Justice
How School Districts Seal Their Students Into Poverty
A striking new map shows how districts’ property-tax funding system enforces divides between rich and poor.
The upholding of the Fair Housing Act’s “disparate impact” standard was one of many major victories for social justice dispatched by the Supreme Court this June. But the road to equal rights and opportunities remains long and thorny.
“Disparate impact” is the notion that housing policies that create “artificial, arbitrary, and unnecessary barriers” for minorities (for example, housing projects that are built only in high-poverty, minority neighborhoods) are a form of discrimination, even if discrimination is not the explicit goal. Therefore, SCOTUS ruled, such policies are unlawful, and can be challenged in court.