Daniel Costa of the Economic Policy Institute, in collaboration with the Chief Justice Earl Warren Institute on Law and Social Policy at the University of California School of Law, and with the U.C. Berkeley Haas Institute for a Fair and Inclusive Society, has submitted an amicus brief to the U.S. Supreme Court, explaining why evidence of “disparate impact” should be considered relevant in deciding discrimination claims under the Fair Housing Act. The brief argues that entrenched patterns of residential segregation, established in considerable part by government policy, structure the housing opportunities of African Americans to this day. In the case before the Court, a redevelopment project that displaces African Americans could violate the Fair Housing Act if provision is not made for the relocation of displaced residents into integrated middle class communities nearby.

A full list of amici appears at the end of the brief, including Richard Rothstein, Research Associate of the Economic Policy Institute and Senior Fellow at the Warren Institute; Daniel Costa, Director of Immigration Law and Policy Research at the Economic Policy Institute; Christopher Edley, Jr., Faculty Director of the Warren Institute; and John A. Powell and Stephen Menendian, Director and Assistant Director, respectively, of the Haas Institute.

Many distinguished scholars have joined the amicus group, including EPI President Lawrence Mishel, Elizabeth Anderson, John Brittain, Nancy Denton, James Kushner, Ira Katznelson, Myron Orfield, Jr., Gregory Squires, and others.