Document Type

Article

Publication Date

Spring 2024

Abstract

This Essay considers whether courts should have awarded monetary remedies in housing desegregation cases. By examining the relief awarded in public housing desegregation cases brought in United States federal courts between 1966 and 1994, this Essay reveals the limitations of the almost exclusive reliance on forward-looking integration relief as a remedy. The Essay argues that there is a “missing half” of remedies that courts never awarded: compensatory damages for the loss of wealth and opportunity caused by housing segregation. Forward-looking remedies that promised integration have often gone unfulfilled. Understanding these “missing” damages is crucial given recent Supreme Court rulings on race-conscious programs, as well as political and cultural debates about how to provide a remedy for the harms done by structural racism. The Essay encourages a greater focus on the role of monetary relief as compensation for racial harm going forward, while also urging that commentators and advocates move beyond calcified debates about integration versus equalization (or “place-based” approaches) as a remedy for housing segregation. As a legal and policy matter, redress for housing segregation should include a spectrum of remedies including individual compensatory damages, community-based compensation, and forward-looking injunctive relief. The Essay also has implications for the current discussions in the United States about how and whether to provide reparations for Black Americans. The Essay suggests that repair should include individual payments, given what we learn from the mixed success of injunctive relief remedies in litigation.

Disciplines

Civil Rights and Discrimination | Housing Law | Law | Legal Remedies

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