Exclusionary Zoning, School Segregation, and Housing Segregation: an Investigation Into a Modern Desegregation Case and Solutions to Housing Segregation
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Hastings Constitutional Law Quarterly Volume 48 Number 1 Fall 2020 Article 7 Fall 2020 Exclusionary Zoning, School Segregation, and Housing Segregation: An Investigation into a Modern Desegregation Case and Solutions to Housing Segregation Sara Zeimer Follow this and additional works at: https://repository.uchastings.edu/ hastings_constitutional_law_quaterly Part of the Constitutional Law Commons Recommended Citation Sara Zeimer, Exclusionary Zoning, School Segregation, and Housing Segregation: An Investigation into a Modern Desegregation Case and Solutions to Housing Segregation, 48 HASTINGS CONST. L.Q. 205 (2020). Available at: https://repository.uchastings.edu/hastings_constitutional_law_quaterly/vol48/iss1/7 This Note is brought to you for free and open access by the Law Journals at UC Hastings Scholarship Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Hastings Constitutional Law Quarterly by an authorized editor of UC Hastings Scholarship Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. 6 - ZEIMER - CLQ 48-1 Exclusionary Zoning, School Segregation, and Housing Segregation: An Investigation into a Modern Desegregation Case and Solutions to Housing Segregation by SARA ZEIMER Introduction The Constitution of the United States makes broad claims about equality, yet this nation is far from achieving its idealistic goals. This country was founded as a segregated society; it treated anyone who was not white as an outsider, not entitled to the same privileges as white men. Even after the Civil War concluded and slavery was outlawed, communities across the nation continued to be the product of self-segregation and further government-sponsored segregation. These practices have affected every aspect of life in the United States. Moreover, these tactics were deliberately used to prevent minorities from gaining equality in housing and, subsequently, in educational opportunities. While these private—and government-sponsored tactics—were not explicitly labeled as de jure segregation or Jim Crow laws, they were used throughout the nation as a method to further the idea that whites were superior to others. Although California was founded as a free state and did not engage in de jure segregation following the Civil War, efforts to separate communities on the basis of race persisted. The results of those segregationist efforts endure to this day and are particularly pronounced in the intersection between housing and schools. Historically, minorities were unable to buy homes in the same neighborhoods as whites, limiting the schools minority children could attend. As a result, this impacted children for the rest of their lives, determining which jobs they could hold, where they could live, and, importantly, the opportunities available to future generations. Even today, isolated communities are still part of American society and segregated schools are not just a feature of the past. This note will explore the history of housing segregation, including exclusionary zoning ordinances, private real estate tactics, and federal programs that created modern segregated neighborhoods and communities. [205] EXCLUSIONARY ZONING, SCHOOL SEGREGATION, AND HOUSING SEGREGATION 206 HASTINGS CONSTITUTIONAL LAW QUARTERLY Vol. 48:1 This note will then examine California’s history of school segregation, including analyzing the connection between the passage of Proposition 13 and greater disparity within California school districts. Next, it will investigate a recent desegregation case, People ex rel. Becerra v. Sausalito Marin City School District, where the California Attorney General ordered the Sausalito Marin City School District to desegregate. The note then delves into the history of Marin City and how the zoning ordinances, federal programs, and private real estate tactics purposely separated Marin City from the rest of the county and culminated in the Attorney General’s desegregation order. Lastly, this note will explore solutions to resolve housing segregation in communities like Marin City. I. The Beginning of Exclusionary Zoning and Landmark Zoning Decisions Toward the end of the 19th century, many municipalities in the United States enacted zoning ordinances to separate white residents from nonwhite residents.1 The earliest zoning ordinances were relatively benign height regulations, but after a short period of time, cities began enacting zoning ordinances for other purposes.2 For example, Los Angeles adopted the nation’s first zoning ordinance to protect residential areas from industrial nuisances.3 Many state legislatures upheld zoning ordinances, citing the need to plan for the general welfare of a community under local control.4 As zoning ordinances gained popularity, municipalities began using ordinances to further racial segregation. As early as 1916, the Supreme Court struck down a local ordinance prohibiting the sale of property to a Black person in Buchanan v. Warley.5 In Buchanan, the zoning ordinance in question “made it unlawful for any colored person to move into and occupy” a residence on the same block where a majority of the residences were occupied by white people.6 The state attempted to justify its action as a valid use of state police power, but the Court held that the ordinance was 7 in direct violation of the Fourteenth Amendment. 1. Eli Moore et al, Race Roots and Place: A History of Racially Exclusionary Housing in the San Francisco Bay Area, HAAS INST. FOR A FAIR AND INCLUSIVE SOC’Y 29 (Oct. 1, 2019), https://escholarship.org/content/qt2j08r197/qt2j08r197_noSplash_eecbec55456f21df8cb302a7b2 92855a.pdf?t=qc30qt. 2. CHRISTOPHER SILVER, The Racial Origins of Zoning in American Cities from URBAN PLANNING AND THE AFRICAN-AMERICAN COMMUNITY: IN THE SHADOWS 23 (June Manning Thomas et al. eds., 1997). 3. Id. 4. Paul E. King, Exclusionary Zoning and Open Housing: A Brief Judicial History, 68 GEOGRAPHICAL REV. 4, 460 (1978). 5. Buchanan v. Warley, 245 U.S. 60, 82 (1916). 6. Buchanan, 245 U.S. at 70–71. 7. SILVER, supra note 2, at 25. EXCLUSIONARY ZONING, SCHOOL SEGREGATION, AND HOUSING SEGREGATION Fall 2020 EXCLUSIONARY ZONING, SCHOOL SEGREGATION 207 Despite the Supreme Court’s holding in Buchanan, local municipalities continued to draft ordinances segregating on the basis of race.8 Racially restrictive zoning began in the South as a “social control mechanism for Blacks and other ‘undesirables.’”9 Racial zoning practices in Northern and Western cities functioned as a response to the Great Migration, where southern Blacks arrived in Northern and Western cities in great numbers in search of job opportunities and to escape legally enforced Jim Crow discrimination and persecution in the South.10 After Buchanan, cities fashioned legally defensible racial zoning systems by using “professional planners to prepare racial zoning plans and to marshal the entire planning process to create the completely separate Black community.”11 The Supreme Court’s decision in Village of Euclid v. Ambler Realty Corporation in 1926 upheld municipal zoning as a valid form of state police power.12 Following this decision, zoning ordinances were institutionalized by municipalities throughout the nation, thereby giving municipalities carte blanche to use zoning in an exclusionary manner under the guise of “local control.”13 This led to an increased use of exclusionary zoning measures throughout the nation as a way to segregate individuals on the basis of race.14 Following World War II, “the number of conflicts and legal battles” surrounding zoning in suburban areas increased, but these ordinances were generally upheld by state courts.15 Federal courts in the second part of the 20th century largely avoided local zoning cases but when they did accept cases where “blatant racial discrimination” was present, the housing advocates typically prevailed.16 However, in cases where plaintiffs did not cite racial discrimination, the courts were not always sympathetic to the issue.17 This meant that courts did not always strike down zoning regulations where the plaintiffs did not cite explicit racial discrimination. Federal courts were careful not to disrupt the balance struck by federalism by allowing states to enact zoning regulations to provide for the well-being of their citizens, and only took an affirmative step when there was a case of clear racial discrimination. 8. Id. 9. Id. 10. See id.; see also Moore, supra note 1, at 25. 11. See SILVER, supra note 2, at 29. 12. Village of Euclid v. Ambler Realty Co., 272 U.S. 365, 397 (1926). 13. See King, supra note 4, at 461–62. 14. See id. at 460–62; see SILVER, supra note 2 at 23. 15. King, supra note 4, at 462. 16. Id. at 465; see Dailey v. City of Lawton, 296 F. Supp. 266 (W.D. Okla. 1969); see also S. Alameda Spanish Speaking Org. v. City of Union City, 424 F.2d 291 (9th Cir. 1970); see also Kennedy Park Homes Ass’n v. City of Lackawanna, 436 F.2d 108 (2d Cir. 1970). 17. See King, supra note 4, at 465; see James v. Valtierra, 402 U.S. 137 (1971) (holding that a California referendum for low-income housing did not violate California Constitution because income-based programs did not present blatant racism as other cases). EXCLUSIONARY ZONING, SCHOOL SEGREGATION, AND HOUSING SEGREGATION 208 HASTINGS CONSTITUTIONAL LAW QUARTERLY Vol. 48:1 II. California’s Exclusionary Zoning Efforts The roots of modern zoning can be traced to Berkeley, California.18 Real estate developers pushed local governments to create zoning laws to “institutionalize the restrictions” that had been enforced through restrictive