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UC Santa Cruz UC Santa Cruz Electronic Theses and Dissertations Title The National Association of REALTORS® and the Fair Housing Mandate, 1961-1991 Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/2z64m8g6 Author Burke, Jennifer Publication Date 2016 License https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ 4.0 Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA SANTA CRUZ THE NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS® AND THE FAIR HOUSING MANDATE, 1961-1991 A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in SOCIOLOGY by Jennifer L. Burke June 2016 The Dissertation of Jennifer L. Burke is approved: __________________________________ Professor Candace West, Chair __________________________________ Professor Emeritus Walter Goldfrank __________________________________ Professor Emeritus Craig Reinarman ______________________________ Tyrus Miller Vice Provost and Dean of Students Copyright © by Jennifer L. Burke 2016 TABLE OF CONTENTS List of Figures . v List of Tables and Charts . vi Abstract . vii Acknowledgements . ix Introduction . 1 Chapter One . 19 Methodology Chapter Two . 38 The National Association of Real Estate Boards’ Campaign Against Forced Housing Chapter Three . 106 The Realtors’ Lobby Federal Fair Housing Law, 1966-1968 Chapter Four . .168 Fighting for Fairness: Internal Dissent on Fair Housing Chapter Five . 190 Becoming the Fair, Becoming the National Association of REALTORS® Chapter Six . 243 The Realtors Steer Fair Housing Law, 1973-1980 Chapter Seven . 293 The Fair Housing Initiatives Program iii Chapter Eight . 333 Building Fair Housing Equity and the REALTOR® Brand, 1980-1991 Chapter Nine . 388 Conclusion References . 403 iv LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1 Property Owners’ Bill of Rights political advertisement, 1963 47 Figure 2 Property Owners’ Bill of Rights political advertisement, 1963 48 Figure 3 Property Owners’ Bill of Rights activities in New Mexico, 1966 53 Figure 4 NAREB Forced Housing Kit, 1964 65 Figure 5 Students reading about Title IV at the Texas Real Estate Association 115 Figure 6 “To Every Home Owner” political advertisement, 1966 118 Figure 7 Senator Everett Dirksen’s form letter on civil rights, 1968 155 Figure 8 NAREB sample press release on forced housing, page 1, 1968 157 Figure 9 NAREB sample press release on forced housing, page 2, 1968 158 Figure 10 Sample news article copied directly from NAREB press release, 1968 161 Figure 11 California Realtors for Fair Housing political advertisement, 1963 180 Figure 12 NAR publicizing the Affirmative Marketing Agreement, 1976 233 Figure 13 Fair Housing Month student poster 373 Figure 14 Greater Greensboro Board of Realtors Fair Housing Month 377 advertisement Figure 15 Rockford Board of Realtors Fair Housing Month advertisement 386 Figure 16 Increase in National Association of REALTORS® 394 membership, 1961-1991 v LIST OF TABLES AND CHARTS Table 1 Archives consulted for dissertation research 28 Table 2 Database and key term results for dissertation research 33 Table 3 Early state fair housing laws 40 Table 4 “To Every Home Owner” political advertisement appearances 119 Table 5 NAREB’s arguments against fair housing during their 1966 and 1967 Congressional lobbying 149 Table 6 Robert C. Weaver’s analysis of NAR’s Affirmative Marketing Agreement with HUD, 1976 224 Chart 1 Increase in NAREB/NAR membership, 1961-1991 394 vi ABSTRACT The National Association of REALTORS® and the Fair Housing Mandate, 1961-1991 by Jennifer L. Burke This dissertation examines how the country’s largest real estate trade group negotiated the mandate for fair housing in the latter half of the twentieth century. I ask, how has the Realtor trade group informed the nation’s fair housing laws and policies since 1961? To answer this question, I chronicle the National Association of Real Estate Boards’ initial opposition to local and federal fair housing laws in the 1960s and then trace how the organization—rebranded as the National Association of REALTORS®—seemingly transformed its position on fair housing in the post-civil rights decades. Inspired by sociological, historical, and urban studies scholarship that has considered real estate boards as powerful social organizations, this dissertation illustrates how Realtors brokered fairness in the post-civil rights housing market. Based upon my archival research on the trade group’s historical records, government documents, and newspaper accounts, I demonstrate how the Realtors steered the size, scope, and efficacy of the nation’s fair housing environment for three decades. This historical case study revises explanations for the weakness of federal fair housing law by emphasizing how Title VIII’s anemia was purposefully maintained by the National vii Association of REALTORS® and their political lobby. The Realtors, however, did not completely reject fair housing. I show that while the trade group exhibited a sustained ideological discord with government regulation and oversight of discrimination in the private residential housing market, its contemporary iteration nonetheless popularized the social directive for fair housing in order to rebrand itself as a fair and equitable housing servicer. viii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to thank the enormous help provided by the Sociology Department and my dissertation committee (Walter Goldfrank, Craig Reinarman, and Candace West). The first time I saw Candace West, she came into the campus-wide graduate student orientation late, slammed her books down, and started reading her lecture notes before a large hall packed full of startled new graduate students. Candace’s memorable introduction on how not to teach would be the first of many lessons I would learn from her. Thank you, Candace for all of the time you’ve spent helping me be a better writer. More personally, her encouragement was invaluable during my graduate studies and pushing me to finish my dissertation. Wally Goldfrank is a herculean editor and advisor. I came to Wally with vastly different interests than his areas of expertise, but he nonetheless welcomed my work with open arms and valuable insight. Thank you so much, Wally, for responding to my work so quickly, never tiring of my need for counsel, and taking half-baked middle-of-the-night emails and turning them into productive guidance. I greatly appreciate you giving up some of your retirement time to help me with my studies. Craig Reinarman taught the first course I ever TAed for and set high expectations for a working relationship with professors. Craig is a devoted scholar and spirited lecturer; he can make a large lecture hall feel intimate with his engaging storytelling. I appreciate your contributions and involvement on my committee. Craig also gave me an opportunity to teach Social Inequality, which opened the door to my nascent teaching career. Thanks, Craig. ix I would also like to thank the amazing faculty and fellow grad students that I learned so much from. Although he wasn’t part of this final project, Michael Brown in the Politics Department was a valuable figure in helping draft my field statements. I’m continually inspired by Michael’s analytical framework on race and durable racial inequality and it is ingrained within my sociological imagination forever. I enjoyed so much the analytical work I got to do in Marilyn Westerkamp, Dana Takagi, Herman Gray, Vanita Seth, Carolyn Martin Shaw, and Andy Szasz’s graduate courses. While the intellectual work produced in those courses didn’t necessarily make its way into this last piece of my graduate career, I thoroughly enjoyed thinking about and engaging their course concepts. Thank you for providing such thoughtful and interesting graduate courses; it was evident to me that they were composed with excitement and it showed in every set of readings and class discussion. Pamela Roby and Melanie DuPuis also recommended me for teaching awards, which I didn’t realize the significance of until a future employer remarked on them. Thank you for the recognition. I hope that I can be as approachable and welcoming as Pam and as energetic as Melanie in teaching undergraduates. My Sociology classmates were also instrumental to my success in the program. John Moss, Shannon Williams, Mike King, Steve Nava, and Travis Williams--thank you all so much for your feedback on my field statements and M.A. thesis. I also enjoyed taking classes with Susy Zepeda, Derrick Jones, and Dan Narey and learned a lot from them. The research provided in this dissertation was compiled with the help of a number of people. I would like to thank the staff at the National Association of x REALTORS’® library who aided my research. Frederik Heller was my first and most important point of contact. He offered to arrive at work early after a major snow storm in order for me to have more time in the archive and I appreciate all of his help. In addition, Russ Carlson was a gracious host during my visit, and I appreciate all of the effort he put into securing sources in preparation for my visit. This dissertation would be categorically different without the help of these individuals and the National Association of REALTORS® for allowing generous access to their documents. E’toile Libbett, Allen Okomoto, Bill Motluck, and Jackie Simon told me about their participation in NAR and as REALTORS®. Although some of their interview data did not end up in the final draft, their stories helped me understand the complexity of NAR and distinguish between the organization’s official policy and how individual Realtors maneuvered and affected the organization’s directives on fair housing, equal opportunity, and diversity. Donald Deeley provided me with digitized images of the Philadelphia Board of Realtors’ archives from Temple University’s library, without which, Chapter Four of this dissertation would be significantly abridged. Kent Willis, former Executive Director of Housing Opportunities Made Equal, provided valuable answers in response to clarification questions over email. The research contained within this dissertation was compiled through the assistance from a number of academic librarians and archivists.