Good Government Backsliding

One of Zohran Mamdani's signature policy initiatives just launched -- a tax on pied-à-terres. The tax would apply to second homes (i.e., those not occupied as a primary residence) worth over $1 million.

I won't claim to be a housing (or tax) policy expert, but this seems perfectly reasonable to me. Admittedly, given the cost of NYC real estate a one million dollar home maybe isn't as opulent as one might imagine elsewhere.  But a one million dollar second home undoubtedly qualifies as a luxury, and it is no foul to ask people who live in luxury to pay a little extra to support the rest of society.

So far, so good. Unfortunately, the rollout of the tax has apparently been beset with problems. The city released a list of 960,000 properties it thought "could" be subjected to the tax, far in excess of the 10,000 units predicted to actually qualify for the assessment. Reportedly, even though the tax is explicitly targeted at second homes, quite a few homeowners received letters telling them they were on the hook for their primary residence. And a relatively quick deadline set for challenging the assessment (near the end of August) has been paired with a malfunctioning mechanism for actually filing the challenge, causing panic amongst a significant quotient of homeowners who were not intended to and should not be covered by the tax:

Ohlerking’s notice said he could apply for an exemption to the tax by submitting proof online that the home was his primary residence. 

But, when Ohlerking, who is blind, logged on to the prescribed website with the help of his friend Jennifer Stadnik, they were met with a nonfunctioning blank white screen.  

So, the pair printed out a cache of documents to take to the Department of Finance’s Brooklyn office—only to be told by employees that the office couldn’t accept Ohlerking’s proof of residency at that time because they were busy setting up a designated intake center for people claiming they wrongfully received pied-à-terre tax notices, Stadnik said.

On Friday, Stadnik said the office called Ohlerking to tell him it would be able to help him on Monday morning.

I'll pause here to say two things. One is that part of good government is good execution, no matter what it is you're doing. Whatever one might think about the policy, the execution seems to have been a screw-up here, and for that the Mamdani administration deserves to take a few lumps. The other is that mistakes happen. No administration ever does everything perfectly. Taking a few lumps is one thing, but stories like this don't on their own justify some sweeping indictment that the Mamdani administration is essentially or uniquely incompetent.

And in an ideal world, that's all that would need to be said. But on BlueSky, I've seen an alarming number of posts not just excusing the rollout mishaps, but taking a tone of sadistic glee that people are being subjected to these mistakes (and an apparently Kafka-esque process for challenging said mistakes). "Oh yes, what a colossal mess, asking wealthy property owners to prove they live in those properties," sneered one journalist. An article in the Free Press titled "Why Mamdani Is Asking My Mom to Pay His Pied-à-Terre Tax" was met with a snarky "I'm guessing he's asking her because she owns a pied-a-terre" -- but the point of the article is that no, she doesn't, this is her primary residence (the author in question is Alex Berenson, and I deeply resent having to say anything remotely defensive on his behalf).

At the risk of being cringe liberal, it is never good to revel in another's suffering for its own sake. If Mamdani's tax is good, it's because it raises revenue from those who can most afford to pay to fund projects necessary for the good of the city as a whole. It's not good because it aggravates people who own lavish second homes in New York that they don't live in. It's certainly not good because it aggravates people who are mistakenly asserted to be owners of lavish second homes in New York that they don't live in. At that point, one is saying that it is good to immiserate the innocent in the service of attempting to immiserate the enemy class. This is not a healthy attitude. Once that sort of atavistic sadism is allowed to let slip, it always leads to dark places.

A few days ago, I said that "Half of Mamdani’s genius is convincing ordinary people that progressive ideas will materially benefit their lives and aren’t scary communism, and the other half is convincing terminally online leftists that basic good government is progressive and isn’t neoliberal shilling for evil corporations." I stand by that, and I don't think this blip falsifies the broader point that for the most part Mamdani genuinely has tried to focus on basic good government and that doing so is part of being a progressive, not a betrayal of it.

But it's pretty clear that many of his supporters, at least, have not quite internalized the lesson yet.

The Most American of July 4ths

Today, my wife and I continued the process of moving into our new home -- the "American dream". We also watched the Nathan's Hot Dog Eating contest, ate a slice of apple pie, and mourned a mass shooting.

Hard to imagine a more American day than that.

Reading Lists Right in a Pandemic: A Comment on Alabama Association of Realtors and the Eviction Moratorium

Earlier this week, a district court in Alabama Association of Realtors v. Dept. of Health and Human Services invalidated the federal eviction moratorium as exceeding the power delegated to the Secretary of Health and Human Services. Lower courts have split on this question -- some upholding the moratorium, others striking it down -- and unlike some I don't view the argument that the moratorium exceeds the statutorily delegated power to be wholly frivolous (at least one judge said the moratorium exceeds the federal government's constitutional authority under the commerce clause, and that argument I absolutely find wholly frivolous).

Reading the AAR opinion, though, it seemed like at least part of the court's analysis was predicated on a basic misunderstanding of the statutory text.  Warning: this is a pretty deep dive into some relatively boring grammar points. But that's a lot of what statutory interpretation is, and I think doing these dives can be helpful (I did something like this in analyzing what the Israel Anti-Boycott Act actually did, and folks seemed to find it useful).

Here's the relevant passage, from the Public Health Service Act (42 U.S.C. § 264(a)):

The [CDC], with the approval of the Secretary, is authorized to make and enforce such regulations as in his judgment are necessary to prevent the introduction, transmission, or spread of communicable diseases from foreign countries into the States or possessions, or from one State or possession into any other State or possession. For purposes of carrying out and enforcing such regulations, the [Secretary] may provide for such inspection, fumigation, disinfection, sanitation, pest extermination, destruction of animals or articles found to be so infected or contaminated as to be sources of dangerous infection to human beings, and other measures, as in his judgment may be necessary.

One source of controversy is the degree to which the second sentence limits the first -- that is, whether the regulations which "in his judgment are necessary to prevent the introduction, transmission, or spread of communicable diseases," mentioned in the first section, are only things like "inspection, fumigation, disinfection [etc.]" listed in the second sentence. But accepting that they are, the eviction moratorium may still fall under the unenumerated "other measures" mentioned at the end of the sentence. On that point, the key question is what sorts of regulations can be justified as "other measures". Here's what the district court said on that question:

These enumerated measures are not exhaustive. The Secretary may provide for “other measures, as in his judgment may be necessary.”  But any such “other measures” are “controlled and defined by reference to the enumerated categories before it.” These “other measures” must therefore be similar in nature to those listed in § 264(a). And consequently, like the enumerated measures, these “other measures” are limited in two significant respects: first, they must be directed toward “animals or articles,” and second, those “animals or articles” must be “found to be so infected or contaminated as to be sources of dangerous infection to human beings.” 

The court is correct that the contours of a catch-all clause at the end of a list, like "other measures", must be interpreted by the enumerated categories actually listed (this is known as the ejusdem generis canon). But in saying that the "other measures" must be directed towards "animals or articles", the court seems to misinterpret the basic grammar of the statute.

Let's look at the text again.

For purposes of carrying out and enforcing such regulations, the [Secretary] may provide for such inspection, fumigation, disinfection, sanitation, pest extermination, destruction of animals or articles found to be so infected or contaminated as to be sources of dangerous infection to human beings, and other measures, as in his judgment may be necessary.

One way of reading this list is to say the secretary is empowered to do seven separate things: (1) inspection, (2) fumigation, (3) disinfection, (4) sanitation, (5) pest extermination, (6) destruction of animals or articles found to be so infected or contaminated as to be sources of dangerous infection to human beings, and  (7) other measures. Each of these are separate entries in the list of items which "in his judgment may be necessary" and don't otherwise modify one another. Broken down, the statute would be read like this:

For purposes of carrying out and enforcing such regulations, the [Secretary] may provide for such 

(1) inspection, 

(2) fumigation, 

(3) disinfection,

(4) sanitation, 

(5) pest extermination,

(6) destruction of animals or articles found to be so infected or contaminated as to be sources of dangerous infection to human beings, and

(7) other measures,

 as in his judgment may be necessary.

(Notice that I didn't change the word order of the statute at all -- I just added numbering, indents, and line breaks).

But the district court seems to read this passage differently. It thinks that all the entries on the list are actually modifiers of "animals or articles found to be so infected or contaminated as to be sources of dangerous infection to human beings". So the Secretary can provide for "inspection ... of animals or articles found to be so infected...", "fumigation ... of animals or articles found to be so infected...", "disinfection ... of animals or articles found to be so infected ..." and so on -- and consequently the "other measures" must also be things done to "animals or articles found to be so infected." Understood this way, the statute would be organized like this:

For purposes of carrying out and enforcing such regulations, the [Secretary] may provide for such 

(1) inspection, 

(2) fumigation, 

(3) disinfection,

(4) sanitation, 

(5) pest extermination,

(6) destruction

of animals or articles found to be so infected or contaminated as to be sources of dangerous infection to human beings, and other measures, as in his judgment may be necessary.

But this is a very awkward and I think obviously incorrect reading, for several reasons.

First, not all the elements of the list naturally modify "animals or articles found to be so infected ...". Certainly it makes sense to engage in "inspection of animals or articles found to be so infected or contaminated as to be sources of dangerous infection", or "destruction of animals or articles found to be so infected or contaminated as to be sources of dangerous infection." But it's quite awkward to speak of engaging in "pest extermination of animals or articles ...." or "fumigation of animals or articles" (can you fumigate an animal?). That's a hint that these terms are meant to stand alone and not be attached to "animals or articles."

Second, if "destruction" is the last element of the list of things modifying "of animals found to be so infected ...", then it should be preceded by an "and" or an "or" -- something like this:

For purposes of carrying out and enforcing such regulations, the [Secretary] may provide for such 

(1) inspection, 

(2) fumigation, 

(3) disinfection,

(4) sanitation, 

(5) pest extermination, or

(6) destruction

of animals or articles found to be so infected or contaminated as to be sources of dangerous infection to human beings, 

and other measures,

as in his judgment may be necessary.

That "or" may be small, but it is crucial -- it's what makes all of the preceding list elements relate to "animals or articles" and so generate the implication that "other measures" must connect to "animals or articles" as well. Consider the following sentence:

You can walk, swim, run for a mile, and engage in other forms of exercise to stay fit.

The most natural way of breaking that down is: 

You can

(1) walk,

(2) swim,

(3) run for a mile, and

(4) engage in other forms of exercise

to stay fit.   

"Other forms of exercise" would be interpreted to be things akin to walking, or swimming, or running for a mile -- so rowing I'd say is probably in, while "brain teasers" probably isn't.

But let's say I intended "for a mile" to modify not just "run" but all the preceding elements of the list ("walk for a mile", "swim for a mile", and "run for a mile"). At the very least, I'd need an "and" or "or" before "run": 

You can

walk, 

swim, or 

run

for a mile, 

and engage in other forms of exercise

to stay fit. 

Without that "or", the sentence is grammatically improper if it's meant to be structured this way (it'd be like if I said "You can walk, swim, run for a mile to stay fit." There the missing "or" really stands out).

That tees up the third problem -- if "and other measures" is meant to be the last item in the list of measures that are directed at "animals or articles", then the text is out of order. You can already spot that  in our exercise sentence with our awkward extra indent for "and engage in other forms of exercise". In that sentence, if we wanted "engage in other forms of exercise" to be the last element of the list of activities one can do "for a mile to stay fit," the sentence would more naturally be drafted like this:

You can

walk, 

swim, 

run,

and engage in other forms of exercise 

for a mile to stay fit. 

Written this way, then it would be sensible to say that these other forms of exercise must also be done "for a mile" (and perhaps, further limits the exercises to the sorts of exercises which can be done for a mile -- so rowing still works, but weightlifting does not). 

Likewise, if we wanted "and other measures" to be the last part of the list, all of whose components which are meant to be tied to "animals or articles", then it is in the wrong order. The text should read:

For purposes of carrying out and enforcing such regulations, the [Secretary] may provide for such 

(1) inspection, 

(2) fumigation, 

(3) disinfection,

(4) sanitation, 

(5) pest extermination,

(6) destruction,

(7) and other measures 

of animals or articles found to be so infected or contaminated as to be sources of dangerous infection to human beings, and other measures, as in his judgment may be necessary.

But the text doesn't say that (partially because the grammar doesn't work, because one can't really have "other measures of animals or articles found to be...", which is yet another reason why this reading is suspect -- really, the better way to go about it would have been to just put the "and" or "or" before "destruction"). 

Put that all together, and the district court's view that "other measures" must be "directed toward 'animals or articles ... found to be so infected or contaminated as to be sources of dangerous infection to human beings'" seems difficult to square with the text at hand.

What difference does this make? Well, recall the key question is whether an eviction moratorium is sufficiently similar to the enumerated items in the list so that it can be reasonably included under "other measures". If all elements of the list must be "directed toward 'animals or articles ... found to be so infected or contaminated as to be sources of dangerous infection to human beings'", then it's fair to conclude, as the district court did, that an eviction moratorium is rather far afield from the enumerated contents. An eviction is not an animal or an article, after all.

But if "animals or articles found to be so infected ..." is tied to only one entry in the list ("destruction", as in "destruction of animals or articles ..."), then the the overall content of the list is much broader. The relevant question becomes whether an eviction moratorium is sufficiently similar to things like inspection, fumigation, disinfection, sanitation ... etc. etc.

So: is it? I'm not sure, honestly (as I said at the top -- I don't think the argument that the eviction moratorium is not authorized by Section 264 is utterly frivolous). Clearly, there are differences between things like inspections or sanitation versus an eviction moratorium. On the other hand, if they were the same, then we wouldn't need the "other measures" catch-all to expand the Secretary's authority. The point of having an "other measures" clause is to permit the Secretary to do things that aren't included in the explicitly enumerated list. And ensuring people have the ability to stay in place during a highly contagious pandemic doesn't strike me as being so utterly disconnected from things like "sanitation" or "inspection" that it fails the ejusdem generis canon (if the "other measures" the Secretary proposed was, say, changing the lyrics of our national anthem to "Please spare us from the dreaded 'rona!", that would be an example of such a disconnect).

Ultimately, I think the better argument is that the Secretary should get deference here. At the very least, I think the district court was wrong in claiming the text is "plain" in demonstrating the impermissibility of the eviction moratorium, and it's worrisome that the court's reasoning to the contrary seems to rely on a basic misreading of the text itself. I worry that there may be, unfortunately, a wave of judges who think of themselves as hard-nosed textualists but who don't always do a good job reading texts, and the result often is the smuggling in of ideological or partisan biases under the guise of austere, legalistic decision-making.

A Galaxy FAR, FAR Away Roundup

In my last roundup, I noted that I was going on the law school job market this year -- a process that commences with the charmingly named "meat market" in Washington this fall. The first thing that law schools receive from potential candidates, however, is the "FAR form" -- a one page document that's basically the back of your law professor baseball card: all your key stats, from degrees to teaching interests to publications. The FAR form gets distributed to law schools tomorrow, and once it's out the hiring season has officially kicked off.

Though if you like, this roundup also can be sponsored by this video about Star Wars.

* * *

Lyft is going to buy carbon-offsets for its rides. Nice.

Famed Holocaust and antisemitism expert Deborah Lipstadt: Trump didn't go far enough in condemning White nationalism.

What happened when a Labour MP tried to intervene with the Israeli government on behalf of sick Palestinian children? She faced a torrent of antisemitic abuse, that's what. Shocking story, but it's the wages of anti-normalization.

I thought this was a really thoughtful discussion between Ken White and Elie Mystal on whether things like the North Carolina gun store billboard targeting "the squad" should be protected as free speech (both -- accurately -- observe at the outset that it is protected; the discussion is about whether that doctrine is correct).

The "Word Crimes" special issue of Israel Studies continues to generate controversy: the editors of the journal issued an apology acknowledging that "the special issue and our decision-making process regarding the publication were flawed", but also defending themselves against some of the more histrionic critiques. The editors of the special issue in turn replied to the journal editor's apology, as well as addressing the wider controversy, here.

In California, locally-assessed fees sometimes make new housing construction cost-prohibitive. Locally-assessed fees are assessed, however, because Prop. 13 took a chainsaw to localities ability to raise revenue via property taxes, and so they have to get creative if they're to bring money in.

RIP Toni Morrison.

Poor Door

Well this is gross (via):

A luxury high-rise apartment in Manhattan’s Upper West Side is set to have a so-called “poor door” — a separate entrance for low-income residents receiving subsidized housing.
[...]
With this disparity between the million-dollar condos for purchase versus the units for rent at a phenomenally low price for Manhattan, the developer decided to design the building with separate entrances for those who own condos and those who rent at a price below market value. As one might expect, this “rich door,” “poor door” situation doesn’t sit well with some.

“This ‘separate but equal’ arrangement is abominable and has no place in the 21st century, let alone on the Upper West Side,” Assemblymember Linda Rosenthal, a Democrat, told the West Side Rag. “A mandatory affordable housing plan is not license to segregate lower-income tenants from those who are well-off. The developer must follow the spirit as well the letter of the law when building affordable housing, and this plan is clearly not what was intended by the community.”

There is a fair amount of evidence that one of the best ways of fighting entrenched poverty is economic integration (read the phenomenal Waiting for Gautreaux for some stark demonstrations). Lower-income persons who live in higher-income areas have much better life chances than persons surrounded by poverty. Part of this is simply access to better services and living conditions. But it also helps mitigate the effects of hypersegregation. A person who grows up in a middle-class (or higher) neighborhood, regardless of her own socio-economic status, is more likely to have successful role models, more likely to have friends from diverse backgrounds, more likely to have personal experience with a wider swath of life possibilities.

The "poor door" -- and the concurrent segregation of the low-income tenants -- flies in the face of these ambitions. As Rosenthal puts it, it manages to obey the letter of class integration while eviscerating the spirit.

Change Places!

Fascinating article on population shifts in Cleveland. Basically, it goes like this: Rust Belt cities have witnessed the hollowing out of the urban cores for decades now. This means that residential real estate in the city is dirt cheap. You know who loves cheap urban real estate? Young White people, who are flocking to the city as they can purchase houses at rock bottom prices that are very close to finally reflowering city neighborhoods.

Meanwhile, the collapse of the housing market in the suburbs has had its own effect on Black city residents -- they see this is their big shot to cash in on the American dream (nice house with a yard away from the city). So as we're seeing an influx of White couples into the city, we're seeing a transition of Black families out to the suburbs. The upshot? Far more integrated neighborhoods.

Palestinian Group "Evicts" Jewish Students

A pro-Palestinian student group at Florida Atlantic University sent mock eviction notices to 200 FAU Jewish students, allegedly as a commentary on Palestinian home demolitions Israel has undertaken over the past several decades. The notices were apparently close enough to the real thing (including the unauthorized use of the FAU housing department's official stamp) to fool some of the students into thinking they were actually being evicted, and FAU is opening an investigation into the incident (which also may have violated the law). The flyers were distributed on the first night of Passover.

And, since it might have skated by -- these notices apparently targeted Jewish students. Not Israeli students, not "pro-Israel" students, but Jewish students.

Not that it matters. In the eyes of some, so long as there is an Israel whose policies can be opposed, Jews don't have any rights to speak of. It's "opposing Israeli policies", and so it's all good.

UPDATE: Further reporting indicates that Jewish students were not specifically targeted.

The Changing DC Region

The Washington Post has a pair of fascinating articles on shifting residential demographics in the DC area. The first documents the decline of White enclaves in the region. The second looks at the rise of the overwhelmingly Black and very wealthy Prince George's County.

How does this work? Well, it seems that (at least in the DC area), barriers to minority groups moving to White neighborhoods are finally starting to crumble, and when members of other racial groups move in, Whites aren't moving out. That being said, Whites still aren't willing to affirmatively move into neighborhoods that are predominantly non-White, which allows spaces like PG County to continue serving as Black enclaves.

Anyway, they're both good reads. Highly recommended.

UPDATE: Ta-Nehisi Coates has characteristically great thoughts.

Home Demolitions

What is it about housing permits in the Middle East?

Hamas police wielding clubs beat and pushed residents out of dozens of homes in the southern Gaza town of Rafah on Sunday before knocking the buildings down with bulldozers, residents said.

Gaza's militant Hamas rulers said the homes were built illegally on government land. Newly homeless residents were furious over Palestinians on bulldozers razing Palestinian homes.

For years, Palestinians have criticized Israel for destroying houses, mostly because they were built without permits issued by the military. Now, Rafah residents complained, their own government, run by the Islamic militant Hamas that seized power in Gaza in July 2007, has done the same.
[...]
Residents said between 30 and 40 homes were torn down, ranging from concrete structures to tin shacks. They did not know how many people were affected. Hamas officials did not allow reporters into the area until the demolition was over.

Residents said more demolitions in the area were expected Monday.

Even if they are allowed to rebuild, Israel does not allow most building materials into the territory it has blockaded since Hamas seized power. The newly homeless residents are unlikely to be able to afford the steep black market prices for concrete, steel and wood. Some of the families cannot afford rent.

Rafah's mayor, Issa Nashar, promised alternative housing. Gaza's housing minister Yousef al-Mansi said he had no information about such housing.

The cynic in me -- and when it comes to the Middle East, the cynic is a very large part of me -- doesn't really know what the downside of this is for Hamas. The ensuing misery of these men and women only helps buttress its PR war against Israel -- indeed, a significant part of Hamas' governing philosophy has been strategically exposing their denizens to danger and deprivation so as to make Israel look bad. The theoretical downsides are (1) that it hurts these Palestinian men and women, and (2) that it discredits Hamas and weakens its grip on the population and global opinion. The first I hardly think the Hamas government considers to be a particularly salient harm at all, and the second is less of a big deal than one might think -- international cameras won't make the distinction, and while the displaced men and women know who to blame, their political influence is negligible particularly given Hamas' concentration of force and willingness to deploy it against its own population.

Lego House

This is less impressive if you've been to the Mall of America ... but only a little bit less.



Via.

You Gotta Throw an Elbow Sometimes

I have no idea if this will work or even accomplishes anything useful, but I have to think it got the bank's attention:

Hoskins said he's been in a struggle with RiverHills Bank over his Clermont County home for nearly a decade, a struggle that was coming to an end as the bank began foreclosure proceedings on his $350,000 home.

"When I see I owe $160,000 on a home valued at $350,000, and someone decides they want to take it – no, I wasn't going to stand for that, so I took it down," Hoskins said.
[...]
Hoskins said he'd gotten a $170,000 offer from someone to pay off the house, but the bank refused, saying they could get more from selling it in foreclosure.

Hoskins told News 5's Courtis Fuller that he issued the bank an ultimatum.

"I'll tear it down before I let you take it," Hoskins told them.

And that's exactly what Hoskins did.

Sometimes, one elbow is enough. Here -- I'm doubtful.

Civil Rights Roundup: 10/23/08

Your daily dose of civil rights and related news

Breath-taking results from a study by Ian Ayres on racial profiling by the LAPD. I'm probably going to write a separate post on this one -- the data is jaw-dropping.

The polls on Proposition 8 have been narrowing, and it looks like the right to gay marriage will go down to the wire.

Three Jews, Four Opinions has a good perspective on how Jews concerned about Halakah should approach issues like same-sex marriage.

ACORN is fighting back against smears that it is (among other things) destroying the fabric of democracy.

America wastes the talents of immigrants with college and professional degrees. One in five college educated immigrants are either unemployed or in unskilled professions, and the problem persists even when the field is restricted to those here legally. Unsurprising note: Highly educated African and Latino immigrants fare worse than their Asian and European peers.

The number of low-income families in America has risen by 350,000.

The EU parliament has given a prestigious human rights award to a Chinese democracy proponent, in direct rebuke to the ruling Communist regime.

The Senate is trying to get the number of foreclosures under control in exchange for the massive bailout money the banks are getting from the federal government.

A federal court is preparing to rule on the propriety of citizenship tests for voters.

In Wisconsin, the forces who care about voter suppression (Democrats) gear up to do battle against those who care more about voter fraud (Republicans).

Though it has been trying to make some reforms, the system for re-enfranchising ex-felons in Florida remains seriously broken.

The Government Accountability Office blasted the civil rights record of the USDA, saying it was unresponsive to reports of discrimination and suggesting it be brought under external oversight.

The British High Court wants to see documents which might verify whether a British Guantanamo detainee was tortured.

Civil Rights Roundup: 10/09/08

Your daily dose of civil rights and related news

It's election time, and you know what that means: illegally keeping eligible voters off the rolls!

Polling places may not have the resources to handle the expected crush of voters this election.

The Supreme Court is examining whether employees who cooperate in discrimination and harassment cases, but are not the complaining parties themselves, are protecting via anti-retaliation provisions.

A federal appeals court has blocked the release of 17 innocent men being detained at Guantanamo, pending a hearing by that court.

Not only was the torture regime developed at Guantanamo exported to American prisons, but some officials worried that the tactics used domestically were actually "harsher" than those at our Cuban base.

High fuel prices mean its harder to run school buses. Not running buses means kids only go to their neighborhood schools. Neighborhood schools lead to school resegregation. Resegregation means students suffer.

An Iowa resident crossed into Nebraska to take advantage of the state's extremely broad "safe haven" law, abandoning her 14 year old daughter to state authorities.

A federal judge is urging immigration authorities to hold off deporting a man until his civil case against the Boston Police concludes. The man served 19 years in prison for rapes that he did not commit.

Another immigration raid, another town torn asunder.

The Cook County (Chicago) sheriff has ordered his deputies to cease evicting people, arguing that many of the evicted are renters who have done nothing wrong -- victims of landlords whose properties are being repossessed.

The Ohio Supreme Court has rejected an appeal by a death row inmate arguing he's too fat to be executed. The argument is that his girth will make it too hard to find a vein insuring the execution is done quickly and painlessly.

It's looking as if minority college enrollment is stalling out. In an amazing coincidence, affirmative action efforts have also been stalling out or proactively rolled back in recent years.

Another Virginia paper comes out in favor of re-enfranchising ex-felons.

The Department of Justice has checked -- for now -- efforts by a Georgia county's election officials to investigate the citizenship of voters whom the county had suspicions about.

Bringing Back the Mezuzah

A bipartisan group of US Congressmen have introduced a bill which would generally prohibit landlords or homeowners associations from banning the display of religious symbols outside one's domicile.

The bipartisan Freedom of Religious Expression in the Home Act was introduced Wednesday evening by U.S. Reps. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), Robert Wexler (D-Fla.), Trent Franks (R-Ariz.) and Lamar Smith (R-Texas.).

It was sparked by a June federal appeals court ruling that upheld the right of a condominium association to ban the affixing of mezuzahs on doors. The ruling addressed a Chicago-area case, but there have been similar cases elsewhere, including Florida.

The bill would outlaw rules that ban the display of religious symbols on the outside of homes unless the rule is "reasonable and necessary to prevent significant damage to property, physical harm to persons, a public nuisance or similar undue hardship."

I remarked on the case that sparked this law here, and I am glad to see Congress stepping in to try and remedy that decision. No Mezuzot means no observant Jews, and since there is nothing dangerous or harmful about putting a small insignia on one's doorstep, I do not find it unreasonable to be given a little protection here by the government.

Civil Rights Roundup: 09/08/08

Your daily dose of civil rights and related news

Hopefully, the Senate will fast track the passage of the ADA when it returns from recess.

Students registering to vote on college campuses is confusing registrars.

The DOJ is widening its investigation after an Asian student with perfect SAT scores was rejected from Princeton University. The student says that he was rejected based on race, the school notes that there is more to a candidacy than SAT scores.

Some cities are turning to civil injunctions to curb gang violence, prohibiting, for example, gang members from meeting as being a "nuisance". The ACLU warns that this has the potential to criminalize normal daily activities and thus violates suspected gang members' civil rights.

The former dean of U. Washington's law school warned Nebraskans about what will happen to their school's diversity if it approves a ban on affirmative action. He should know -- Washington approved a similar ban in 1998, and watched minority enrollment plunge immediately after.

The Tucson Citizen urges its readership to vote no on Arizona's anti-gay marriage amendment.

An anti-gay marriage amendment in Florida is not polling strong enough to pass at the moment.

Should the constitution be amended to add a right to vote? I don't see why not.

Immigration courts still groan under a huge backlog, and are making only small progress it getting over it.

The New Yorker has an essay on Lily Ledbetter's request for equal pay, and John McCain (and his fellow GOPers) response.

A Florida town is now arresting people for wearing too-baggy pants. Unsurprisingly, the local Black community feels targeted, and one lawyer says the law is "designed to be pretextual."

The Orlando Sentinel looks at the history of the relationship between Florida Blacks and Latinos.

A homeowner in Montana discovered a racial covenant buried in his contract, dated from 1945. Though unenforceable, the man decided to leave it in as a reminder of the communities racially exclusive past.

Miami officials have settled a case in which prison guards were accused a beating a mentally-ill man into a coma.

Civil Rights Roundup: 07/16/08

Your daily dose of civil rights and related news

Is our natural inclination when seeing others in distress indifference?

Montgomery County, Maryland just became America's first jurisdiction to pass a law protecting the workplace rights of nannies.

Immigrant students in college (here legally, I might add), face severe harassment and discrimination on campus. The focus, unfortunately (since I rather like the state), is on Somali students at the University of Minnesota.

The US might finally lift its ban on HIV-positive immigrants.

The Wall Street Journal has another one of those really dumb editorials trying to claim the GOP is the better party on race because it historically was anti-slavery. Everyone knows the facts on this: In the 19th and early 20th century, Republicans were primarily the civil rights party, and Democrats were primarily against it. Starting with FDR, the Democrats began moving left-ward on race issues, causing a division with the southern, Jim Crow wing of the party. Eventually, those people left for the GOP, who welcomed them with open arms. And that's where we're at today. This is not that complicated.

McCain waffles clarifies his stance on gay adoptions.

Massachusetts will allow out of state gay couples to marry after repealing a 1913 law originally designed to limit interracial marriages.

Black and Hispanic state troopers are suing the state police force, alleging discrimination and cronyism.

Facebook ads for women basically just tell them they're fat and ugly. My girlfriend noticed this, which is why I'm currently "in a relationship" with a person of indeterminate gender.

Women, take note: You wouldn't want your employer think about your vast amounts of experience if that means keeping your hair gray.

BBC: Muslim woman denied citizenship in France, on the grounds that she is insufficiently assimilated (actually, that does strike me as very French).

The Justice Department has filed a discrimination suit against a condo association accused of refusing to sell to a Black couple with children.

I blogged on this topic once before, but now the NYT takes it on: child brides resisting their forced marriages in Yemen (and winning too!).

Finally, who told this "joke"?

Did you hear the one about the woman who is attacked on the street by a gorilla, beaten senseless, raped repeatedly and left to die? When she finally regains consciousness and tries to speak, her doctor leans over to hear her sigh contently and to feebly ask, ‘Where is that marvelous ape?’

Why, Republican Presidential candidate John McCain, that's who!

Civil Rights Roundup: 06/30/08

One of the things I do for my job at the LCCR is help "clip" articles from around the country relating to civil rights and related areas each morning. The articles are saved into del.icio.us and come up in a feed on our website. So I figure: so long as I've got all this stuff in front of me, why not share it with you?

All this is to announce what I hope to be a daily feature (at least through this summer): Civil Rights Roundup -- a collection of news stories related to civil and minority rights, all in one easy location. I hope to have it up each morning by 11:00 AM, but it might be earlier or later depending on my schedule.

So, without further ado....

The Boston Globe has an op-ed urging the creation of more English language classes to assist immigrants attempting to assimilate. They report 14,000 names on the waiting list for state-sponsored English programs.

L.A. Judge OKs Cops' not Asking Crime Victims, Witnesses About Immigration Status

Researchers are looking into reports that subprime mortgages were targeted at minority communities.

In "Flag City, USA", it's tough for Obama to break through the swamp of rumors surrounding him.

Thomas Atkins, a key civil rights leader in Boston who became the cities first black at-large city councilor, has died at age 69.

From the AP: "A police officer who body-slammed an unarmed woman and broke her jaw during a medical call to a suburban restaurant last year was arrested by the FBI on Friday and charged with violating her civil rights."

Affirmative Action: Not a quota system, not judicial activism, not anti-meritocratic.

This is an interesting case: Authorities are investigating whether San Francisco is giving illegal immigrants taxpayer financed trips home -- without formally deporting them.

Heartfelt Lines, Housing, and Superobligations

Against my better judgment, I want to return to the topic of the "line through the heart" -- Mark Olson's beloved quote on what it means to be moral which I explored a bit in a post last week. Today, I want to talk about it specifically in the context of housing segregation and the effect it has on Black Americans, and generally in the context of "superobligations."

First, some background. There exists a massive wealth (net worth) disparity between Blacks and Whites in America today. Net worth is simply the value of all the things you own subtracted by all your debts. On average, Whites have 8x the net worth of Black Americans, and this disparity has actually risen since the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s. The wealth disparity holds true even for people of similar educational backgrounds, as well as for people of similar income levels. The primary cause of this is rather simple: housing. Most Americans' wealth is in their home. That's a huge nest egg for people.

Historically, the avenues of home ownership were closed to Blacks. The big influx of individual home ownership occurred after WWII with the Federal Housing Administration, which greatly reduced the barriers to buying a home and made it affordable, for the first time, for the average working family. But the FHA explicitly encouraged developers to a) forbid racial integration in the new suburban communities and b) only give out loans to White communities. "Red-lining" meant that Blacks were effectively shut out of the post-war home boom, and instead were shunted into inner city public housing. These barriers, of course, were specifically race-based -- with localized exceptions, Whites of all national backgrounds were able to partake in the bounty relatively freely.

After the FHA dropped its opposition to integration per se in the 1950s, real estate agents developed a new tactic called "block busting." As Black families moved into a neighborhood, developers preyed on racial fears to get White owners to sell their homes way below market value, then resold the homes to Black residents. This exerted significant downward pressure on real estate prices, which developers used to influence more Whites to leave, telling them that their home values were only going to plummet further if they stayed. As people observed this spectacle in the communities around them, it created a panic: even one Black family moving into a neighborhood would instigate a torrent of "for sale" signs, as every White family tried to get out before the bottom fell out of the market. "White flight" was the name of the game, and the turnover of a neighborhood from Black to White could be frighteningly quick: Law professor Patricia Williams recalls moving to a mostly White Boston suburb that -- within a year of her move -- became nearly all Black.

The upshot of this was to utterly wreck the ability of Black families to build equity through real estate. Of course, there is the simple fact that they simply haven't had the equal opportunity to own houses for as long and couldn't transfer the corresponding wealth generationally. But beyond that, as soon as a Black family was able to grab that piece of the suburban dream, they were cut off at the knees -- their home investment foundered as demand for the neighborhood plummeted and the value of their home collapsed around them. And it essentially never came back: homes which are "in demand" by, at most, 20% of the market (non-Whites) are never going to have the same value as neighborhoods in which everyone wants to live. Consequently, the cycle has been set: Homes in Black areas are worth less than those in White ones, and because of this the presence of more than a marginal population of Black families rapidly causes a neighborhood to "tip" and White families to flee (crushing the equity of Black families all over again).

This is all a preface for a broader discussion I want to have about morality and individuals. The mechanics of housing segregation, "voluntary" or not, are perhaps the element that perpetuates racial inequality in America. By placing a high wall between millions of Americans and equal opportunity, it is one of the great evils of our society. But in the aforementioned story, no individual White family is at fault. Many of the White families who engaged in White flight, when interviewed, said that they didn't have a problem with integration per se, they just couldn't afford to stay in a house whose real estate value was about to collapse. Asking people to sacrifice their own nest egg, their own financial security, their own family for the sake of others is what's known as a superobligation. A superobligation is something that we would praise someone for doing, that would unquestionably make the world a better place, but is above and beyond what we can legitimately ask of the average person (falling on a hand grenade is a good example). J.O. Urmson further explains:

If we are to exact basic duties...and censure failures, such duties must be, in ordinary circumstances, within the capacity of the ordinary man. It would be silly for us to say to ourselves, our children and our fellow men, 'this and that you and everyone else must do,' if the acts in question are such that manifestly few could bring themselves to do them, though we may ourselves resolve to try to be of that few....So, if we were to represent the heroic act of sacrificing one's life for one's comrades as a basic duty, the effect would be to lower the degree of urgency and stringency that the notion of duty does in fact posses. The basic moral code must not be in part too far beyond the capacity of the ordinary men or ordinary occasions, or a general breakdown of compliance with the moral code would be an inevitable consequence; duty would seem to be something high and unattainable, and not for 'the likes of us.' [J.O. Urmson, "Saints and Heroes," in Essays in Moral Philosophy, edited by A. Melden. (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1958), 211-212.]

From my standpoint, I do not find individualism a useful lens for analyzing housing segregation. The families in question are not "evil", they are not doing anything but trying to make sure that they have a financially secure base from which to raise their families. Rather, the problem -- the evil -- is structural: it's about the systematic incentives White people have to live in predominantly White neighborhoods. The problem is systemic, and the solution should similarly be systemic -- we should switch the structure so that Whites have an incentive to live with people of color. One solution I've heard which I don't like would be to eliminate the tax write-off for mortgages for any homes that are not in neighborhoods with at least a 30% population of color. Another solution I've heard which I like a lot better is for universities to start offering affirmative action to students of all racial backgrounds who attend diverse schools (or at least schools that are not overwhelmingly White).

But these solutions only make sense because they separate the evil of housing segregation from individual action. If we're talking solely about the "line through the heart", the case becomes murkier, and we have two options. On the one hand, we can say that because each family is individually innocent, there is no moral question here. The line through their heart was not implicated, they bear no guilt. Under this paradigm, the question of housing segregation is rendered beyond the pale of moral discourse entirely. Convenient for the people who are comfortable in the current arrangement, perhaps, but hardly satisfactory for those who are trapped outside the gates of wealth. I simply don't accept that there is no moral element to a system which consigns millions of Americans to never experience true financial security.

The second option is to swing wildly in the other direction. All this stuff about "reasonable expectations" and "I had to protect my family" -- these are irrelevant. You had a choice. The line is through your heart, and you chose to live in predominantly White areas, and you chose to move if the neighborhood got too Black for you. Would staying in Roosevelt, NY have creamed you financially? Well, guess what -- that's the prospect Black Americans face every day. Under this view, we essentially demand the superobligation. And hence, any White person who lives in a predominantly White community -- regardless of the motive, reason, or circumstance -- by contributing to problem, is to be regarded as consciously choosing the evil. The line is through their heart, after all, and they made choices which perpetuate the evil of racial inequality indefinitely.

As I said, I don't find either scenario compelling, because I don't think we should force ourselves into the individualism box at all costs. But if we do so, if we can only conceptualize evil as running through the hearts of men and having no other arteries or thoroughfares, this is the choice we're left with: Total absolution, or complete damnation.