact on America. The con­se­quences include: a lack of cap­i­tal in inner city com­mu­ni­ties, seg­re­gat­ed minor ity neigh­bor­hoods, and minor­i­ty fam­i­lies unable to find afford­able hous­ing in the sub­urbs due to gov­ern­ment spon­sored racism.

B. The Role of Government in Creating Housing SegregationThe role of fed­er­al and state gov­ern­ment in cre­at­ing and main­tain­ing res­i­den­tial racial seg­re­ga­tion must be under­stood, with­out excuse, as a real­i­ty of American his­to­ry. On the fed­er­al lev­el, the United States gov­ern­ment rein­forced dis­crim­i­na­to­ry norms through var­i­ous pub­lic poli­cies. The Federal Housing Administration (FHA) adopt­ed the prac­tice of “red-lin­ing,” a dis­crim­i­na­to­ry rat­ing sys­tem used by FHA to eval­u­ate the risks asso­ci­at­ed with loans made to bor­row­ers in spe­cif­ic urban neigh­bor­hoods.[14] The vast major­i­ty of the loans went to the two top cat­e­gories of the rat­ing sys­tem, the high­est of which includ­ed areas that were “new, homoge­nous, and in demand in good times and bad.”[15] The sec­ond high­est cat­e­go­ry was com­prised of most­ly sta­ble areas that were still desir­able. The third cat­e­go­ry, and the lev­el at which dis­crim­i­na­to­ry “red-lin­ing” began, con­sist­ed of work­ing class neigh­bor­hoods near black res­i­dences that were “with­in such a low price or rent range as to attract an unde­sir­able ele­ment.”[16] Black areas were placed in the fourth cate gory. Mortgage funds were chan­neled away from fourth cat­e­go­ry African American neigh­bor­hoods and were typ­i­cal­ly redi­rect­ed from com­mu­ni­ties that were locat­ed near a black set­tle­ment or an area expect­ed to con­tain black res­i­dences in the future.[17] As a result of these poli­cies, the vast major­i­ty of FHA mort­gage loans went to bor­row­ers in white mid­dle-class neigh­bor­hoods, and very few were award­ed to black neigh­bor­hoods in cen­tral cities.[18] Between 1930 and 1950, three out of five homes pur­chased in the United States were financed by FHA, yet less than two per­cent of the FHA loans were made to non-white home buy­ers.[19] The FHA thus became the first fed­er­al agency to open­ly coun­sel and sup­port seg­re­ga­tion.[20]

The FHA was oper­at­ed in a racial­ly dis­crim­i­na­to­ry man­ner since its incep­tion in 1937 and set itself up as the “pro­tec­tor of all white neigh­bor­hoods,” using its field agents to “keep Negroes and oth­er minori­ties from buy­ing hous­es in white neigh­bor­hoods.”[21] Evidence also indi­cates that the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment used inter­state high­way and urban renew­al pro­grams to seg­re­gate those blacks that had pre­vi­ous­ly lived in more racial­ly diverse com­mu­ni­ties.[22] Conse quent­ly, these schemes increased the con­cen­tra­tion of pover­ty where it has fes­tered ever since and has caused the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment to be labeled as “most influ­en­tial in cre­at­ing and main­tain­ing res­i­den­tial seg­re­ga­tion.”[23]

Examples of dis­crim­i­na­tion in fed­er­al hous­ing pol­i­cy per­sist today, and they are as numer­ous as they are dis­turb­ing. For instance, most minori­ties in pub­lic hous­ing live in com­mu­ni­ties large­ly popu lat­ed by poor minori­ties; in con­trast, pub­lic hous­ing for elder­ly whites is typ­i­cal­ly sit­u­at­ed in areas with large num­bers of whites who are not poor.[24] The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has played a sig­nif­i­cant role in rein­forc­ing the prob­lems of hous­ing seg­re­ga­tion by allow­ing inten­tion­al dis­crim­i­na­tion and courts have found HUD liable on many occa­sions for their overt racist poli­cies in site selec­tion and ten­ant hous­ing pro­ce­dures.[25]

The com­bined efforts of the fed­er­al and state agen­cies have had dis­as­trous effects on the cre­ation and main­te­nance of hous­ing seg­re­ga­tion. The poli­cies and prac­tices of the agen­cies have led to the notable iso­la­tion of minor­i­ty com­mu­ni­ties. On both nation­al and local lev­els, HUD has been found liable for the dis­crim­i­na­to­ry imple­men­ta­tion of the Section Eight[26] Housing Assistance Program.[27] For instance, Section Eight sub­sidy hold­ers liv­ing in Yonkers, New York brought a class action law­suit against a local Section Eight pro­gram and the state and fed­er­al pro­grams.[28] The ten­ants alleged that the Section Eight office had steered minor­i­ty Section Eight hold­ers into apart­ments in seg­re­gat­ed and crum­bling neigh­bor­hoods. The ten­ants also con­tend­ed that they were improp­er­ly informed that they could use their sub­si­dies in oth­er neigh­bor­hoods and nev­er told about the avail­abil­i­ty of rent excep­tions.[29] Consequently, the court held that the plain­tiff-ten­ants were lim­it­ed in their abil­i­ty to move into inte­grat­ed neigh­bor­hoods.[30] Under a con­sent decree issued in 1993, the defen­dants agreed to fund the Enhanced Section Eight Outreach Office to redress the griev­ances of the plain­tiff ten­ants.[31] Unquestionably, the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment, includ­ing HUD, has his­tor­i­cal­ly sup­port­ed and sus­tained hous­ing dis­crim­i­na­tion, a fact acknowl­edged even by the White House.[32] Past and present racial­ly dis­crim­i­na­to­ry poli­cies oblig­ate fed­er­al, state, and local gov­ern­ments to address their prej­u­di­cial tac­tics with mean­ing­ful leg­isla­tive ini­tia­tives to pro­mote racial inte­gra­tion in housing.

C. Exclusionary Zoning and the Perpetuation of Housing SegregationAs African Americans poured into America’s cities, the white com­mu­ni­ty fled to the sub­urbs, using judi­cial means to exclude the “unde­sir­ables.”[33] In 1926, the Supreme Court approved the use of munic­i­pal zon­ing in Village of Euclid v. Ambler Realty Company,[34] and the use of dis­tinct zon­ing dis­tricts in all areas of land use plan­ning — res­i­den­tial, com­mer­cial, and indus­tri­al — and sub­cat­e­go­rizes with­in each.[35] The Court’s hold­ing in Euclid sought to pre­serve the qual­i­ty of res­i­den­tial envi­ron­ments, but in doing so, caused hard­ship to those black or poor fam­i­lies who may have want­ed to live in sub­ur­bia. Although the Supreme Court has since held that race-based zon­ing vio­lates the Equal Protection Clause, non-exclu­sion­ary zon­ing restric­tions still cre­ate de fac­tores­i­den­tial seg­re­ga­tion.[36] Moreover, such facial­ly neu­tral non-exclu­sion­ary zon­ing reg­u­la­tions, based on eco­nom­ic con­sid­er­a­tions of prop­er­ty deval­u­a­tion, have still result­ed in per­pet­u­at­ing the exis­tence of seg­re­gat­ed neigh­bor­hoods. The real­i­ty of such “neu­tral” zon­ing ordi­nances is the exclu­sion of American soci­ety’s most vul­ner­a­ble pop­u­la­tion, poor minori­ties.[37]

Exclusionary zon­ing prac­tices were explained in the famous New Jersey Mount Laurel deci­sion where local zon­ing reg­u­la­tions were used to main­tain “enclaves of afflu­ence or of social homo­gene­ity.”[38] Not sur­pris­ing­ly, exclu­sion­ary zon­ing has been attrac­tive to local gov­ern­ments because a town could zone out what­ev­er hous­ing it did not want with­out hav­ing to pay a price.[39] While no sin­gle fac­tor can ful­ly explain racial seg­re­ga­tion, many legal schol­ars, as well as Justice Hall and Chief Justice Wilentz of the New Jersey Supreme Court, have agreed that exclu­sion­ary zon­ing is the most per­va­sive legal struc­ture per­pet­u­at­ing racial seg­re­ga­tion.[40]

The growth of sub­ur­ban com­mu­ni­ties expand­ed the growth of local gov­ern­ments who used their pow­er to reg­u­late and con­trol neigh­bor­hood land use. Zoning ordi­nances, includ­ing restric­tions for sin­gle fam­i­lies, the exclu­sion of apart­ment build­ings from res­i­den­tial clas­si­fi­ca­tion, min­i­mum lot and floor space require­ments, max­i­mum den­si­ty lim­i­ta­tions, and oth­er land use con­trols have func­tioned as gates of homo­gene­ity.[41] Even con­sid­er­ing pro­po­nents’ con­tentions that zon­ing reg­u­la­tions cre­ate and sus­tain eco­nom­i­cal­ly and social­ly viable com­mu­ni­ties, the fact remains that because of these restric­tions, the poor and minori­ties are de fac­to exclud­ed and their needs sac­ri­ficed to nur­ture the growth of sub­ur­bia.[42] While zon­ing ordi­nances may be facial­ly neu­tral, the effect of many of these reg­u­la­tions is to keep out minori­ties and low-income per­sons even when the intent is obscured.

Zoning reg­u­la­tions have result­ed in the dra­mat­ic increase in hous­ing prices, exac­er­bat­ing the prob­lem of hous­ing seg­re­ga­tion. Land costs rep­re­sent a notable por­tion of hous­ing costs, and zon­ing prac­tices that affect the price of land increase the cost of hous­ing built on that land.[43] The con­struc­tion of afford­able hous­ing there­by becomes cost­ly and more lim­it­ed, effec­tive­ly exclud­ing many low-income minori­ties. These minori­ties, in turn, are exclud­ed from the edu­ca­tion­al and employ­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties of sub­ur­ban areas.[44] Hence, the cycle of oppres­sion is perpetuated.

In May 1991, the Census Bureau report­ed that 57% of American fam­i­lies could not afford a medi­an-priced home in the area in which they lived.[45] This per­cent­age dis­pro­por­tion­ate­ly affects both African Americans and Hispanics who make-up 75% of these fam­i­lies.[46] The dis­crim­i­na­to­ry hous­ing prac­tices of fed­er­al and state gov­ern­ments, cou­pled with the tremen­dous rise in hous­ing costs, have result­ed in whites, blacks, Hispanics, and oth­er minori­ties being increas­ing­ly iso­lat­ed from each oth­er.[47] The 1990 cen­sus shows that 30% of African Americans live in neigh­bor­hoods which are 90% or more black, while the remain­ing per­cent­age of African Americans still live in pre­dom­i­nant­ly black areas.[48] In fact, 62% of African Americans live in areas that are at least 60% black. As for the Hispanic pop­u­la­tion, 40% live in com­mu­ni­ties that are 60% or more Hispanic. While 86% of sub­ur­ban whites, on the oth­er hand, live in com­mu­ni­ties that are less than 1% black.[49]

Finally, even though the 1980s wit­nessed an eco­nom­ic gap between the black poor and the black mid­dle-class, the relo­ca­tion of mid­dle-class blacks from the urban ghet­to was not into inte­grat­ed com­mu­ni­ties, but rather into the seg­re­gat­ed areas with­in mid­dle-class neigh­bor­hoods.[50] A study of New York City sub­urbs iden­ti­fies the real­i­ty of American seg­re­ga­tion, con­clud­ing that blacks and Hispanics of the same socioe­co­nom­ic class as whites typ­i­cal­ly live in com­mu­ni­ties with less tax wealth, low­er own­er­ship rates, and high­er pover­ty crime rates.[51] Thus, increased hous­ing costs gen­er­at­ed by the prac­tices of exclu­sion­ary zon­ing dis­pro­por­tion­ate­ly affect African Americans and oth­er minori­ties, vir­tu­al­ly ensur­ing the con­tin­ued pat­terns of racial seg­re­ga­tion in American cities and sub­urbs.[52] Despite the legal ban against dis­crim­i­na­tion in hous­ing, an increas­ing black mid­dle-class with the means to inte­grate, and a series of court deci­sions pro­hibit­ing racial­ly moti­vat­ed ordi­nances,[53] our neigh­bor­hoods per­sist in remain­ing racial­ly sep­a­rate and unequal.

D. Private DiscriminationRacially seg­re­gat­ed hous­ing pat­terns in the United States exist to a large degree as a result of inten­tion­al dis­crim­i­na­tion against minori­ties.[54] Opponents argue that pat­terns of hous­ing seg­re­ga­tion exist because of per­son­al choice and eco­nom­ic dis­par­i­ty, yet income dif­fer­ences alone account for only 10% to 35% of the racial seg­re­ga­tion actu­al­ly observed.[55] Moreover, the myth that African Americans want to live amongst oth­er African Americans is unfound­ed. In a soci­o­log­i­cal study of the under­ly­ing atti­tudes of whites and blacks toward inte­grat­ed hous­ing, for exam­ple, blacks over­whelm­ing­ly chose to live in inte­grat­ed neigh­bor­hoods.[56] Among the blacks sur­veyed, only 17% indi­cat­ed that they would like to live in a com­plete ly black com­mu­ni­ty as their first or sec­ond choice.[57] Only a small num­ber of blacks indi­cat­ed that their unwill­ing­ness to move to an all-white neigh­bor­hood was based on a desire to live with oth­er blacks.[58]Approximately 82% of the black respon­dents chose a racial­ly mixed com­mu­ni­ty, described as being com­prised of 45% African Americans.[59]

Of African Americans will­ing to move into pre­dom­i­nant­ly white areas, how­ev­er, about 90% feared that they would be unwel­come by whites.[60] Additionally, 17% of the African American respon­dents were con­cerned about phys­i­cal retal­i­a­tion from white res­i­dents if they moved into a white com­mu­ni­ty.[61] The evi­dence of per­va­sive inten­tion­al hous­ing dis­crim­i­na­tion illus­trates that the fears of African Americans have not been unfounded.

One com­mon method of dis­crim­i­na­tion is “steer­ing,” a prac­tice where­by minor­i­ty home pur­chasers are sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly offered hous­es in dif­fer­ent neigh­bor­hoods than inter­est­ed white home­buy­ers.[62] A 1991 Housing Discrimination Study report­ed that when hous­es are shown or rec­om­mend­ed to black and Hispanic home­buy­ers, the prob­a­bil­i­ty of steer­ing by real­tors is 21%.[63] Typically, land­lords who do not want to rent to minor­i­ty ten­ants may tell prospec­tive minor­i­ty renters that the apart­ment has been tak­en off the mar­ket; demand an unrea­son­ably large deposit; or promise to put their name on a wait­ing list that nev­er ends.[64] Local banks also play a role by refus­ing to approve mort­gages for minori­ties. Un favor­able treat­ment regard­ing cred­it assis­tance mea­sured at 39% for black home­buy­ers and 37% for Hispanics.[65] Thus, pri­vate hous­ing dis­crim­i­na­tion takes var­i­ous forms: from real­tors dis­cour­ag­ing minor­i­ty home buy­ers from seek­ing out white com­mu­ni­ties, to land­lords unfair­ly levy­ing addi­tion­al costs upon minori­ties when rent­ing prop­er­ty, to the absolute denial of hous­ing for racial­ly moti­vat­ed rea­sons in all hous­ing mar­kets.[66]

Discrimination in the pri­vate hous­ing mar­ket is an unfor­tu­nate real­i­ty that con­tin­ues to bur­den soci­ety, and con­tra­dicts the American cul­tur­al ideals of fair­ness and jus­tice for all. An analy­sis of the data from the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (1990) shows that African Americans and Hispanics apply­ing for home mort­gage loans are more like­ly than whites to be denied cred­it.[67] A 1989 Housing Discrimination Study for HUD showed per­va­sive, con­tin­u­al hous­ing dis­crim­i­na­tion based on minor­i­ty sta­tus.[68] This study showed that African Americans and Hispanics who respond­ed to news­pa­per adver­tise­ments to either rent or pur­chase a home expe­ri­enced dis­crim­i­na­tion rough­ly 50% of the time.[69] Consequently, African American and Hispanic house­holds pay what is com­mon­ly referred to as a “dis­crim­i­na­tion tax” of about $3,000 every time they search for a house to buy.[70] The total cost of such prej­u­di­cial tac­tics to these minori­ties totals $4.1 bil­lion per year.[71] The Housing Discrimination Study con­cludes that such dis­crim­i­na­to­ry prac­tices seri­ous­ly lim­it hous­ing choic­es for minor­i­ty home­buy­ers, and con­tin­ue to be a major obsta­cle con­fronting blacks and Hispanics in search of hous­ing.[72]

Regional exam­ples of hous­ing dis­crim­i­na­tion empha­size the scope and sever­i­ty of the prob­lem. In Los Angeles alone, HUD received near­ly 800 com­plaints of hous­ing dis­crim­i­na­tion in 1987.[73] The Fair Housing Congress report­ed an addi­tion­al 700 cas­es of al leg­ed racial dis­crim­i­na­tion.[74] The prob­lem is a per­sis­tent one, as more recent exam­ples indi­cate. In a sub­urb south of Chicago, the own­ers and man­agers of Town and Country Villas Apartments were ordered to pay $308,200 in dam­ages for refus­ing to rent apart­ments to blacks.[75] In Toledo, Ohio a mar­ried cou­ple sought to final­ize a lease arrange­ment when the home­own­ers became flus­tered by the fact the cou­ple was inter­ra­cial. The home­own­ers would not relin­quish the prop­er­ty as agreed and a sub­se­quent Fair Housing com­plaint result­ed in the cou­ple receiv­ing $11,500 in com­pen­sato­ry dam­ages and $23,500 in puni­tive dam­ages.[76] In Georgia, a real estate bro­ker was ordered to pay almost $75,000 in dam­ages and fines for vio­lat­ing the Federal Fair Housing Act because the bro­ker backed out of a prop­er­ty sales con­tract after learn­ing the prospec­tive buy­ers were a black cou­ple.[77] Finally, in New York City, a white cou­ple was denied the oppor­tu­ni­ty to sub­let their apart­ment to an inter­est­ed black cou­ple. The own­ers were required to pay the white renters $35,000 for loss of income when the deposit was returned to the black cou­ple and the orig­i­nal renters were left with­out a sub­lessee.[78]

Non-inten­tion­al or soci­etal dis­crim­i­na­tion is an equal­ly seri­ous prob­lem con­tribut­ing to the racial imbal­ance in hous­ing pat­terns. Even though non-inten­tion­al dis­crim­i­na­tion is not based on evil motives, minori­ties are still harmed, both eco­nom­i­cal­ly and social­ly.[79] A prime exam­ple of soci­etal dis­crim­i­na­tion and its inju­ri­ous effect on minori­ties is the phe­nom­e­non of “white flight.”[80] White flight specif­i­cal­ly refers to the migra­tion of white res­i­dents out of a com­mu­ni­ty in response to blacks mov­ing into the com­mu­ni­ty.[81] Whites will tol­er­ate black entry up to a cer­tain lev­el, known as the “tip­ping point,” at which time whites begin to move out of the neigh­bor­hood, leav­ing an all-black com­mu­ni­ty behind.[82]

In a soci­o­log­i­cal study done in Detroit, Michigan, a large per­cent­age of whites sur­veyed indi­cat­ed they would feel uncom­fort­able liv­ing in com­mu­ni­ties pop­u­lat­ed by equal num­bers of blacks and whites.[83] More specif­i­cal­ly, 84% of white respon­dents stat­ed they would not move into a com­mu­ni­ty com­posed of 60% black res­i­dents, and 64% of whites indi­cat­ed they would def­i­nite­ly move to anoth­er neigh­bor­hood.[84] Perhaps more dis­turb­ing is that greater than 50% of whites said that they would not move into a com­mu­ni­ty con­sist­ing of only 20% black res­i­dents.[85] It is also dis­con­cert­ing that 40% of the whites sur­veyed indi­cat­ed that they would move out of an area that became inte­grat­ed, fear­ing a decline in prop­er­ty val­ue.[86]

Some argue, as many of the respon­dents sug­gest, that res­i­dents who leave inte­grat­ed neigh­bor­hoods do so only for eco­nom­ic con­sid­er­a­tions, such as a decline in prop­er­ty val­ues, as opposed to dis­like of minori­ties.[87] Such non-inten­tion­al dis­crim­i­na­tion still assumes that African Americans are some­how infe­ri­or, as num­bers of whites view inter­ra­cial neigh­bor­hoods as less desir­able com­mu­ni­ties to live in.[88] Property pur­chased by incom­ing blacks even­tu­al­ly decreas­es in val­ue as the whites move out and the tip­ping point is reached, leav­ing dete­ri­o­rat­ing com­mu­ni­ty ser­vices and infe­ri­or schools as the last­ing con­se­quences.[89] Consequently, white flight per­pet­u­ates exist­ing racial stereo­types as whites and blacks become more iso­lat­ed, ren­der­ing the task of erad­i­cat­ing hous­ing seg­re­ga­tion and soci­etal racism near­ly insurmountable.

III. RESIDENTIAL SEGREGATION AND ITS HARMFUL EFFECTS ON MINORITIESA. Freedom of Choice in Housing — Minorities Need Not ApplyThe right to choose where one wants to live is an his­tor­i­cal American con­cept that is entrenched in our his­to­ry of ear­ly west­ward expan­sion and mod­ern sub­ur­ban­iza­tion. Throughout the major part of the twen­ti­eth cen­tu­ry, hun­dreds of thou­sands of white fam­i­lies made the move from city life to sub­ur­ban sprawl­ings.[90] The mass exo­dus to the sub­urbs left minor­i­ty fam­i­lies behind. As dis­cussed ear­li­er, this homo­ge­neous sub­ur­ban pic­ture was not adven­ti­tious but was an out­growth of direct and inten­tion­al gov­ern­ment poli­cies and pri­vate dis­crim­i­na­tion.[91] Moreover, with the assis­tance of exclu­sion­ary zon­ing prac­tices, minori­ties have been pre­vent­ed from mov­ing into sub­ur­ban munic­i­pal­i­ties through the estab­lish­ment of eco­nom­ic and racial bar­ri­ers designed to keep sub­urbs homo­ge­neous and afflu­ent.[92] Therefore, the free­dom to choose where one wish­es to live is not a con­cept which has res­onat­ed for a sig­nif­i­cant por­tion of non-white Americans.

The lack of hous­ing choic­es for minori­ties, par­tic­u­lar­ly African Americans, has meant that the qual­i­ty of sub­ur­ban­iza­tion that they have achieved is dis­tinct­ly dif­fer­ent than that achieved by white Americans.[93] For African Americans, and to a less­er degree for His pan­ics and Asians, the free­dom to choose where they wish to live is sim­ply not a real­i­ty.[94] Typically, black sub­ur­ban­iza­tion is char­ac­ter­ized by expan­sion of the urban ghet­to pop­u­la­tion to areas just out­side city lim­its.[95] African Americans are the most res­i­den­tial­ly seg­re­gat­ed racial or eth­nic group in America.[96] Regardless of their socioe­co­nom­ic sta­tus, they are forced to per­se­vere with­out the same equal hous­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties as white Americans.

The inabil­i­ty of mid­dle-class African Americans to move into sub­ur­ban neigh­bor­hoods has result­ed in a dis­pro­por­tion­ate num­ber of mid­dle-income blacks now liv­ing in poor neigh­bor­hoods.[97]While 23% of black fam­i­lies earn a mid­dle-class income, only 4% of these blacks live in a pre­dom­i­nant­ly white or racial­ly mixed neigh­bor­hood.[98] Hence, these mid­dle income blacks endure liv­ing con­di­tions below those of whites at com­pa­ra­ble income lev­els.[99] Racial prej­u­dice con­tributes to the inabil­i­ty of African Americans to trans­late their eco­nom­ic earn­ings into mid­dle-class hous­ing,[100] par­tic­u­lar­ly con­sid­er­ing that, as dis­cussed in the pre­vi­ous sec­tion, sta­tis­tics show that African Americans pre­fer to live in neigh­bor­hoods that are racial­ly inte­grat­ed.[101] In fact, more than one-third of all blacks live under con­di­tions of pro­found racial seg­re­ga­tion.[102] As two promi­nent soci­ol­o­gists not­ed, African Americans are “unam­bigu­ous­ly among the nation’s most spa­tial­ly iso­lat­ed and geo­graph­i­cal­ly se clud­ed peo­ple, suf­fer­ing extreme seg­re­ga­tion across mul­ti­ple dimen­sions simul­ta­ne­ous­ly.”[103] Consequently, many African Americans live in dense­ly pop­u­lat­ed areas in com­mon urban cen­ters; in plain terms, many African Americans live in ghet­tos.[104]

B. The Economic and Social Costs of Racial Segregation on MinoritiesThe con­cen­tra­tion of pover­ty in urban ghet­tos is a direct con­se­quence of res­i­den­tial racial seg­re­ga­tion. Problems asso­ci­at­ed with urban pover­ty become exac­er­bat­ed by the iso­lat­ing effect of res­i­den­tial seg­re­ga­tion. Educational and employ­ment dis­ad­van­tages, hous­ing dilap­i­da­tion, loss of com­mer­cial facil­i­ties and busi­ness­es, crime and social dis­or­der, wel­fare depen­den­cy, and unwed par­ent­hood are only some of the social prob­lems found in the urban ghet­to.[105]

Ghetto pover­ty impos­es costs on all res­i­dents of an urban region. The social ills of gang life, drug abuse, teenage preg­nan­cy, and school dropout have left minor­i­ty fam­i­lies with a sense of pow­er­less­ness, as they are strand­ed with­out con­sid­er­able oppor­tu­ni­ty for change. In terms of hous­ing facil­i­ties, low-income blacks face poor or non-exis­tent secu­ri­ty mea­sures, roach and rat infes­ta­tion, high inci­dence of lead-paint poi­son­ing, crum­bling stair­wells and leak­ing ceil­ings, struc­tur­al defi­cien­cies, and no heat or hot water.[106]

The iso­la­tion of the urban ghet­to also inflicts severe hard­ship on poor minor­i­ty chil­dren. Removing young peo­ple from con­cen­trat­ed ghet­tos and its ill social effects has proven ben­e­fi­cial and under­scores the exis­tent inad­e­qua­cies in racial­ly seg­re­gat­ed areas. A research team from Northwestern University, for exam­ple, com­pared low-income black stu­dents from fam­i­lies assigned to live in scat­tered site hous­ing in white sub­urbs with stu­dents from fam­i­lies assigned to pub­lic hous­ing in Chicago’s ghet­to.[107] Although the two groups were ini­tial­ly sta­tis­ti­cal­ly iden­ti­cal, once removed from ghet­to high schools, black stu­dents achieved high­er grades and bet­ter aca­d­e­m­ic prepa­ra­tion, sus­tained low­er dropout rates, and main­tained high­er rates of col­lege atten­dance com­pared with those who remained in ghet­to insti­tu­tions.[108]

Similarly, in a nation­wide study, north­ern blacks who attend­ed racial­ly mixed schools were more like­ly to attend col­lege than those who went to all-black high schools.[109] Another inves­tiga­tive study revealed that black and white stu­dents who went to high schools in afflu­ent neigh­bor­hoods were con­sid­er­ably less like­ly to drop out than those who attend­ed schools in poor neigh­bor­hoods, and that girls in afflu­ent schools were much less like­ly to become teen moth­ers.[110] Notably, the most impor­tant fac­tor bear­ing on stu­dent suc­cess rates was school afflu­ence and not the race of the stu­dent body. On the California Achievement Test, 17% of Philadelphia stu­dents enrolled in racial­ly mixed schools scored above the eighty-fifth per­centile, while only 4% of the stu­dents enrolled in all-black schools achieved such a score.[111] Comparably, while only 19% of the stu­dents enrolled in racial­ly mixed schools scored below the fif­teenth per­centile on that exam, 39% of the stu­dents in all-black schools had such low scores.[112] Finally, the dis­par­i­ties in school qual­i­ty between racial­ly mixed schools and all-black schools were shown to increase at high­er lev­els of edu­ca­tion.[113] Thus, it is argued that with­out the spa­tial iso­la­tion of minori­ties, many of the social ills, char­ac­ter­is­tic of urban pover­ty in America today, would not exist.[114]

Minorities who live in racial­ly seg­re­gat­ed neigh­bor­hoods typ­i­cal­ly are exposed to greater health risks. In a study com­par­ing the health care, mor­tal­i­ty rates, and gen­er­al well-being of peo­ple liv­ing in com­mu­ni­ties of var­i­ous racial com­po­si­tions, African Americans liv­ing in estab­lished black com­mu­ni­ties were found to face a far high­er mor­tal­i­ty rate than those in inte­grat­ed or white areas.[115] Disadvantages in health care were found to increase for African Americans liv­ing in pre­dom­i­nant­ly black neigh­bor­hoods, par­tial­ly attrib­ut­able to unequal access to med­ical care.[116]Moreover, African Americans, with a short­er life expectan­cy, are sta­tis­ti­cal­ly under­rep­re­sent­ed in clin­i­cal tri­als for new drugs in treat­ing dis­eases that dis­pro­por­tion­ate­ly afflict them.[117]

Community safe­ty is also a sig­nif­i­cant prob­lem in racial­ly seg­re­gat­ed neigh­bor­hoods. In 1988, the Los Angeles Police Department con­duct­ed a study research­ing 911 response times. The study revealed that police pro­ce­dures appeared biased against minori­ties as response times to emer­gency calls were sub­stan­tial­ly slow­er in pre­dom­i­nant­ly minor­i­ty neigh­bor­hoods.[118] Although the police depart­ment argued that bias was unin­tend­ed, crit­ics accused the police depart­ment of prac­tic­ing “sys­tem­at­ic and uncon­scionable racial dis crim­i­na­tion in the assign­ment of … police offi­cers.”[119] This study, exam­in­ing the prac­tices of a law enforce­ment agency in one of the largest met­ro­pol­i­tan areas in the United States, sug­gests that dis­crim­i­na­to­ry prac­tices exist through­out the coun­try and serve as evi­dence of one of the dele­te­ri­ous con­se­quences of res­i­den­tial segregation.

C. Racial Segregation — Maintaining Racial DivisionsAs res­i­den­tial racial seg­re­ga­tion fur­ther per­me­ates our soci­ety, the prospects of improv­ing race rela­tions in America con­tin­ue to dwin­dle, thus pre­serv­ing the exis­tence of neg­a­tive racial stereo­types. It is also log­i­cal to con­clude that phys­i­cal dis­tance between dif­fer­ent racial com­mu­ni­ties per­pet­u­ates social dis­tance.[120] The seg­re­gat­ed ghet­to sus­tains and nour­ish­es the racial iden­ti­fi­ca­tions, fears, and atti­tudes of blacks and whites.[121] As the media per­pet­u­ates stereo­types, whites learn to avoid black neigh­bor­hoods and mid­dle-class blacks learn that they are “safer from white sus­pi­cion and hos­til­i­ty if they stay in black neigh­bor­hoods.”[122] Residential seg­re­ga­tion, in turn, becomes both the point of ori­gin of dis­crim­i­na­tion and the per­pet­u­at­ing cause of racial dis­trust and ignorance.

Integration has proven an effec­tive tool to com­bat his­tor­i­cal racial prej­u­dice. One study found that res­i­dents in a white sub­ur­ban com­mu­ni­ty became more tol­er­ant of black neigh­bors over time, even with­out any sig­nif­i­cant inter­ac­tion with their minor­i­ty neigh­bors.[123] Whites found that their fears about black entry into their com­mu­ni­ty were not real­ized.[124] However, it remains undis­put­ed that the major­i­ty of America still remains phys­i­cal­ly divid­ed along racial lines. Thus, Spike Lee’s clas­sic 1989 film Do The Right Thing, which depict­ed a scene where a num­ber of racial and eth­nic groups flailed deroga­to­ry epi­thets, con­tin­ues to sym­bol­ize the real­i­ty of many res­i­den­tial neigh­bor­hoods in America, belea­guered by false stereo­types and plagued by eth­nic and racial mis­trust.[125] Social con­se­quences of racial iso­la­tion inter­twine with grim eco­nom­ic real­i­ties for minori­ties. Due to the lack of inter­ac­tion between racial groups, African Americans are unpre­pared to work and social­ize in a white major­i­ty soci­ety, while con­verse­ly, whites are not relat­ing to, work­ing with, or liv­ing with blacks.[126] Prospects for African-American chil­dren raised in such com­mu­ni­ties are great­ly dimin­ished because of the lack of inter­ac­tion between blacks and whites. Moreover, minor­i­ty pos­si­bil­i­ties for advance­ment con­se­quent­ly decline from the low­er qual­i­ty of edu­ca­tion afford­ed to them in ghet­to schools, pre­clud­ing them from com­pet­ing for high-income employ­ment.[127] Although these inequal­i­ties are not always direct­ly caused by inten­tion­al dis­crim­i­na­tion, res­i­den­tial racial seg­re­ga­tion per­pet­u­ates these inequal­i­ties.[128] Thus, minori­ties who live in racial­ly homo­ge­neous com­mu­ni­ties are faced with dis­ad­van­tages beyond the present eco­nom­ic and social inequal­i­ties asso­ci­at­ed with minor­i­ty neighborhoods.

IV. POLICY REASONS TO SUPPORT HOUSING INTEGRATIONUndoubtedly, delib­er­ate state and local gov­ern­ment poli­cies helped cre­ate res­i­den­tial racial seg­re­ga­tion. Therefore, munic­i­pal pol­i­cy-mak­ers, politi­cians, and judges should work towards dis­man­tling the still exist­ing bar­ri­ers of hous­ing seg­re­ga­tion through a pol­i­cy of inte­gra­tion. This “inte­gra­tionist” ide­ol­o­gy is not new; it was advo­cat­ed by lead­ers such as W.E.B. Dubois, Paul Robeson, and Martin Luther King Jr., who all sought to inte­grate African Americans into the white socioe­co­nom­ic and polit­i­cal social order to cor­rect the harm­ful effects of dis­crim­i­na­tion.[129]Since the pas­sage of the Fair Housing Act in 1968, hous­ing pro­grams have been devel­oped seek ing to inte­grate afford­able hous­ing projects into sub­ur­ban neigh­bor­hoods. Yet many of these poli­cies to cre­ate inte­grat­ed and low­er-income hous­ing have met resis­tance with the “Not In My Back Yard” (NIMBY) syn­drome.[130]

Today, the strug­gle for fair hous­ing con­tin­ues. However, effec­tive inte­gra­tionist poli­cies being imple­ment­ed nation­wide have begun to help African Americans and oth­er minori­ties obtain more afford­able and qual­i­ty hous­ing char­ac­ter­is­tic of hous­ing tra­di­tion­al­ly found in white com­mu­ni­ties. The prob­lems caused by the per­pet­u­a­tion of res­i­den­tial racial seg­re­ga­tion, and the ben­e­fits achieved by inte­gra­tion rein­force the sig­nif­i­cance of imple­ment­ing and enforc­ing a prac­ti­cal and suc­cess­ful inte­gra­tionist policy.

A. The Benefits of Integration on MinoritiesThe clas­si­cal advan­tages of inte­gra­tion were illu­mi­nat­ed by soci­ol­o­gist Kenneth Clark who stat­ed: “Housing is no abstract social and polit­i­cal prob­lem, but an exten­sion of man’s per­son­al­i­ty. If the Negro has to iden­ti­fy with a rat-infest­ed ten­e­ment, his sense of per­son­al inad­e­qua­cy and infe­ri­or­i­ty, already aggra­vat­ed by job dis­crim­i­na­tion and oth­er forms of humil­i­a­tions, is rein­forced by the phys­i­cal real­i­ty around him.”[131] It appears that Kenneth Clark’s assess­ment was not an aber­ra­tion, since soci­o­log­i­cal stud­ies have indi­cat­ed that when inte­grat­ed into mid­dle-class sub­ur­ban com muni­ties, poor minor­i­ty fam­i­lies expe­ri­ence a dra­mat­ic improve­ment in their qual­i­ty of life.[132] Accessible afford­able hous­ing in mixed-income com­mu­ni­ties gives low­er eco­nom­ic class­es bet­ter edu­ca­tion­al oppor­tu­ni­ties, dis­cour­ages eco­nom­ic seg­re­ga­tion, and avoids the con­cen­tra­tion of afford­able hous­ing in already dilap­i­dat­ed sec­tions of cities and coun­ties.[133]

In the well-pub­li­cized Gautreaux hous­ing mobil­i­ty exper­i­ment, a few thou­sand low-income, female-head­ed, African-American pub­lic assis­tance fam­i­lies in Chicago moved out of seg­re­gat­ed, finan­cial­ly con­strained neigh­bor­hoods.[134] These fam­i­lies used Section Eight vouch­ers to move into eco­nom­i­cal­ly pros­per­ous set­tings in mid­dle-class white areas, while oth­ers remained in cities.[135] The evi­dence con­clud­ed that the lives of the moth­ers and their chil­dren who moved to the wealth­i­er sub­ur­ban com­mu­ni­ties improved, espe­cial­ly with respect to employ­ment and edu­ca­tion.[136] Among the study’s fam­i­lies, many of the par­tic­i­pat­ing adults had jobs for the first time ever.[137] In con­trast to the study con­trol group who remained in the city, the chil­dren who moved into the sub­urbs were more like­ly to remain in school, take col­lege-track class­es, to attend four-year col­leges, and to work in jobs with high­er pay and ben­e­fits.[138] Although more than half of the study par­tic­i­pants expe­ri­enced some dis­crim­i­na­tion when they first entered the sub­ur­ban neigh­bor­hoods, most adapt­ed well to their new com­mu­ni­ties and expe­ri­enced a desire to nev­er return to the projects.[139] Quite sim­ply, the ben­e­fits afford­ed to low-income minori­ties were both con­sid­er­able and tan­gi­ble, sug­gest­ing that employ­ment and edu­ca­tion­al oppor­tu­ni­ties are deter­mined by a com­mu­ni­ty’s finan­cial health rather than by its racial composition.

A recent study of anoth­er inclu­sion­ary pro­gram in Hartford, Connecticut indi­cates that the evi­dence from the Gautreaux study is con­vinc­ing, as their research found that the “dif­fer­ences are not only sta­tis­ti­cal­ly sig­nif­i­cant but of such mag­ni­tude as to show impor­tant prac­ti­cal effects on youths’ lives.”[140] Other stud­ies have found sim­i­lar advan­tages for African Americans fam­i­lies who moved from impov­er­ished areas into racial­ly inte­grat­ed sub­ur­ban com­mu­ni­ties.[141]

Inclusionary hous­ing increas­es chances for minori­ties to gain and sus­tain employ­ment, in that employ­ment is near­er to hous­ing, decreas­ing trav­el time and trans­porta­tion prob­lems.[142] Without such inclu­sion­ary poli­cies, many sub­ur­ban com­mu­ni­ties would con­tin­ue to offer lit­tle oppor­tu­ni­ty for their low-income employ­ees to find afford­able housing.

Inclusionary tech­niques not only pro­vide hous­ing for employ­ees close to where jobs are locat­ed, but also save employ­ees valu­able time and ener­gy, there­by reduc­ing absen­teeism and trav­el costs.[143] Other ben­e­fits that have been cit­ed include improved air qual­i­ty, less traf­fic con­ges­tion, an increased labor mar­ket, and short­er com­mutes.[144] The sig­nif­i­cant advan­tages of inte­gra­tion for minori­ties from eco­nom­i­cal­ly deprived areas are mean­ing­ful, and attest to the impor­tance of demand­ing fair and prag­mat­ic inclu­sion­ary policies.

B. The Hidden Costs of SegregationThe toll soci­ety has paid for years of res­i­den­tial racial seg­re­ga­tion is less clear, but no less rel­e­vant to why inclu­sion­ary hous­ing is nec­es­sary. The aban­don­ment of the inner city by com­merce and indus­try has dev­as­tat­ed more than the seg­re­gat­ed areas they left behind. Safety and edu­ca­tion­al con­cerns caused white work­ers to move from the city years ago. Consequently, work­ers then had to com­mute dai­ly, pay­ing the high price of increased trans­porta­tion costs (car­fare, tolls and mul­ti­ple car own­er­ship), hous­ing in sub­ur­bia, and restrict­ed access to the cul­tur­al and recre­ation­al oppor­tu­ni­ties in the city.[145] The con­cen­tra­tion of pover­ty in the inner city does not iso­late its resul­tant crime, dis­ease, and gang activ­i­ty there, but increas­es its pres­ence in all com­mu­ni­ties.[146] These prob­lems have become soci­etal, par­tic­u­lar­ly in the past decade, no longer trapped with­in the con­fines of the inner cities.

Inclusionary hous­ing pro­grams are nec­es­sary to rem­e­dy the socioe­co­nom­ic ills that have befall­en soci­ety due to decades of res­i­den­tial racial seg­re­ga­tion. Recently, a study showed unem­ploy­ment prob­lems exist­ed main­ly in cities where a great dis­par­i­ty exist­ed between wages paid to city work­ers as opposed to sub­ur­ban employ­ees.[147] The per capi­ta income ratio between the city and its sur round­ing sub­urbs is the most impor­tant indi­ca­tor of an urban area’s social well being. Research indi­cates that tol­er­at­ing racial dis­crim­i­na­tion has cost Americans a high­er price for their prej­u­dices than ever imag­ined.[148]

C. Advantages of Integration for AmericaThe prin­ci­ple of equal oppor­tu­ni­ty is a sym­bol enshrined in American his­to­ry and in the pol­i­tics of a nation that espous­es its demo­c­ra­t­ic prin­ci­ples through­out the world. As a nation, accept­ing our racial diver­si­ty and embrac­ing cul­tur­al dif­fer­ences is mere­ly an exten­sion of the past oppor­tu­ni­ties that America ulti­mate­ly pro­vid­ed for white minori­ties and European immi­grants. Embracing inclu­sion­ary hous­ing prac­tices expounds the ideals of what America should rep­re­sent to all cit­i­zens — fair­ness, oppor­tu­ni­ty, and justice.

In Gladstone, Realtors v. Village of Bellwood,[149] the Supreme Court artic­u­lat­ed the ben­e­fits of a racial­ly diverse com­mu­ni­ty.[150] Justice Powell rea­soned “[t]here can be no ques­tion about the impor­tance to a com­mu­ni­ty of pro­mot­ing sta­ble, racial­ly inte­grat­ed hous­ing.”[151] The Court’s his­tor­i­cal view under­scored the crit­i­cal mes­sage for the new American cen­tu­ry, the impor­tance of racial diver­si­ty to cre­ate bet­ter com­mu­ni­ties and more tol­er­ant and edu­cat­ed cit­i­zens. Therefore, the ben­e­fits of elim­i­nat­ing res­i­den­tial racial seg­re­ga­tion through inclu­sion­ary mea­sures move beyond only those house­holds liv­ing in eco­nom­i­cal­ly deprived communities.

Increasing racial diver­si­ty is clear­ly not the sole answer to elim­i­nat­ing hous­ing or soci­etal dis­crim­i­na­tion against racial minori­ties. However, when a com­mu­ni­ty is racial­ly diverse, the peo­ple who live there have an oppor­tu­ni­ty to learn tol­er­ance, which in turn may lessen the extent to which minori­ties are sub­ject to all forms of prej­u­dice. Residential seg­re­ga­tion and the result­ing his­tor­i­cal and cul­tur­al igno­rance fos­ter racial stereo­types and myths that minori­ties are less intel­li­gent, lazy, and infe­ri­or.[152] Moreover, such social sep­a­ra­tion rein­forces per­cep­tions among whites asso­ci­at­ing minori­ties with crime, drugs, gangs, and pover­ty.[153] The only way to com­bat these mis­con­cep­tions, fears, and stereo­types is through increased asso­ci­a­tion between blacks, whites, and oth­er minori­ties, lead­ing to a bet­ter under­stand­ing between racial groups and greater racial equality.

In Regents of the University of California v. Bakke,[154] where the court faced the issue of race-con­scious admis­sions poli­cies, Justice Powell remarked that a qual­i­fied, diverse stu­dent pop­u­la­tion may enliv­en the uni­ver­si­ty com­mu­ni­ty by bring­ing to it “expe­ri­ences, out­looks, and ideas that enrich the train­ing of its stu­dent body.”[155] Racial inte­gra­tion is not only a valu­able com­po­nent of a qual­i­ty edu­ca­tion; it is also a price­less com­po­nent of com­mu­ni­ty hous­ing for the same rea­sons Justice Powell described. Just as diver­si­ty in acad­e­mia pro­motes coöper­a­tion, com­mu­ni­ca­tion and under­stand­ing among dif­fer­ent cul­tures, inte­grat­ed res­i­den­tial com­mu­ni­ties like­wise ben­e­fit from greater under­stand­ing among its res­i­dents.[156] The impor­tance of racial inte­gra­tion through inclu­sion­ary hous­ing prac­tices will help fos­ter tol­er­ance and under­stand­ing in our diverse and grow­ing mul­ti­cul­tur­al pop­u­la­tion. Thus, racial inte­gra­tion will ben­e­fit all peo­ple, and if applied demo­c­ra­t­i­cal­ly, will inevitably be embraced by all peo­ple. It is believed that once the fear of the unknown is con­quered and cit­i­zens in recent­ly inte­grat­ed com­mu­ni­ties adjust to the changes in their lives brought on by par­tic­i­pat­ing in inclu­sion­ary hous­ing pro­grams, they will begin to see soci­ety emerge as they have always wished soci­ety to be.[157]

V. INCLUSIONARY REMEDIES TO ELIMINATE HOUSING SEGREGATIONThe scope and seri­ous­ness of the prob­lem of res­i­den­tial racial seg­re­ga­tion requires prac­ti­cal and effec­tive inclu­sion­ary tech­niques. Federal pol­i­cy laws and the courts sup­port inte­grat­ed hous­ing, yet the dilem­ma of suc­cess­ful­ly imple­ment­ing inclu­sion­ary hous­ing pro­grams on local lev­els nation­wide remains.[158] Several state and local gov­ern­ments have rec­og­nized that by ensur­ing that all racial and eco­nom­ic groups have ade­quate hous­ing, the entire com­mu­ni­ty will ben­e­fit. These gov­ern­ments have adopt­ed inclu­sion­ary zon­ing tech­niques, which, togeth­er with the appli­ca­tion of land use reg­u­la­tions, secure the devel­op­ment of low and mod­er­ate-income res­i­dences. This sec­tion ana­lyzes var­i­ous inclu­sion­ary meth­ods that have been uti­lized by state and local gov­ern­ments, with an empha­sis on those most effec­tive in pro­mot­ing long-term res­i­den­tial racial inte­gra­tion.[159]

A. Inclusionary Zoning Techniques1. Montgomery County Initiative — Mandatory Set-Asides

A viable way of achiev­ing racial and eco­nom­ic inte­gra­tion has been pio­neered in Montgomery County, Maryland, one of the nation’s most afflu­ent coun­ties. The County Council enact­ed the Moderately Priced Dwelling Unit (“MPDU”) Ordinance to com­bat the severe hous­ing prob­lem that exist­ed with­in the coun­ty for low and mod­er­ate-income res­i­dents.[160] The basis of the ordi­nance requires that all new hous­ing devel­op­ments of fifty or more units con­sist of 12.5% to 15% MDPUs.[161] The ordi­nance spec­i­fies max­i­mum income lev­els for the occu­pants of MPDUs, which are sub­ject to peri­od­ic adjust­ment. Further, the inclu­sion­ary reg­u­la­tion guar­an­tees afford­abil­i­ty since rent and price con­trols remain in place for ten years.[162] Consistent with the demo­graph­ics of the coun­ty, the major­i­ty of the peo­ple who move into these units are low-income African American fam­i­lies.[163]

The Montgomery County ordi­nance offers devel­op­ers den­si­ty bonus awards to have a rea­son­able prospect of real­iz­ing a prof­it on these units. The ordi­nance also per­mits the devel­op­ers to build an addi­tion­al mar­ket rate unit for every two MPDUs, up to a 20% total increase in den­si­ty.[164] These bonus­es main­tain the eco­nom­ic via­bil­i­ty of the land affect­ed by the ordi­nance, pro­tect­ing these manda­to­ry set-asides from poten­tial tak­ings chal­lenges by dis­grun­tled devel­op­ers.[165] More impor­tant­ly, the con­ces­sions in relaxed zon­ing require­ments encour­age the pro­duc­tion of hous­ing devel­op­ments, which in turn, ben­e­fit low-income res­i­dents who are appor­tioned a per­cent­age of the con­struct­ed units. As of 1992, the Montgomery County MPDU ordi­nance has pro­duced 8,442 MPDUs. As a result, manda­to­ry set-asides have proven to be an effi­cient method of increas­ing the avail­abil­i­ty of afford­able hous­ing, an impor­tant step towards inte­gra­tion.[166]

2. Affordable Housing Appeals Laws

Zoning appeals leg­is­la­tion pro­vides the courts or state agen­cies with the oppor­tu­ni­ty to over­ride the exclu­sion­ary effect of local zon­ing ordi­nances. If afford­able hous­ing is reject­ed or lim­it­ed with vary­ing restric­tions that have a sub­stan­tial adverse impact on its via­bil­i­ty, the tra­di­tion­al def­er­ence giv­en to the local board­’s deci­sion is elim­i­nat­ed.[167] Consequently, the munic­i­pal­i­ty has the bur­den to jus­ti­fy its deci­sion in favor of pub­lic inter­ests in health, safe­ty, and oth­er legal mat­ters. This jus­ti­fi­ca­tion must sub­stan­tial­ly out­weigh the afford­able hous­ing needs of the community.

The Connecticut Affordable Appeals Act cre­at­ed an appeals process to be used when local plan­ning author­i­ties reject afford­able hous­ing projects.[168] In its first appeal, the Connecticut Supreme Court affirmed the tri­al court’s deci­sion, which reversed a denial of an afford­able hous­ing devel­op­ment appli­ca­tion, and con­clud­ed that the law applies to leg­isla­tive zon­ing changes.[169] This judg­ment paved the way for lat­er deci­sions that have held that a court can approve an afford­able hous­ing appli­ca­tion even though it does not com­ply with local zon­ing,[170] and that traf­fic and envi­ron­men­tal prob­lems do not jus­ti­fy denial of an afford­able hous­ing appli­ca­tion.[171]

Massachusetts has sim­i­lar zon­ing appeals leg­is­la­tion, but it is lim­it­ed to fed­er­al or state sub­si­dized low or mod­er­ate-income hous­ing projects. The leg­is­la­tion allows a hous­ing agency or orga­ni­za­tion propos­ing to con­struct afford­able hous­ing to forego the sep­a­rate and ardu­ous appli­ca­tion process and apply for a com­pre­hen­sive zon­ing per­mit.[172] If a local zon­ing board denies a com­pre­hen­sive per­mit or sub­stan­tial­ly restricts a hous­ing project, a state hous­ing appeals com­mit­tee reviews the denial to deter­mine whether it was rea­son­able and “con­sis­tent with local needs.”[173] A bal­anc­ing test weighs the region­al need for low and mod­er­ate-income hous­ing with the muni cipal­i­ties’ need for health, safe­ty, design, and open space reg­u­la­tions. If the com­mit­tee revers­es a denial, it directs the local board to issue a per­mit to the appli­cant.[174]

Although the Massachusetts leg­is­la­tion has been crit­i­cized because it only applies to gov­ern­ment sub­si­dized hous­ing devel­oped by spec­i­fied agen­cies and orga­ni­za­tions,[175] over 20,000 afford­able hous­ing units have been devel­oped under its aus­pices.[176] Therefore, it is clear from these exam­ples that zon­ing appeals leg­is­la­tion on the local lev­el is a crit­i­cal ele­ment towards inte­gra­tion as it seeks to elim­i­nate dis­crim­i­na­to­ry munic­i­pal zon­ing deci­sions and reme­dies the exclu­sion­ary effects of local land use ordinances.

3. State Inclusionary Legislation

Several states have adopt­ed exten­sive leg­is­la­tion to imple­ment inclu­sion­ary hous­ing objec­tives. The typ­i­cal com­pre­hen­sive plan­ning statute requires that local com­mu­ni­ties devel­op poli­cies, stan­dards, or goals that will assist in the devel­op­ment of low and mod­er­ate-income hous­ing.[177] The intent of this type of leg­is­la­tion is to ensure afford­able hous­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties in local­i­ties across the state. The statutes require state agen­cies to review local plans in order to com­ply with statu­to­ry goals, but the effec­tive­ness of these statutes is depen­dent upon the agen­cy’s enforce­ment pow­ers.[178] These statutes on their face, cou­pled with prag­mat­ic local com­pre­hen­sive plans, are effec­tive tools in the devel­op­ment of afford­able housing.

In Oregon, the state hous­ing goals require local plans to encour­age the avail­abil­i­ty of ade­quate hous­ing at afford­able prices and rents. State leg­is­la­tion employs strin­gent enforce­ment mech­a­nisms, which ensures that the Land Conservation and Development Commission (LCDC) reviews all local plan­ning deci­sions to deter­mine if they are con­sis­tent with the state’s hous­ing goals.[179] The LCDC is fur­ther autho­rized to require local gov­ern­ment approval of land use or devel­op­ment appli­ca­tions.[180] The LCDC may force a local board to com­ply with the hous­ing goals of the state, although the deci­sion of the LCDC is sub­ject to judi­cial review.[181] The review of the local board­’s plans must be clear and objec­tive and most impor­tant­ly, it must pre­vent dis­cour­age­ment of nec­es­sary hous­ing through unrea­son­able delay or cost.

In the state of Washington, leg­is­la­tion requires that a local munic­i­pal­i­ty noti­fy the State Department of Community Develop ment when it intends to adopt a com­pre­hen­sive hous­ing plan.[182]Several growth plan­ning boards may hear chal­lenges to the local plan and deter­mine if it is in com­pli­ance with the statu­to­ry require­ments; how­ev­er, the local­i­ty may still adopt its pro­posed plan.[183] The leg­is­la­tion pre­sumes the com­pre­hen­sive plans to be valid and will be accept­ed unless the plan­ning board deter­mines that the action tak­en by the state agency, coun­ty, or city is clear­ly erro­neous.[184] Additionally, the state may with­hold cer­tain local tax rev­enues from the munic­i­pal­i­ty or local­i­ty if the board finds that the local hous­ing strat­e­gy does not com­ply with the statute.[185]

In California, leg­is­la­tion has been enact­ed with the spe­cif­ic goal of devel­op­ing afford­able hous­ing.[186] The goal of the leg­is­la­tion is to reduce the con­cen­tra­tion of low­er-income house­holds in areas where the num­ber of low­er income house­holds are dis­pro­por­tion­ate­ly high.[187] Each local­i­ty sub­mits its hous­ing pro­pos­als to the State Department of Housing and Community Development, which deter­mines if the assess­ment of hous­ing needs com­plies with statu­to­ry require­ments.[188] Further, any inter­est­ed par­ty may bring a judi­cial action to review the con­for­mi­ty of the hous­ing ele­ment with the state’s statute.[189] However, the depart­ment is not empow­ered to require a town to incor­po­rate changes, much less con­struct new units.[190]

The depart­men­t’s lack of author­i­ty to com­pel munic­i­pal com­pli­ance with afford­able hous­ing oblig­a­tions has weak­ened the effec­tive­ness of the California leg­is­la­tion. For exam­ple, in the town of San Marino, a wealthy sub­ur­ban com­mu­ni­ty in California, eigh­teen afford­able hous­ing units were to be pro­vid­ed by 1994 pur­suant to the state’s fair hous­ing law.[191] San Marino was to design a plan spec­i­fy­ing how they planned to pro­vide the hous­ing, but did not go so far as to require the town to build the hous­ing.[192] Despite the leg­is­la­tion, San Marino offi­cials indi­cat­ed that they did not plan to per­mit the con­struc­tion of the low-income units.[193] This exam­ple demon­strates that with­out effec­tive meth­ods of enforce­ment, low-income fam­i­lies will con­tin­ue to be closed out of afford­able sub­ur­ban hous­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties, per­pet­u­at­ing the exis­tence of hous­ing seg­re­ga­tion in American cities and suburbs.

Each of the states’ statu­to­ry schemes con­tains spe­cif­ic pro­vi­sions to pro­mote inte­grat­ed and afford­able hous­ing in areas with sparse low and mid­dle-income res­i­dences. These leg­isla­tive ini­tia­tives help pro­vide most­ly minor­i­ty fam­i­lies with an oppor­tu­ni­ty for bet­ter hous­ing and con­se­quent­ly, improved eco­nom­ic oppor­tu­ni­ties. The most crit­i­cal statu­to­ry ele­ments nec­es­sary to encour­age the fruition of afford­able hous­ing in inte­grat­ed neigh­bor­hoods are: the pre­sump tion of valid­i­ty of munic­i­pal low- and mod­er­ate-income hous­ing plans, the estab­lish­ment of non-munic­i­pal over­sight of the allo­ca­tion of afford­able hous­ing, and strict enforce­ment mech­a­nisms to ensure com­pli­ance with the hous­ing goals of the state. Consequently, state reg­u­la­tions that are enforce­able and effi­cient pro­vide a cru­cial step towards break­ing the bar­ri­ers of exclu­sion­ary hous­ing poli­cies and open­ing the doors of afford­able hous­ing in the suburbs.

4. The Effects and Importance of Inclusionary Zoning Ordinances

The var­i­ous inclu­sion­ary meth­ods dis­cussed above rep­re­sent some of the options for state and local gov­ern­ments. The effec­tive use of manda­to­ry set-asides, afford­able hous­ing appeals laws, and inclu­sion­ary leg­is­la­tion are proven mech­a­nisms to com­bat the per­pet­u­a­tion of res­i­den­tial seg­re­ga­tion and to ensure the con­struc­tion of afford­able hous­ing in racial­ly and eco­nom­i­cal­ly diverse com­mu­ni ties. Therefore, each state must fol­low their own con­sti­tu­tion­al frame­work in imple­ment­ing these poli­cies. Some inclu­sion­ary tech­niques may not work with an indi­vid­ual state’s leg­isla­tive agen­da.[194] However, it is the role of state and local gov­ern­ments to cre­ate both incen­tives for res­i­den­tial inte­gra­tion through these or sim­i­lar inclu sion­ary poli­cies, and dis­in­cen­tives for non-com­pli­ance.[195] Exclusionary zon­ing prac­tices have played a sig­nif­i­cant role in caus­ing dele­te­ri­ous effects upon minori­ties. Thus, the involve­ment and par­tic­i­pa­tion of each branch of gov­ern­ment is essen­tial to work towards imple­ment­ing inclu­sion­ary meth­ods to cre­ate afford­able hous­ing opportunities.

Judicial inter­ven­tion in elim­i­nat­ing exclu­sion­ary hous­ing prac­tices and enforc­ing inclu­sion­ary ordi­nances is one of enor­mous impor­tance, par­tic­u­lar­ly giv­en the reluc­tance of many state and local author­i­ties to enact and imple­ment afford­able hous­ing mea­sures. The effect of the “not in my back yard” syn­drome, as expressed by local munic­i­pal boards and com­mu­ni­ty res­i­dents, pos­es the great­est threat to afford­able hous­ing.[196] While courts are regard­ed as a last resort for artic­u­lat­ing pub­lic pol­i­cy, judges must pro­mote the goals of a demo­c­ra­t­ic soci­ety amongst the per­sis­tent dis­crim­i­na­to­ry bound­aries put up by state and local author­i­ties.[197] Beyond this com­men­t’s pro­scribed inclu­sion­ary tac­tics and detailed reme­dies, lies the con­cept of “fun­da­men­tal fair­ness,” where­in the courts must restore the goal of equal­i­ty in deal­ing with the rights of minori­ties to access the American dream of a sub­ur­ban home.[198]

B. Mobility ProgramsOne of the most impor­tant com­po­nents of a suc­cess­ful inte­gra­tion strat­e­gy is the use of mobil­i­ty pro­grams. Mobility relief refers to pro­grams to pro­vide hous­ing avail­able for minor­i­ty indi­vid­u­als and fam­i­lies who have faced dis­crim­i­na­tion in their search for afford­able hous­ing.[199] Mobility pro­grams have two forms:

(1)interdevelopment orin­ter­pro­ject trans­fers, which­providea ten­ant with the oppor­tu­ni­ty to move into a new or vacant unit in a devel­op­ment, in which the ten­an­t’s race does not pre­dom­i­nate; and(2) pro­vi­sion of Section Eight cer­tifi­cates or vouch­ers, which pro­vide a ten­ant with an oppor­tu­ni­ty to secure fed­er­al­ly assist­ed hous­ing in non­ra­cial­ly impact­ed areas.[200]

Mobility relief serves as a rem­e­dy to his­tor­i­cal and mod­ern hous­ing seg­re­ga­tion, and through the pro­gram’s efforts, seeks to move minor­i­ty vic­tims of dis­crim­i­na­tion clos­er to bet­ter schools, bet­ter jobs, increased eco­nom­ic oppor­tu­ni­ties, and safer neighborhoods.The fol­low­ing sec­tions dis­cuss the most effec­tive mobil­i­ty pro­grams through­out America by exam­in­ing their plans for inte­gra­tion and their suc­cess rate in cre­at­ing afford­able housing.

1. Chicago, Illinois

As a result of the Court’s deci­sion in Hills v. Gautreaux,[201] which ini­ti­at­ed Chicago’s mobil­i­ty pro­gram, approx­i­mate­ly 5,000 fam­i­lies had relo­cat­ed as of 1993, slight­ly more than half to the sub­urbs.[202] HUD sta­tis­tics show that 84% of those who moved to non-con­cen­trat­ed areas felt that their qual­i­ty of life had improved.[203] In terms of lim­i­ta­tions, the mobil­i­ty plan is restrict­ed to plain­tiff class mem­bers and con­tains cer­tain con­straints on hous­ing choic­es. The hous­ing sub­si­dies pro­vid­ed were lim­it­ed to areas of Chicago and the sur­round­ing sub­urbs with an African American pop­u­la­tion of 30 per­cent or less.[204]

In addi­tion, the Chicago Housing Authority is under man­date to con­struct pub­lic hous­ing in pre­dom­i­nant­ly white neigh­bor­hoods. As of 1993, 591 units had been built or reha­bil­i­tat­ed, 357 of which were new units.[205] Half of the fam­i­lies in these new units are minori­ties. The oth­er half are required to come from the neigh­bor­hood in which the build­ings are locat­ed.[206]

However, reluc­tant land­lords, who do not want to par­tic­i­pate in the pro­gram, and the lim­it­ed quan­ti­ty of afford­able hous­ing has curbed the effec­tive­ness of the pro­gram. Despite the fact that 40,000 plain­tiff-class fam­i­lies were enti­tled to relief after Gautreaux, only 4500 were placed in improved afford­able hous­ing.[207] Nevertheless, for the fam­i­lies who have inte­grat­ed into more eco­nom­i­cal­ly viable com­mu­ni­ties, it is abun­dant­ly clear that their qual­i­ty of life is great­ly improved.

2. Cincinnati, Ohio

In 1984, a con­sent decree required the Cincinnati Metropolitan Housing Authority to set aside forty Section eight cer­tifi­cates each year for any fam­i­ly that desired to move to an area where their race was rep­re­sent­ed by less than forty per­cent of the pop­u­la­tion.[208] Housing Opportunities Made Equal, a fair hous­ing orga­ni­za­tion oper­ates the mobil­i­ty pro­gram, and pro­vides trans­porta­tion and coun­sel­ing to ten­ants, mar­ket­ing to prospec­tive ten­ants, and recruit­ment of land­lords.[209] The decree has also cre­at­ed addi­tion­al res­i­den­tial oppor­tu­ni­ties for minori­ties in inte­grat­ed neigh­bor­hoods through scat­tered-site hous­ing.[210]

The suc­cess of the Cincinnati mobil­i­ty pro­gram has been sig­nif­i­cant and a prime exam­ple of an effec­tive inte­gra­tion pro­gram. Between 1984 and 1993, over 600 fam­i­lies used mobil­i­ty vouch­ers.[211] As a result, black sub­ur­ban res­i­dents report­ed a 57% employ­ment rate, com­pared with a 24% rate from those still liv­ing in pub­lic hous­ing. Of the employed res­i­dents, 71% received med­ical ben­e­fits, com­pared with 36% of those in pub­lic hous­ing.[212] The gen­er­al reac­tion of these minor­i­ty fam­i­lies has been over­whelm­ing­ly pos­i­tive. Families report­ed that they did not expe­ri­ence racist behav­ior from their new neigh­bors, liked the schools in their new neigh­bor­hoods bet­ter than those in the city, and worked at more pres­ti­gious jobs with high­er pay and increased ben­e­fits.[213]

3. Milwaukee, Wisconsin

The Milwaukee mobil­i­ty pro­gram, cre­at­ed as a result of a school deseg­re­ga­tion law­suit set­tle­ment in 1987, was fund­ed by the Wisconsin Housing and Economic Development Authority (WHEDA) and oper­at­ed by the Center for Integrated Living (CIL).[214] Between 1989 and 1991, CIL helped clients find apart­ments, cre­at­ed com­mu­ni­ty pro­files, and dis­trib­uted infor­ma­tion to poten­tial res­i­dents regard­ing avail­able sub­ur­ban hous­ing.[215] WHEDA also worked to pro­mote inte­gra­tion by agree­ing to pro­vide $5 mil­lion for home mort­gages, with low inter­est rates and reduced down pay­ments for those fam­i­lies desir­ing to move into inte­grat­ed com­mu­ni­ties.[216]

As a result of these poli­cies, 812 house­holds par­tic­i­pat­ed in the mobil­i­ty pro­gram, of which 91% were minor­i­ty fam­i­lies.[217] Before the mobil­i­ty pro­gram was imple­ment­ed, 67% of all minor­i­ty fam­i­lies lived in areas where the minor­i­ty con­cen­tra­tion was 85% or more.[218] Sixty-one per­cent of the fam­i­lies mov­ing with­in the city under the pro­gram chose hous­ing with­in more racial­ly diverse neigh­bor­hoods.[219] Although a sig­nif­i­cant num­ber of minori­ties have ben­e­fit­ed from this pro­gram, it has unfor­tu­nate­ly been dras­ti­cal­ly lim­it­ed due to fund­ing cuts.[220]

4. Hartford, Connecticut

Contrary to fed­er­al law, Hartford hous­ing author­i­ties were not allow­ing eli­gi­ble fam­i­lies to use their Section Eight cer­tifi­cates out­side city lim­its.[221] The Hartford Section Eight Mobility Program was cre­at­ed after hous­ing advo­cates chal­lenged the city’s admin­is­tra­tion of its Section Eight vouch­er pro­gram.[222] Consequently, the City of Hartford, through its own depart­ment of hous­ing, began assist­ing Section Eight vouch­er hold­ers in mov­ing to the sub­urbs. This pro­gram requires that the city noti­fy Section Eight vouch­er recip­i­ents, par­tic­i­pat­ing land­lords, and area pub­lic hous­ing author­i­ties of the mobil­i­ty pro­gram.[223] Moreover, the Hartford Plan requires its admin­is­tra­tors to con­duct out­reach to encour­age sub­ur­ban land­lords to accept cer­tifi­cate hold­ers as res­i­dents.[224]

Overall, the most sig­nif­i­cant effect on minor­i­ty fam­i­lies who moved to these sub­ur­ban com­mu­ni­ties was their renewed sense of safe­ty.[225] In fact, after employ­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties, safe­ty was the next most moti­vat­ing fac­tor in mak­ing a move away from the city.[226] As such, mobil­i­ty par­tic­i­pants find that sub­ur­ban neigh­bor­hoods improve the qual­i­ty of life for par­ents and their chil­dren. These neigh­bor­hoods are typ­i­cal­ly asso­ci­at­ed with less crime and a greater sense of over­all secu­ri­ty.[227] Thus, it is this core safe­ty ele­ment that is the foun­da­tion of the improve­ment in the lives of minor­i­ty fam­i­lies who choose to move to inte­grat­ed communities.

5. The Effects and Importance of Mobility Programs

The suc­cess of these mobil­i­ty pro­grams rep­re­sents the poten­tial for American com­mu­ni­ties to imple­ment effec­tive inte­grat­ed afford­able hous­ing poli­cies. However, there are sig­nif­i­cant obsta­cles to any suc­cess­ful mobil­i­ty pro­gram. Communication between land­lords, com­mu­ni­ty lead­ers and devel­op­ers may often break down, due to reluc­tance on the part of devel­op­ers to cre­ate low- and mod­er­ate-income res­i­dences.[228] Moreover, the prob­lem is exac­er­bat­ed by the fail­ure of some leg­is­la­tures to out­law spe­cif­ic dis­crim­i­na­to­ry hous­ing prac­tices of land­lords who refuse to rent to Section Eight sub­sidy hold­ers.[229] Also, the num­ber of eli­gi­ble par­tic­i­pants for these pro­grams far out­weigh the per­cent­age of those fam­i­lies actu­al­ly placed in sub­ur­ban inte­grat­ed com­mu­ni­ties.[230] In fact, due to recent bud­get cuts at HUD, the total num­ber of cer­tifi­cates avail­able to eli­gi­ble fam­i­lies may like­ly decline in the near future.[231]

The sig­nif­i­cant resis­tance to the num­bers of black res­i­dents in white neigh­bor­hoods is still wide­spread, ham­per­ing the poten­tial of mobil­i­ty pro­grams. Opposition efforts to inte­gra­tive devel­op­ment plans argue that “[i]ntegration and increased het­ero­gene­ity … would spoil the hard-won ‘sanc­tu­ary’ of the mid­dle class.”[232] Thus, white res­i­dents’ reluc­tance to live with blacks is con­nect­ed with their belief that to do so would endan­ger their lifestyles, com­mu­ni­ties, and stan­dards of liv­ing. Nevertheless, stud­ies sug­gest that there is an increase in white sup­port[233] for res­i­den­tial inte­gra­tion, exem­pli­fy­ing not only a change in racial per­cep­tions, but also the impor­tant role of mobil­i­ty pro­grams in rem­e­dy­ing hous­ing seg­re­ga­tion and dimin­ish­ing racial intol­er­ance. Individual racism and dis­crim­i­na­to­ry rhetoric is entrenched in American his­to­ry, yet that alone should not hin­der America’s progress towards integration.

Mobility pro­grams are prag­mat­ic and fair solu­tions that pro­vide minor­i­ty par­tic­i­pants with bet­ter employ­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties, bet­ter schools, safer neigh­bor­hoods, and increased civ­il ser­vices. Mobility pro­grams should assist clients, work with com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers, and uti­lize mobil­i­ty spe­cial­ists through­out the nation to over­come the obsta­cles to suc­cess­ful imple­men­ta­tion.[234]Therefore, state and local com­mu­ni­ties must take a proac­tive approach sim­i­lar to those cities dis­cussed in this sec­tion, and make inte­grat­ed afford­able hous­ing a real and viable alter­na­tive to impov­er­ished racial­ly seg­re­gat­ed neighborhoods.

VI. CONCLUSIONResidential racial seg­re­ga­tion is an insti­tu­tion that was devel­oped through dis­crim­i­na­to­ry American poli­cies and local acts of racism. Federal and local gov­ern­ment hous­ing dis­crim­i­na­tion, pri­vate dis­crim­i­na­tion, and exclu­sion­ary zon­ing prac­tices have result­ed in the con­tin­u­a­tion of inten­tion­al dis­crim­i­na­tion against minori­ties, many of whom still remain dis­en­fran­chised mem­bers of soci­ety. The dev­as­tat­ing effects of res­i­den­tial racial dis­crim­i­na­tion on the qual­i­ty of life for minor­i­ty fam­i­lies and for our cul­ture at large, rep­re­sent the impor­tance of ini­ti­at­ing poli­cies to inte­grate res­i­den­tial neigh­bor­hoods. Without the efforts of inte­gra­tion, the neg­a­tive effects of decades of big­ot­ed hous­ing poli­cies will be exac­er­bat­ed, there­fore per­pet­u­at­ing the exis­tence of seg­re­ga­tion and racial division.

The dis­man­tling of impov­er­ished minor­i­ty neigh­bor­hoods is an essen­tial pre­req­ui­site to improv­ing hous­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties for all Americans and ame­lio­rat­ing his­tor­i­cal and mod­ern racist poli­cies and stereo­types. Minorities must have an oppor­tu­ni­ty to seek afford­able hous­ing in neigh­bor­hoods whose doors were tra­di­tion­al­ly closed. The inclu­sion­ary zon­ing tech­niques and mobil­i­ty pro­grams out­lined in this com­ment are effec­tive tools to inte­grate com­mu­ni­ties and impor­tant tac­tics to com­bat hous­ing inequal­i­ties. These meth­ods fea­si­bly and effi­cient­ly encour­age the devel­op­ment of afford­able hous­ing. In fact, the enact­ment of any oth­er pro­gres­sive state or local rem­e­dy to elim­i­nate the per­pet­u­a­tion of res­i­den­tial racial seg­re­ga­tion and improve the qual­i­ty of life of dis­crim­i­nat­ed minor­i­ty fam­i­lies serves the American prin­ci­ples of equal­i­ty and justice.

America is a land that was born out of indi­vid­u­al­i­ty and cul­tur­al diver­si­ty. The free­dom asso­ci­at­ed with choos­ing a home should apply to all with­out lim­its based upon skin col­or. As this coun­try moves into the next cen­tu­ry, the dif­fer­ences of peo­ple must be cel­e­brat­ed and respect­ed, and the con­tin­ued efforts toward true inte­gra­tive hous­ing will be a step in the right direc­tion. It is time that America final­ly acknowl­edge and appre­ci­ate its diver­si­ty, rec­og­nize its dis­crim­i­na­to­ry past, and rem­e­dy its ensu­ing seg­re­ga­tion. For as Kenneth Clark said, “Racial seg­re­ga­tion, like all oth­er forms of cru­el­ty and tyran­ny, debas­es all human beings — those who are its vic­tims, those who vic­tim­ize, and in quite sub­tle ways those who are mere acces­sories.”[235]

_​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​