Serena Dewakuku bought a house that was built by the Hopi Tribal Housing Authority through an assistance program that helps low-income Indian families. After she bought the house, Serena found that it had serious structural and design problems. She reported this to the housing authority, but it did nothing to fix the problems. Serena sued claiming that the home she had bought from her housing authority did not meet the standards of a federal law called the Indian Housing Act, which was created to make sure any subsidized housing was of good quality.
The court that heard Serena's case agreed that the housing authority had violated the law and ordered it to fix the problems. The housing authority challenged this ruling and the case went back to court. This time, the appeals court threw her case out of court on a technicality: This court said that although the housing law said Ms. Dewakuku had rights, it didn't explicitly say she could go to court if those rights were violated.
Ms. Dewakuku couldn't go to court and she was stuck with a defective and badly built home. This court tells us that even if a housing authority violates the law, the people who buy shoddily built homes have no legal remedy in court. We may think we have rights because of certain laws, but we can't necessarily enforce them.
Dewakuku v. Martinez, Secretary of Housing and Urban Development (2001)
South Camden, New Jersey, is home to more than 100 contaminated sites and hundreds of polluting industries. The city's drinking-water supply has been contaminated for decades, and its air pollution levels are among the highest in New Jersey. In 2001, a court stopped a permit for a new cement factory because of the unfair polluting impact that this plant would have on its neighbors (there were already many toxic plants in the area). The court said that the people who lived in the area around the factory were being discriminated against because of their race, and made to bear more than their fair share of the problems of pollution.
However, following the Supreme Court ruling in 2001's Sandoval case, it is no longer enough to prove that there is a discriminatory effect on a racial group. Instead, people have to prove that the discrimination was intentional, something almost impossible to do.
After several appeals, the people of South Camden finally lost their case in 2006.
South Camden Citizens in Action v. New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection
PEOPLE HAVE THE RIGHT TO "DECENT, SAFE, AND SANITARY" HOUSING. THEY JUST CAN'T DO ANYTHING ABOUT IT IF IT ISN'T.
The Housing Act of 1937 was created to make sure that any subsidized housing was "decent, safe, and sanitary." But the families living in a subsidized apartment complex in Dallas had conditions that were anything but. The buildings had serious structural problems--floors separating from walls, leaking roofs and ceilings, backed up sewage drains. The buildings and hallways were repeatedly and constantly vandalized. There were murders and other violent crimes committed on a regular basis. The tenants complained to the housing authority with an average of 2-3 letters every day. One complaint said: "A man died in my front door early Monday morning in fact two men were killed in the apts. the same morning." There were regular gun battles, and a seven-year-old boy named Charles Cleveland was killed in the crossfire. The Dallas housing authority failed to take action to ensure that the housing was "decent, safe, and sanitary," and the situation only deteriorated.
Finally, the families got together and sued their housing authority and the owners of the building for breaking the law. It seemed they were successful when, at first, the housing authority stopped giving rental assistance to the landlords. The case went to trial, and the jury found the apartment owners guilty of violating the Housing Act.
Even though the case went to trial and the jury agreed that the landlords had violated the law, the court disagreed, and disregarded the jury's decision, based on a technicality. Although the federal housing law spelled out rights, this court decided that it didn't spell out exactly what could be done if those rights were violated. The court essentially ruled that there was no federal right to decent housing and shut its doors on these families and others whose rights to a decent, safe, and sanitary home under the Fair Housing Act are violated.
Banks v. Dallas Housing Authority (2001)
CAN UNIVERSITIES ENSURE A DIVERSE STUDENT BODY? VERY TRICKY.
Written into the civil rights laws of the 1960s, affirmative action was designed to ensure equal opportunity for groups that had long been discriminated against by employers and institutions. Michigan Law School, one of the nation's top law schools, modified its admission process to ensure the diversity of its student body. According to its admissions policy, the school looks for students with "substantial promise for success in law school" and who have "a strong likelihood of succeeding in the practice of law and contributing in diverse ways to the well-being of others" and "varying backgrounds and experiences who will respect and learn from each other."
When it denied admission to Barbara Grutter, a white Michigan resident, she sued, saying she was discriminated against on the basis of race. By a margin of only one vote (now-retired Justice O'Connor's) the Supreme Court decided in Grutter v. Bollinger (2003) that it was legal for the law school to use race as one of the factors in deciding which students to admit. The Court found that diversity was valuable and that admissions policies can justify looking at race and ethnicity as factors in admissions in a carefully crafted policy to achieve diversity.
However, the use of race in admission must be limited, and is sometimes difficult to employ. In a companion case, the Supreme Court found University of Michigan's undergraduate admissions policy to be unlawful. The admissions process was also intended to encourage diversity and it considered many factors, including grades, test scores, high school quality, curriculum strength, where the student is from, relationships with college alumni, leadership potential, and race. Each factor including race was assigned a number of points toward a 100-point minimum for admission. This, the university argued, encouraged diversity and significantly contributed to a better educational environment.
The Supreme Court decided, however, that this admissions policy was unconstitutional because applicants from underrepresented groups were given points based on their race or ethnicity. Colleges and universities that attempt to foster and support diversity have to strike a very delicate balance. And now that the makeup of the Supreme Court has changed, and Justice O'Connor has retired, diversity in the schools hangs in the balance.
Grutter v. Bollinger (2003); Gratz v. Bollinger (2003).
MEDICAL CARE YOU ARE LEGALLY ENTITLED TO IS DEFICIENT? TOO BAD.
A group of mothers in Michigan organized themselves because their state was not providing their children adequate health care coverage, even though the state was using federal money for Medicaid. The group decided to sue the state to enforce the provisions of Medicaid they were entitled to.
In 2002, the district court in Michigan held that individuals had no right to enforce Medicaid, because it is an agreement between the federal government and the state. The appeals court reversed this decision, but the reasoning in this case has been adopted by other judges and will no doubt be used again in similar situations.
Westside Mothers v. Haveman (2002)
The Supreme Court last term resurrected "separate but equal" in our schools. Because of the Court’s ruling in Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. 1 and Meredith v. Jefferson County Board of Education, schools risk becoming more segregated, and children of all races will likely have fewer opportunities to learn together and become prepared to live and work in a diverse world.
Parents Involved in Community Schools involved a challenge to student admission plans in school districts in both Seattle, Washington and Louisville, Kentucky. Concerned about how racial isolation was affecting their own children and community, locally-elected school boards in Louisville and Seattle had adopted student assignment measures to foster integrated, diverse schools. The voluntary plans used modest measures to promote integration while prioritizing parental choice and community schools. As part of the plans, the school districts looked at race as a factor in determining whether or not to transfer a student. The programs in both Seattle and Louisville had been upheld by lower courts and were similar to programs in many school districts across the country.
But in a 5-4 decision, the Court held that the programs were unconstitutional because they violated the Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause in the 14th Amendment. The Court held that using race as a factor in assigning children to schools was discriminatory and could not be justified. The Court’s decision went against the tradition of Brown v. Board of Education, which declared “separate but equal” unconstitutional and held that all students have a right to attend integrated schools. As a result, school districts will find it incredibly difficult, if not impossible, to assign children to schools in a way that ensures diversity. Schools are once again becoming segregated by race as they were before Brown.
Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. 1 and Meredith v. Jefferson County Board of Education (2007)
For more information on racial justice, see that section.