Federal Judge Dismisses Texas Housing Discrimination Lawsuit After Supreme Court Decision

Happening now, happened today!  We will be following what this victory means, specifically for Texas and the broader impact it will have on HUD’s Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing (AFFH) rule passed last year and being implemented as a result of this Supreme Court decision.  Two important points related to this decision:

1. Proving that Texas is liable for reinforcing segregated housing means the state must have discriminated using a “specific policy,” and ICP could not prove that such a policy exists, Fitzwater wrote in his opinion. He also wrote that Texas’ housing agency may not be the only one responsible for the fact that low-income housing has been approved mostly in minority areas.
2. Justice Kennedy said [about the Disparate Impact ruling] there were safeguards against overuse of disparate impact suits. First, a plaintiff must show that the defendant’s policies caused the disparity, not merely that one exists. A defendant can rebut the claim by showing the policy is justified by “substantial, legitimate, nondiscriminatory interests.” The burden then shifts to the plaintiff to show that those goals could be met by a different approach with a less discriminatory effect.