The U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments today about a key civil rights doctrine in fair housing law: the disparate impact doctrine, which allows litigants to show that a policy is discriminatory by showing the results disproporionately affect one group of people, even if the discrimination isn't intentional, the Wall Street Journal's Robbie Whelan and Jess Bravin reports. At issue is the pattern of Dallas real-estate developers building the vast majority of government-subsidized housing in poor minority communities, not in wealthier, predominantly white communities. The Supreme Court will hear if the current system of tax subsidies violates the Fair Housing Act of 1968 and promotes racial segregation.
The Washington Post's Valerie Strauss blogged that the case is not just one that fair-housing advocates should watch but that public-education advocates should watch too "'because the segregation of low-income minority schools undermines efforts to narrow achievement gaps between middle class and low-income minority students.'"
The WSJ notes that two other cases involving the disparate impact doctrine were settled before the U.S. Supreme Court could hear them.
Lawyer and Legal Journalist
