Posts tagged Race
Rewriting Racial Equality: The State of Civil Rights Law under Trump
Rewriting Racial Equality: The State of Civil Rights Law under Trump

Rewriting Racial Inequality: The State of Civil Rights Law under Trump documents the second Trump administration’s blueprint for radically transforming how the federal government views and enforces civil rights. The new legal order taking shape upends Reconstruction-era understandings of equal protection and related federal statutes while recasting the modern Civil Rights Movement as a defense against anti-white race discrimination. Our close and comprehensive examination of executive orders, enforcement activity and litigation since January 20, 2025, organizes the Trump administration’s approach into four pillars: (1) Redefining racial discrimination, (2) Dismantling the institutional framework for government support of racial equity and cancelling existing investigations, (3) Enforcing policy priorities through defunding and fining institutions, and (4) Encouraging racial gerrymandering of congressional districts in the guise of political gerrymandering.

Under this framework, we explore how the Trump administration has built on prior conservative doctrinal developments in civil rights law to:

  • Offer a new interpretation of anti-discrimination based solely on an exaggerated application of Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard that paints Black and brown people as the grantees of unmeritocratic preference and white people as the victims of discrimination;

  • Fire tens of thousands of federal employees and shuttered or incapacitated most federal agencies, offices, and programs focused on civil rights or equity;

  • Halt or cancel thousands of civil rights investigations, particularly claims of race discrimination, while prioritizing and opening new investigations for discrimination against white people and antisemitism;

  • Terminate, condition or freeze hundreds of billions of dollars in funding to states, universities, rural and low-income schools, nonprofits supporting vulnerable populations, groundbreaking scientific research, and programs explicitly created by Congress, all because they were identified as DEI-related and thus no longer effectuated Trump’s priorities; 

  • Present an erroneous legal finding of voter discrimination in order to force a hesitant state legislature to redistrict, resulting in a racial gerrymander.  

As a result, affected individuals, states, organizations, law firms and universities either sought resolution with the administration, hoping to avoid the public and financial costs of litigation, or fought the administration in court. Hundreds of challenges are ongoing in federal district courts throughout the country, with some claims successful in winning back their positions, grants, or constitutional protections, while others, denied relief often because of the Supreme Court, face the long-haul litigation battle. We chronicle these struggles for policymakers, researchers, students and the public at large.

The societal implications of these developments include the stereotyping of Black identity and the abandonment of racial remediation efforts; turmoil in the federal courts and a lack of consistent legal standards; a diminished federal rights infrastructure; and more culture war.

Rewriting Racial Inequality offers a rare focus on issues of racial equality as a fundamental interest, anti-Black racism and the Trump administration’s civil rights playbook at the crossroads of antidiscrimination law. This critical evaluation is intended as a resource and will be updated in six months.

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ReportRutgers CLiMEInequality, Civil Rights Initiative, Race
Land Grant Exceptionalism: Reclaiming Access & Equity in Admissions from Equal Protection’s Blind Spot
Land Grant Exceptionalism: Reclaiming Access & Equity in Admissions from Equal Protection’s Blind Spot

The Supreme Court’s decision in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard reshaped the constitutional landscape of higher education while leaving important questions of educational mission unanswered. By undermining diversity as a compelling interest under strict scrutiny judicial review, the Court dismantled the decades-long framework under which universities adopted admissions practices in pursuit of self-defined institutional goals. That model may fit elite private institutions like Harvard or UNC, but it fails to capture the full spectrum of American higher education.

This brief proposes that land-grant universities possess a distinct institutional interest in cultivating a diverse student body. This interest is grounded in their statutory mission, the historical purpose of the Morrill Acts, and the judicial deference traditionally afforded to congressional mandates that create and continue to govern land-grant institutions.

SFFA’s reasoning may be too rigid to accommodate the genuine diversity of institutional missions in American higher education. Recognizing this doctrinal blind spot is only the beginning of a broader scholarly conversation.

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ReferenceRutgers CLiMEStudent Research, Civil Rights Initiative, Race
Corporate Investors in Single Family Homes in Philadelphia
Corporate Investors in Single Family Homes in Philadelphia

This report explores investor activity in Philadelphia, where corporate buyers are most active in parts of the city which are predominantly home to Black and Hispanic residents in West, North and Northeast Philadelphia. For this report, CLiME teamed up with the Reinvestment Fund and Housing Initiative at Penn, who are based in Philadelphia.

We identify the largest investors who are buying up the most single family homes, and who operate primarily as large-scale corporate landlords. The companies doing the purchasing changed during the pandemic, shifting from more local investors to those entering the market already active in other places.

We analyzed purchases of residential buildings before and during the pandemic, looking at sheriff sales, rental licensing, renovation permits, evictions, and code violations to determine the impact of these pur­chases on Philadelphia housing markets. We found that:

  • Larger corporate landlords were much more likely to evict tenants than smaller investors.

  • Larger in­vestors more often took out permits to alter or improve their properties than smaller inves­tors.

  • Investors large and small were much more likely to amass code violations than individual homebuyers

  • The largest corporate investors obtained rental licenses on 67% of the properties they acquired, compared to just 43% among smaller investors

  • The character of the highest-volume investors changed with the pandemic. From 2017 through 2019, eight of the top ten largest investors by volume were locally based. From 2020 through 2022, the four highest volume investors were either new to Philadelphia or had scaled up dramatically from the earlier period.

Philadelphia is a city with a proud legacy of affordable homeownership opportunities and an expanding set of tenant protec­tions. In recent years, concerns about the impact of corporate investors purchasing single fam­ily homes in the city have grown, even as there is an evident need for capital investment in its aging housing stock. This report aims to inform policy interventions to promote stable neigh­borhoods, affordability, and high-quality housing options for all Philadelphians.

A few years ago, CLiME published Who Owns Newark? which showed that corporations were buying half of all 1-4 unit homes in the city. We continue to investigate and explore these issues throughout the region.

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ReportRutgers CLiMEHousing, Race, Inequality
The 'Other' Cities: Migration and Gentrification in Jersey City, Newark and Paterson, New Jersey
The 'Other' Cities: Migration and Gentrification in Jersey City, Newark and Paterson, New Jersey

The Other Cities: Migration and Gentrification in Jersey City, Newark and Paterson describes housing trends and neighborhood transitions in three mid-sized North Jersey cities that elude conventional descriptions of gentrification. All three have experienced population growth, increased immigration, loss of Black residents and a persistent lack of housing affordability. We describe their particular dynamics three ways: "Bedroom City", "Jobless Gentrification" and "Migrant Metro." Jersey City is the “Bedroom City” where population growth and higher prices are associated with its proximity to jobs across the Hudson River in New York City. Newark is in the midst of “Jobless Gentrification” where investment in expensive market-rate new housing and investor-led renovations raise prices without the corresponding job growth seen in traditional gentrification. Paterson is the “Migrant Metro”, a species of municipalities that have become mosaics of working-class immigration whose density alone—not jobs or new housing—has intensified a lack of affordability. These characteristics distinguish them from traditionally gentrifying cities, but their traits are important bellwethers of urban life across the U.S.

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ReportRutgers CLiMERace, Housing, Gentrification
DEI and Public Universities: Guideposts for a New Era
DEI and Public Universities: Guideposts for a New Era

This report analyzes the compliance challenges public universities face since the issuance of several executive orders that threaten investigation and defunding for a broad range of activities associated with “DEI” and other undefined terms. In Part I, we examine the language of the federal directives in light of universities’ historic obligations and current circumstances. Many institutions have so far chosen some version of either pre-emptive obedience, wait-and-see inaction or offensive defiance. We suggest that institutions will face some combination of four possible courses of action: continue to obey civil rights law, anticipate new standards, manage risks and defend current practices.

Schools’ circumstances are not uniform. Yet all must conform to current legal standards, which are often inconsistent with the new federal policy directives. To clarify, this report sets out the existing state of the law since Students for Fair Admissions, including the scope and limitations of that Supreme Court decision, the continued allowance of race-neutral means to achieve racially diverse learning environments and the applicable tests used by the Court under Title VI. Since many organizations and institutions have already challenged the federal administration in court, we conclude with an analysis of the legal defenses—mostly on First Amendment grounds—that have so far succeeded in securing injunctions against certain banned practices. Part II of this report sets out best practices universities across the United States have used to stay in compliance with civil rights law yet still maintain environments that are diverse, inclusive and consistent with equitable principles.

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ReportRutgers CLiMEInequality, Civil Rights Initiative, Race
Reimagining Criminal Justice: Leveraging Federal Grants to Foster Community-Based Criminal Justice Programs
Reimagining Criminal Justice: Leveraging Federal Grants to Foster Community-Based Criminal Justice Programs

Discussions about Vice President Kamala’ Harris’ record as a progressive prosecutor have offered an opportunity to consider what the next president could do to help spur equitable criminal justice reform. While recognizing that policing is largely a local endeavor, it is important to identify how the next president can leverage existing federal programs to contribute to larger criminal justice reform and equity efforts. In this paper we propose that the next administration restructure the Justice Assistance Grants (JAG) and Community-Oriented Policing Services (COPS) grants in order to support community-based criminal justice programs (CCJP) to achieve equitable criminal justice reform. These programs, which emphasize partnerships between law enforcement, prosecutors, and non-law enforcement organizations, aim to reduce crime and recidivism through rehabilitation, mental health services, and social support. The proposal we offer draws inspiration from Vice President Kamala Harris’s "Back on Track" program, which successfully helped first-time nonviolent offenders avoid incarceration through alternative sentencing that focuses on rehabilitation. The paper argues that similar programs, if federally supported, could help contribute to equitable criminal justice reform by fostering trust between law enforcement and communities, reducing police brutality while also preventing crime and recidivism.

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Publication, ReportRutgers CLiMEInequality, Race, Civil Rights Initiative
Who Owns Newark? Transferring Wealth from Newark Homeowners to Corporate Buyers
Who Owns Newark? Transferring Wealth from Newark Homeowners to Corporate Buyers

This report shows that the national trend in investor buying of 1-4 unit homes in predominantly Black neighborhoods is most acute in Newark, New Jersey where almost half of all real estate sales were made by institutional buyers. The trend grew out of the foreclosure crisis that wiped out significant middle-class wealth in particular Newark neighborhoods. Those neighborhoods became the targets of investors seeking passive returns from rents. Those largely anonymous outside companies now set neighborhood housing markets on terms that primarily benefit their investors.

While CLiME detected no illegal activity, the threats to Newarkers and government policy goals are significant. They include rapidly rising rents, decreased homeownership, higher barriers to affordable housing production goals, renter displacement and less stable communities. Sadly, this reality continues a long pattern of economic threats to predominantly Black and increasingly Latino neighborhoods in a state whose communities are among the most segregated in the country. From racial exclusion to predatory lending, from foreclosure to the extraction of rents, Newark’s experience demonstrates what can happen when local economies ignore equity.

CLiME’s analysis documents a dramatic increase in institutional investor activity in Newark’s residential market starting around 2013. As of 2020, almost half of all Newark’s residential sales were to institutional buyers.

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PublicationRutgers CLiMEHousing, Economic Development, Gentrification, Inequality, Poverty, Race
Brutality by Design: Understanding Police Misconduct as Structural Inequality
Brutality by Design: Understanding Police Misconduct as Structural Inequality

This is a structural analysis of police brutality, primarily the exercise of lethal force against unarmed persons, following the 2020 summer of racial reckoning when millions braved a virulent pandemic to protest the lack of legal and institutional accountability that predictably follows the police killings of unarmed black people. A consistent lack of accountability is what binds the individual acts to a design structure in which evidence clearly shows that black bodies are subordinated to some other systemic goal. We do not identify that goal, but we do evaluate the structure that produces predictable outcomes. Our aim is to set out much of the reform landscape—the issues, approaches and proposals from law to policy—and to evaluate them on structural grounds.

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PublicationRutgers CLiMERace, Inequality
Homes Beyond Reach: An Assessment and Gap Analysis of Newark's Affordable Rental Stock
Homes Beyond Reach: An Assessment and Gap Analysis of Newark's Affordable Rental Stock

CLiME conducted an affordability and gap analysis of Newark's housing stock and found a severe gap in low-rent units. We estimate that the City needs an additional 16,234 units renting for about $750 per month to meet residents' existing needs.

CLiME’s approach to assessing affordability is rooted in the local context. We calculate a Newark Median Affordable Rent (NMAR) of $763 per month. This is $330 less than Newark’s median market rent, and more than $600 less than Fair Market Rent (FMR), created by the Department of Housing and Urban Development. We also develop a methodological innovation to integrate the City’s rental housing subsidies into the affordability analysis. This procedure, the first of its kind as far as we know, provides a much closer picture of affordability in a City where at least 28% of all units are subsidized.

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ReportRutgers CLiMEHousing, Poverty, Race, Gentrification, Inequality
Pandemic Remedies
Pandemic Remedies

In this first installment of a faculty essay series, CLiME asked Rutgers professors affiliated with the center to provide brief analysis on some of the many institutional crises exacerbated by the Coronavirus pandemic and to offer solutions. Law Professor Rachel Godsil discuses the loss of public revenues to struggling communities and offers a pipeline to millions. Political Scientist Domingo Morel reveals the growing crisis in public pension fund commitments and a possible path to meeting those obligations. Law Professor Laura Cohen takes readers inside juvenile justice to show the increased risk of viral infection incarcerated youth face as well as the steps advocates are taking on their behalf. Director David Troutt looks into the future to interrogate claims that “we are all in this together” and offers an alternative set of policy priorities we would pursue if mutuality really mattered.

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ReportRutgers CLiMEInequality, Housing, Race
Conference Brief - Psychological Trauma and Schools: How Systems Respond to the Traumas of Young Lives
Conference Brief - Psychological Trauma and Schools: How Systems Respond to the Traumas of Young Lives

On May 5, 2017, the Rutgers Center on Law, Inequality and Metropolitan Equity (CLiME) hosted an interdisciplinary all-day conference on the institutional responsibility of schools in responding to childhood psychological trauma, particularly in low-SES communities where early life trauma exposure is disturbingly ubiquitous. The conference brought together a group of panelists and audience members from diverse fields related to childhood trauma.

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ReportGuest UserInequality, Poverty, Race, Trauma
Disparities in Access to Prenatal Care: Perpetuation of Poverty and Inequality through the Healthcare System
Disparities in Access to Prenatal Care: Perpetuation of Poverty and Inequality through the Healthcare System

This analysis addresses the disparity in prenatal health outcomes between the City of Paterson and Wayne Township in New Jersey. It guides the reader through the experiences of a hypothetical pregnant woman living in Paterson to examine the institutional and non-institutional factors that prevent this pregnant woman, and others like her, from accessing appropriate prenatal care. This paper also discusses the relationship between the inability to access proper prenatal care and the perpetuation …

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ArticleGuest UserPoverty, Race, Inequality
Trapped in Tragedies: Childhood Trauma, Spatial Inequality and Law
Trapped in Tragedies: Childhood Trauma, Spatial Inequality and Law

Each year, psychological trauma arising from community and domestic violence, abuse and neglect brings profound psychological, physiological and academic harm to millions of American children, disproportionately poor children of color. This Article represents the first comprehensive legal analysis of the causes of and remedies for a crisis that can have lifelong and epigenetic consequences. Using civil rights and local government law, it argues that children’s reactions to complex trauma represent the natural symptomatology of severe structural inequality—legally …

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PaperGuest UserGentrification, Inequality, Poverty, Race, Trauma
As Other Districts Grapple With Segregation, This One Makes Integration Work

MORRISTOWN, N.J. — When the morning rush begins at Alexander Hamilton Elementary School here, students lugging oversize backpacks and fluorescent-colored lunchboxes emerge from the school buses that roll in, one after another, for 15 minutes. By the time it ends, children from some of this area’s most privileged enclaves, and from some of its poorest, file through the front doors to begin their day together.

The Morris School District was created in 1971, after a state court decision led to the merger of two Northern New Jersey communities — the mostly white suburbs of Morris Township, and the racially mixed urban hub of Morristown — into one school district for the purpose of maintaining racial and economic balance.

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ArticleRutgers CLiMEInequality, Race, Housing
New Data Highlights Vast and Persistent Racial Inequities in Who Experiences Poverty in America

Already the majority of children under five years old in the United States are children of color. By the end of this decade, the majority of people under 18 years old will be of color, and by 2044, our nation will be majority people of color. This growing diversity is an asset, but only if everyone is able to access the opportunities they need to thrive. Poverty is a tremendous barrier to economic and social inclusion and new data added to the National Equity Atlas highlights the vast and persistent racial inequities in who experiences poverty in America.

On June 28, we added a poverty indicator to the Atlas, including breakdowns at three thresholds: 100 percent, 150 percent, and 200 percent of the federal poverty line. We also added an age breakdown to the new poverty indicator, in response to user requests for child poverty data, which allows you to look at poverty rates across different age groups including the population under 5 and 18 years old as well as those 18 to 24, 25 to 64, and 65 and over.

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ReportRutgers CLiMERace, Inequality, Poverty
U.S. Concentrated Poverty In The Wake Of The Great Recession

The Great Recession may have ended in 2009, but despite the subsequent jobs rebound and declining unemployment rate, the number of people living below the federal poverty line in the United States remains stuck at recession-era record levels.

The rapid growth of the nation’s poor population during the 2000s also coincided with significant shifts in the geography of American poverty. Poverty spread beyond its historic urban and rural locales, rising rapidly in smaller metropolitan areas and making the nation’s suburbs home to the largest and fastest-growing poor population in the country. Yet, even as poverty spread to touch more people and places, it became more concentrated in distressed and disadvantaged areas.

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ReportRutgers CLiMEPoverty, Race
Attitudes Toward Exploited Cities Helped Poison Flint

"Flint is one of the extreme examples of how our country has allowed geographic divisions by race and income to result in reverse–Robin Hood exploitation of those with the least power.

We’ve used free trade agreements, race-to-the-bottom economic development poaching, and inconsistent union rules to allow corporations to make a fortune off of cities like Flint and then pack up and leave for cheaper workers.

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ArticleRutgers CLiMEInequality, Race
De-Exoticizing Ghetto Poverty: On the Ethics of Representation in Urban Ethnography

INTRO: To write an ethnography about poor urban people is to risk courting controversy. While all ethnographers face questions about how well they knew their site or how much their stories can be trusted, the tone and content of those questions typically remain within the bounds of collegial discourse. Ethnographers of poor minorities have incited distinct passion and at times acrimony, inspiring accusations of stereotyping, misrepresentation, sensationalism, and even cashing in on the problems of the poor (Fischer 2014; see Boelen 1992; Reed 1994; Wacquant 2002; Jones 2010; Betts 2014; Rios 2015).

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PaperRutgers CLiMEPoverty, Inequality, Race
Architecture of Segregation: Civil Unrest, the Concentration of Poverty, and Public Policy

Over the past year, scenes of civil unrest have played out in the deteriorating inner-ring suburb of Ferguson and the traditional urban ghetto of inner-city Baltimore. The proximate cause of these conflicts has been brutal interactions between police and unarmed black men, leading to protests that include violent confrontations with police, but no single incident can explain the full extent of the protesters’ rage and frustration. The riots and protests—which have occurred in racially-segregated, high-poverty neighborhoods, bringing back images of the “long, hot summers” of the 1960s—have sparked a national conversation about race, violence, and policing that is long overdue.

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ReportRutgers CLiMEPoverty, Race, Housing, Inequality