Constitutional Law

Segregation Now, Segregation Forever?

by Craig Gurian, Project Manager, Fair Housing For All

People commonly bemoan the segregated state of our schools, but seldom relate that educational segregation to its fundamental cause: the profound and continuing residential segregation that exists north and south, east and west.

Indeed, the cause of fair housing has never commanded a sustained commitment on any level of government, nor has it ever attracted a robust bar.  Forty years after the passage of the Fair Housing Act, the number of fair housing lawyers remains remarkably small, and those lawyers who do practice in the area have had no organizational voice of their own.

We have just created Fair Housing for All in the hopes of: (1) strengthening and enlarging the ranks of fair housing attorneys; of (2) providing a voice for those attorneys; (3) fighting for legislative change in the service of fair housing on whatever level of government seems congenial; and (4) improving our ability to work with and the fair housing organizations and others on the front lines of the struggle for fair housing.

We invite you to examine our statement of principles and a list of our tentative legislative priorities, and then to join with us as we work to reclaim the term “community” as one that signals genuine inclusion and the crossing of racial, neighborhood and other artificial dividing lines.

Full post as published by ACS Blog on April 30, 2008 (boomark / email).