Abstract
This Article explores recent applications and framing of municipal reparatory housing policies and assesses equal protection challenges, including specific discussion of an emerging case in Evanston, Illinois. Because of recent changes to the Supreme Court’s approach to applying strict scrutiny in equal protection challenges of race-conscious policies as reflected in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, race-based applications of reparations have been criticized as dead on arrival. However, this Article finds that housing-related reparatory policies are dissimilar from affirmative action admissions policies in several ways relevant to the Court’s application of strict scrutiny. Housing reparations policies are more in line with historical reparations policies that have withstood strict scrutiny, and they thus represent one comparatively promising avenue through which reparations may yet be achieved. Finally, this Article anchors these findings in possible applications of reparatory policy orientations in housing, connecting existing failures and challenges in housing policy with the myriad possibilities of a reparatory policy orientation.
First Page
243
Recommended Citation
Lisa L. Owens,
An Argument for Housing Reparations,
77
Me. L. Rev.
243
(2025).
Available at:
https://digitalcommons.mainelaw.maine.edu/mlr/vol77/iss2/6