No Case is an Island....Part 1
"No man is an island" - John Donne
•Segregation and Poverty in Dallas
•Is there anything wrong with that?
•The Inclusive Communities Project thinks so...
•The key finding of statistical disparity
•Is this discrimination?
•Suppose we could talk about two different categories of discrimination
•Now, was there discrimination against public-supported residents?
•Did someone mention the words "legal action"?
•When we discuss law, we reason with IRAC
•The TDHCA thinks that the rules for this case are simple...follow Texas law!
•Texas law has a point system for awarding tax credits to developers
•Other criteria...
•But...are there any other sources of law for us?
•Consider the Fair Housing Act of 1968 (passed after the death of MLK, Jr.)
•Do these sections stop the TDHCA?
Part 2: No Case Is An Island
Find Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs v. The Inclusive Communities Project 135 S.Ct. 2507 (2015): Feel free to explore the Introduction to using LEXIS/NEXIS online:
https://mec-cuny.digication.com/mec_information_literacy_instruction/Introduction_to_Online_Databases_RefWorks_Videos
Carefully describe the decisions of the lower courts before the case arrived at the U.S. Supreme Court:
a) How did the Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs argue that the federal government restricted their tax credit selection criteria?
1. What did the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas decide in this case?
2. What did the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit decide in this case, particularly as it changed the District Court's decision?
3. Did the Court hold that disparate impact liability was cognizable under the Fair Housing Act of 1968? Who dissented?
4. What is the Court's holding about the shape and nature of an adequate disparate impact claim? (You may want to answer this question last.)
For each of the following issues, see if you can describe how each of the opinions in the decisions responded and differed.
5. In Griggs v. Duke Power Co., 401 U.S. 424 (1971) the Supreme Court struck down an employer policy requiring its manual laborer to possess a high school diploma and to obtain satisfactory scores on two intelligence tests.
a) How did the Court read this case?
b) How did Justice Thomas read this case?
c) How did Justice Alito read this case?
6. In Smith v. City of Jackson, 544 U.S. 228 (2005), a group of older employees challenged their employer's decision to give proportionately greater raises to employees with less than five years of experience.
a) How did the Court read this case?
b) How did Justice Thomas read this case?
c) How did Justice Alito read this case?
7. How did each of the opinions interpret/resolve the "otherwise make available" and "because of race" language in the statutes?
a) The Court?
b) Justice Thomas?
c) Justice Alito?
8. What did each of the opinions think that the Fair Housing Act Amendments of 1988 said about whether there was disparate impact liability?
a) The Court?
B) Justice Thomas?
c) Justice Alito?
9. What should be the impact of this decision? a) In the eyes of the Court? b) In the eyes of Justice Thomas? c) In the eyes of Justice Alito?