Interview, Fireside Chat, Conference Presentation
Richard Rothstein, Author of "The Color of Law"
- Richard Rothstein argues that residential segregation in the U.S. is the result of explicit, unconstitutional federal policy (de jure segregation) rather than private choices or economic factors (de facto segregation).
- Rothstein cites the 1973 Supreme Court ruling against school districts in Louisville, Kentucky, as a pivotal moment where the Court legitimized "de facto" segregation excuses, ignoring the state's prior jailing of a white homeowner for selling a home to a Black family, a 14th Amendment violation.
- During the 1940s and 1950s, the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) and Veterans Administration (VA) subsidized the construction of suburbs like Levittown (17,000 homes) by requiring developers to commit to non-integration in exchange for federal loan guarantees.
- FHA appraiser manuals explicitly instructed professionals not to recommend federal loan guarantees for any development that included African Americans, codifying the "white noose" around every metropolitan area.
- Public housing originally served working-class white and Black families who could afford rent, but as federal subsidies shifted to move white families into all-white suburbs, Black residents were left in deteriorating urban projects as jobs left cities.
- Housing authorities began evicting families from public housing upon gaining employment or higher income, concentrating the most disadvantaged Black families and eliminating the stable middle class that previously inhabited these units.
- In 1910, Baltimore adopted racial zoning ordinances prohibiting Black families from moving to blocks where they were not already a majority; these were struck down in Buchanan v. Warley (1917) as violations of white property rights.
- Following Buchanan v. Warley, Commerce Secretary Herbert Hoover established a committee that developed "exclusionary zoning" as a model to circumvent the Supreme Court ruling and maintain segregation through land-use laws.
- These exclusionary zoning ordinances remain in effect today, legally preventing the desegregation of neighborhoods originally established with explicit federal segregationist mandates.
- White families gained significant intergenerational wealth from suburban housing built between 1948 and 1950, which sold for roughly $7,000 to $8,000 (equivalent to ~$100,000 today), while the appreciation in these values far exceeds current prices, leaving Black families excluded from this wealth accumulation.
- Rothstein asserts that current inequality in wages, tax treatment, and union membership is a direct result of these historical policies that stunted Black wealth creation and access to opportunity.
- Rothstein states that fully untangling the web of historical inequality is impossible; the only viable path is developing policies to promote an integrated society.
- Rothstein identifies the lack of a political movement, rather than a lack of policy solutions, as the primary barrier to desegregation; experts have long known the necessary remedies.
- He points to the 25 million Americans who participated in Black Lives Matter demonstrations as evidence of a new, broad political environment favorable to racial justice, though housing desegregation has not yet been a central focus.
- Rothstein notes that Southern politicians are currently removing statues commemorating defenders of slavery, a phenomenon not seen before in American history, indicating shifting political will.
- In 1970, HUD Secretary George Romney attempted to "untie the white noose" via the "Open Communities" program, which required suburbs to desegregate or lose federal funding; President Nixon canceled the program and forced Romney out.
- The Obama administration's "Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing Rule" was characterized by Rothstein as a "bare shadow" of the aggressive action taken by George Romney.
- Rothstein concludes that immediate federal legislative action is unlikely, but he remains hopeful that a sustained civil rights movement can generate the political pressure needed to enforce integration policies.