Law Commons^™

Reconstructing Local Government, Daniel Farbman

Vanderbilt Law Review

After the Civil War, the South faced a problem that was almost entirely new in the United States: a racially diverse and geographically integrated citizenry. In one fell swoop with emancipation, millions of former slaves were now citizens. The old system of plantation localism, built largely on the feudal control of the black population by wealthy white planters, was no longer viable. The urgent question facing both those who sought to reform and those who sought to preserve the "Old South" was: What should local government look like after emancipation? This Article tells the story of the struggle over the …

Racial Integration And Community Revitalization: Applying The Fair Housing Act To The Low Income Housing Tax Credit, Myron Orfield

Vanderbilt Law Review

A growing national debate about the future of race, housing, and urban policy in the United States is reflected in the recent controversy over the administration of the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit ("LIHTC") program, the largest federal program that supports building low-income housing. Administered by the Treasury Department, the program allows investors in residential rental property to claim tax credits for the development or rehabilitation of property to be rented to low-income tenants. The program is implemented mainly through state agencies which distribute the credit to developers on a competitive basis. Part of the LIHTC statute, which passed without debate …

Why Judicial Reversal Of Apartheid Made A Difference, William A. Fischel

Vanderbilt Law Review

Did Buchanan v. Warley' have any practical effect on the economic well-being of black Americans? Michael Klarman argues that it did not, since the enforcement of racial segregation proceeded along other lines, such as regular zoning, racial covenants, informal discrimination, and unofficial violence. David Bernstein disagrees in part with Kiarman's conclusion. He argues that Buchanan v. Warley effectively made more housing available to blacks in urban areas, even if it did not promote racial integration.

I second Bernstein's conclusion by putting Buchanan in the context of the urban-economics theory of housing segregation. Because Buchanan helped blacks gain a foothold, albeit …

Civil Rights And Race Relations, Law Review Editor

Vanderbilt Law Review

This Symposium honors both Professor Theodore A. Smedley and the publication he served as director, the Race Relations Law Reporter. As Professor Smedley's own introductory remarks point out, the publication of this Symposium in 1978 is particularly appropriate. First, it marks the tenth anniversary of the final issue of the Reporter, a journal whose importance and usefulness to the civil rights field is well known to all who have been active in the area. In publishing this Symposium, Vanderbilt Law School continues an important tradition in which Professor Smedley has played a major role.

The Implications Of "Resegregation" For Judicially Imposed School Segregation Remedies, Charles T. Clotfelter

Vanderbilt Law Review

This Article examines the implications of changing racial patterns--particularly those tending to resegregate schools--as they bear on the formulation of judicial remedies for school segregation. The Article considers both the effect of changing residential racial patterns upon racial patterns in schools and the effect of school desegregation upon the level of white enrollment. A third question that also may be relevant in this connection concerns the extent to which the possible existence of such resegregation constitutes a legitimate consideration in school desegregation cases. For example,fourteenth amendment requirements may render white flight a wholly irrelevant factor in some desegregation cases. This …

Race, Housing, And The Government, Nancy E. Leblanc

Vanderbilt Law Review

The problem of race and housing is complicated and limited by several factors not present in other racially controversial areas. First,the limited supply of decent housing forces the exercise of some selection in allocating existing housing resources. Second, housing is relatively fixed in nature and has a long usable life. Third, housing constitutes part of a neighborhood or a community--a total fabric of living. Finally, because of the individual nature of most transactions of buying or renting--except when a suburban tract or a new apartment house is concerned--enforcing the laws prohibiting racial discrimination in housing is very difficult. Analyzing each …

Racial Imbalance In The Public Schools: Constitutional Dimensions And Judicial Response, David B. King

Vanderbilt Law Review

Eleven years after the decision of the Supreme Court in the School Segregation Cases, white and Negro children remain separated in many school systems throughout the nation. In the South this racial separation has been persistently fostered by both school and public officials. Since the rationale of the School Segregation Cases to the effect that official policy requiring separation on the basis of race is prohibited, this racial separation in the South, commonly known as segregation, is clearly illegal. Separation of the races in the school systems of the North and West has resulted both from devious types of racially …

The School Segregation Cases: A Comment, Paul H. Sanders

Vanderbilt Law Review

Segregation in the public schools on the basis of race or color pursuant to law has been declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court of the United States.' Such segregation, the Court says, violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States. The unanimous opinions of the Court delivered by Chief Justice Warren, declare this to be so regardless of the "equality" of the "tangible factors" in such educational facilities. This action, of paramount significance during the term just ended, will have a sequel of …

Segregation And The Fourteenth Amendment, J. D. Hyman

Vanderbilt Law Review

Sociologists have rejected the old concept, enshrined in William Graham Sumner's Folkways, published in 1906, that law must come from the mores, and cannot go beyond them. It is now generally accepted that legal action, within limits, can influence ways of living. Dramatic demonstrations of the validity of the present concepts have been furnished by the extension of negro suffrage in the South and by the enlargement of federal protection of bodily security under the drive of Supreme Court decisions broadening the reach of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments. Equally important are the current steps to destroy the pattern of …