What 'disparate impact' looks like
Jun 30, 2015 16:48:22 #
Aderson B. Francois | June 30, 2015 | 12:01 am
Studies show that most of crime in Washington D.C. occurs in neighborhoods with higher percentages of black residents. (AP)
The recent Supreme Court decision in Texas Department of Housing & Community Affairs v. The Inclusive Communities Project, Inc. concerns a more complicated question than whether plaintiffs may establish liability under the fair Housing Act (FHA) without proof of intentional discrimination. At its core the case is about how the country has achieved racially-discriminatory outcomes in housing and in countless other areas of American life without racially-discriminatory intent. How have we done innocently that which we say we no longer do maliciously?
Take, for example, Wards 7 and 8 in the nation's capital. Together these two wards comprise some of the poorest and most racially-isolated neighborhoods in the country. No one seriously disputes that when these neighborhoods first became a repository for black people that was what was intended to happen. The area was developed in the 1850s as one of the District's first suburbs for working class whites. Restrictive covenants prohibited the sale, rental or lease of property to people of African descent.
After World War II, as black military personnel and veterans relocated to Anacostia Naval Station and Boiling Air Force Base, the area underwent a rapid and dramatic demographic change from 90 percent white to its current makeup of nearly 94 percent black.
Intentional racial discrimination is now unlawful. Yet in the nearly 50-year span since passage of the FHA, Wards 7 and 8 have remained just as black and just as poor, if not even more so. The median household income is approximately $37,000 for Ward 7 and $34,000 for Ward 8, as compared to $58,000 district-wide, or $102,000 for Ward 2, which is 70 percent white, and $116,000 for Ward 3, which is 78 percent white.
The poverty rates for Wards 7 and 8 are 26 percent and 36 percent, respectively, by far the highest of any of D.C.'s eight wards. Anacostia, located in Ward 8, is the most impoverished neighborhood in the District the site of most of D.C.'s homicides, welfare recipients, Medicare patients, unemployed and public housing residents. The list goes on and on and on.
It is now the fashion to say that all of this is a consequence of the culture of poverty that pervades these communities. It is not entirely clear (at least not to me) how that phrase culture of poverty is anything more than an empty slogan.
But if the idea of a culture of poverty holds any intellectual substance other than the belief that poor black people do bad things, perhaps one possible reason this alleged culture of poverty flourishes is that some of our innocent neutral policies toward these wards have included government and private practices such as these:
Between 2008 and 2013, the vast majority of the nearly 30 schools the District of Columbia Public School system closed were in Wards 7 and 8; all of the District of Columbia's top private-sector employers are located outside of those wards; a disproportionally large number of toxic sites are sited in Wards 7 and 8, which also happen to receive trash, pollution, and foul water flow from the District's other wards; wards 7 and 8 have only one supermarket for every 70,000 residents compared to one supermarket for approximately every 12,000 residents in Wards 2 and 3; a single medical center serves residents in Wards 7 and 8 a population of roughly 145,000 people.
There are many communities around the country identical to Wards 7 and 8. There are also many instances in modern American political, social and economic life that expose how we've achieved racially-discriminatory outcomes without supposedly any racially-discriminatory intent: Voter felony disenfranchisement, re-segregation of public schools, racialization of criminal laws, over-policing of black life. The list goes on.
How have we done innocently that which we say we no longer do maliciously? "Innocence," Graham Greene reminded us after all, "is a kind of insanity."
Aderson B. Francois is a professor of law and supervising attorney of the civil rights clinic at Howard University School of Law in Washington, D.C., where he teaches constitutional law and federal civil rights law. Thinking of submitting an op-ed to the Washington Examiner? Be sure to read our guidelines on submissions.
Studies show that most of crime in Washington D.C. occurs in neighborhoods with higher percentages of black residents. (AP)
The recent Supreme Court decision in Texas Department of Housing & Community Affairs v. The Inclusive Communities Project, Inc. concerns a more complicated question than whether plaintiffs may establish liability under the fair Housing Act (FHA) without proof of intentional discrimination. At its core the case is about how the country has achieved racially-discriminatory outcomes in housing and in countless other areas of American life without racially-discriminatory intent. How have we done innocently that which we say we no longer do maliciously?
Take, for example, Wards 7 and 8 in the nation's capital. Together these two wards comprise some of the poorest and most racially-isolated neighborhoods in the country. No one seriously disputes that when these neighborhoods first became a repository for black people that was what was intended to happen. The area was developed in the 1850s as one of the District's first suburbs for working class whites. Restrictive covenants prohibited the sale, rental or lease of property to people of African descent.
After World War II, as black military personnel and veterans relocated to Anacostia Naval Station and Boiling Air Force Base, the area underwent a rapid and dramatic demographic change from 90 percent white to its current makeup of nearly 94 percent black.
Intentional racial discrimination is now unlawful. Yet in the nearly 50-year span since passage of the FHA, Wards 7 and 8 have remained just as black and just as poor, if not even more so. The median household income is approximately $37,000 for Ward 7 and $34,000 for Ward 8, as compared to $58,000 district-wide, or $102,000 for Ward 2, which is 70 percent white, and $116,000 for Ward 3, which is 78 percent white.
The poverty rates for Wards 7 and 8 are 26 percent and 36 percent, respectively, by far the highest of any of D.C.'s eight wards. Anacostia, located in Ward 8, is the most impoverished neighborhood in the District the site of most of D.C.'s homicides, welfare recipients, Medicare patients, unemployed and public housing residents. The list goes on and on and on.
It is now the fashion to say that all of this is a consequence of the culture of poverty that pervades these communities. It is not entirely clear (at least not to me) how that phrase culture of poverty is anything more than an empty slogan.
But if the idea of a culture of poverty holds any intellectual substance other than the belief that poor black people do bad things, perhaps one possible reason this alleged culture of poverty flourishes is that some of our innocent neutral policies toward these wards have included government and private practices such as these:
Between 2008 and 2013, the vast majority of the nearly 30 schools the District of Columbia Public School system closed were in Wards 7 and 8; all of the District of Columbia's top private-sector employers are located outside of those wards; a disproportionally large number of toxic sites are sited in Wards 7 and 8, which also happen to receive trash, pollution, and foul water flow from the District's other wards; wards 7 and 8 have only one supermarket for every 70,000 residents compared to one supermarket for approximately every 12,000 residents in Wards 2 and 3; a single medical center serves residents in Wards 7 and 8 a population of roughly 145,000 people.
There are many communities around the country identical to Wards 7 and 8. There are also many instances in modern American political, social and economic life that expose how we've achieved racially-discriminatory outcomes without supposedly any racially-discriminatory intent: Voter felony disenfranchisement, re-segregation of public schools, racialization of criminal laws, over-policing of black life. The list goes on.
How have we done innocently that which we say we no longer do maliciously? "Innocence," Graham Greene reminded us after all, "is a kind of insanity."
Aderson B. Francois is a professor of law and supervising attorney of the civil rights clinic at Howard University School of Law in Washington, D.C., where he teaches constitutional law and federal civil rights law. Thinking of submitting an op-ed to the Washington Examiner? Be sure to read our guidelines on submissions.
Jul 1, 2015 06:45:20 #
you can go on and on about poverty, the poor black people etc etc . People come into this country everyday with nothing and become millionares. there is opportunity in this country.Just get off your ass and persue it
Jul 1, 2015 14:45:25 #
jim keris wrote:
you can go on and on about poverty, the poor black people etc etc . People come into this country everyday with nothing and become millionares. there is opportunity in this country.Just get off your ass and persue it
I guess you are talking to someone more practical..........
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