The Strength in Diversity Act is back for the 117th Congress, sponsored in the House by Committee on Education & Labor Chairman Rep. Bobby Scott (VA-03) and Rep. Mondaire Jones (NY-17). Passed in the House by a bipartisan vote last Congress, we will be working hard to see it get through the Senate this year and then signed by the President.

Stay tuned for ways to support and engage!

Calls for an increased focus on equity and antiracism continue to dominate key policy debates. As the discourse evolves, there is increased understanding and awareness of the need to eliminate seemingly neutral policies and practices that systemically undergird segregation and the inequitable distribution of resources and opportunity. This month, we’re sharing several recent articles that examine issues of exclusionary zoning in housing. Exclusionary zoning in housing often takes the form of policies and practices in land use and building codes that restrict certain types of housing and building use in communities. These policies and practices are major drivers for school segregation, which is often a key incentive for the perpetuation of it. 

America’s Racist Housing Rules Really Can be Fixed by Jerusalem Demsas (Vox, Feb. 17) - “I grew up in Maryland, in a town not far from Takoma Park, and I can promise you that it’s one of the most outwardly progressive places I’ve ever been. Many of these suburbanites haven’t made the connection between their personal views on racial, social, and economic justice and the zoning policies that dictate who can and cannot live in their neighborhoods.”

Connecticut Must Reform its Exclusionary Zone Laws by Dice Oh (CT Mirror, Feb. 1) - “These restrictions make new housing development either outright illegal or prohibitively expensive, ensuring that wealthy communities can exclude many who can’t afford a large single-family detached home with a yard. If denser living arrangements were allowed (e.g., fourplexes or apartments), multiple families of lesser means could effectively pool their resources to afford living on a plot of land that could otherwise house only one family.”

Subsidized Housing and School Segregation: Examining the Relationship between Federally Subsidized Affordable Housing and Racial and Economic Isolation in Schools by Jennifer Jellison Holme, Erica Frankenberg, Joanna Sanchez, Kendra Taylor, and Sarah De La Garza (Education Policy Analysis Archives, Nov. 9, 2020) - “Our results illustrate that public housing and Low-Income Housing Tax Credit housing developments are zoned to racially and economically isolated schools and that developments are associated with especially high levels of economic and racial isolation for Black and Latinx students. We conclude by discussing implications for housing and education policy to ameliorate these patterns.”

Report: Single-Family Zoning Dominates Bay Area Housing, Presenting Barrier to Integration (Othering & Belonging Institute, Aug. 11, 2020) - "The prevalence and over-abundance of this type of restrictive zoning is a direct impediment to the development of affordable housing and certain types of housing, including dense, multi-family housing, that make integration feasible and segregation more difficult to sustain. Without addressing this problem, an integration agenda is out of reach."