Supreme Court Expands Fair Housing Rights
The Supreme Court's expansion of fair housing rights marks a significant development in the fight against racial discrimination in housing in the United States. On June 17, 1968, the Court ruled in a landmark case, Jones v. Mayer, that the Civil Rights Act of 1866 prohibits racial discrimination in property transactions, reinforcing the protections intended by the 13th Amendment. This decision came shortly after the Civil Rights Act of 1968 sought to address housing discrimination but was seen by some as inadequate. The ruling clarified that individuals have the right to buy or rent property regardless of race, extending beyond federally insured housing to include private transactions. Justice Potter Stewart emphasized that true freedom must encompass the ability to access housing on equal terms as white citizens. This ruling not only strengthened existing fair housing laws but also underscored the enduring impact of historical legislation aimed at combating racial inequality. Overall, the expansion of fair housing rights reflects ongoing efforts to achieve equality and justice in the realm of housing for all citizens.
Supreme Court Expands Fair Housing Rights
The Supreme Court Expands Fair Housing Rights
On April 11, 1968, the Civil Rights Act of 1968, signed by President Lyndon B. Johnson, became effective. It included fair housing provisions, although concern was voiced that they fell short of entirely condemning racial discrimination in housing. A little more than two months later, on June 17, 1968, the United States Supreme Court went beyond the 1968 statute. In a 7 to 2 decision, the Court upheld the validity of a sweeping 102-year-old law that specifically forbade racial discrimination in selling or renting any kind of property.
The almost forgotten law, dating from 1866 and invoked once in 1903 in the United States v. Morris, had been promulgated to strengthen the effectiveness of the 13th Amendment (1865), which states that “neither slavery nor involuntary servitude shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.” The Civil Rights Act of 1866 had explicitly provided “that all…citizens of the United States…of every race and color, without regard to any previous condition of slavery…shall have the same right, in every State and Territory in the United States…to inherit, purchase, lease, sell, hold, and convey real and personal property…as is enjoyed by white citizens.…”
Most of the handful of lawyers aware of the existence of the Reconstruction era law generally assumed that it had aimed merely at assuring the rights of former slaves to possess property. In 1966, however, lawyers for the National Committee Against Discrimination in Housing attempted, by resurrecting the 1866 statute, to get around the longstanding failure of the United States Congress to enact fair housing provisions. In the case of Jones v. Mayer, they represented Joseph Lee Jones, an African American bail bondsman in St. Louis and his white wife, Barbara Jo, who had not been allowed to purchase a home in a St. Louis development because her husband was black. The case, which the interracial couple had initiated on September 2, 1965, was dismissed by the federal trial court and then by the Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, both of which ruled that neither the 1866 statute nor for that matter the Constitution forbids racial discrimination in property transactions by private owners.
The Supreme Court's 1968 ruling on the side of the Joneses reached beyond the less sweeping fair housing provisions (intended by January 1, 1970, to cover about 80 percent of all housing sold or rented in the country) that had been enacted by Congress in the Civil Rights Act of 1968. That legislation immediately banned discrimination in the sale or rental of 900,000 federally-insured housing units; then by January 1, 1969, in 19.8 million multifamily housing units; and thirdly, by January 1, 1970, in 31.3 million single-family houses where sale or rental was handled by a broker.
According to the 1866 law, racial discrimination is prohibited even in real estate transactions involving single-family homes sold or rented privately by their owners without a broker and also in multifamily units. Justice Potter Stewart summed up the majority opinion as follows:
At the very least, the freedom that Congress is empowered to secure under the Thirteenth Amendment includes the freedom to buy whatever a white man can buy, the right to live wherever a white man can live. If Congress cannot say that being a free man means at least this much, then the Thirteenth Amendment made a promise the Nation cannot keep.