Few fights are more pivotal to ending systemic inequality than the fight for fair and stable housing. When Martin Luther King, Jr. launched a campaign to end slums in 1966, he connected the struggle to obtain decent housing with the need to end what he called slum schools, work, health care, and all forms of racial segregation. Today, fair housing remains the key to addressing deepening income inequality and forced displacement from our communities, as the long-lasting reach of discriminatory housing practices constantly shape who has access to quality education, health care, security, opportunity, and wealth.

Let’s break down why fair housing is critical to the fight for systemic equality.

Historic and ongoing segregation and housing discrimination in our country have prevented Black people and other people of color, women, LGBTQ people, families with children, people with disabilities, immigrants, and many more from living in affordable housing in communities that offer greater opportunity. Housing is a basic human right, and equal access to housing is a civil right guaranteed under our laws. To create a more just society, we must work to end housing policies and practices that disproportionately lock out marginalized communities from safe and stable housing. Fair housing means that all of us — regardless of our race, where we’re born, our gender, or whether we have a disability — have equal access to safe and stable housing.

Before new civil rights laws were adopted, it was commonplace for landlords and realtors to consider white, married men as the primary “deserving” candidates for housing leases and loans, intentionally denying housing to Black and immigrant families, unmarried couples, families with children, or women altogether. Federal, state, and local governments carried out a range of policies that increased segregation, including refusing to insure mortgages in Black neighborhoods (referred to as “redlining”) and funding development of suburban housing for white families.

American Civil Liberties Union

Reckoning with America's Racial Residential Segregation | American Civil Liberties Union

Housing has long been the site of discriminatory policies aimed at marginalizing Black and Brown people in America.

In response to the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Kerner Commission report warning Congress of a “separate and unequal” America, Congress passed the Fair Housing Act (FHA) in 1968. The law was aimed at curtailing widespread segregation and discrimination in housing, including when purchasing or renting a home, and established the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). Following improvements in the law, the Fair Housing Act now prohibits discrimination in housing on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, familial status, national origin, and disability.

Racial inequality is at the root of and continues to perpetuate housing injustice across communities. Black women face much higher rates of eviction than others, and the scarlet “E” on their records locks them out of better housing — along with the better schools and jobs that often accompany it. White people remain much more likely than their Black peers to be homeowners, even after accounting for factors like location and education. A white person who did not graduate high school is more likely to be a homeowner than a Black person with a college degree.

The Fair Housing Act has been deployed to end many explicitly discriminatory practices, but governments, housing providers, realtors, and others also perpetuated — and continue to perpetuate — discrimination in less obvious ways. Many marginalized communities face serious barriers to housing opportunities, such as unfair tenant screening policies that deny housing to people who receive a housing subsidy or who have any type of criminal or eviction record, the refusal to grant reasonable accommodations based on disability, or sexual harassment committed by landlords and their staff.

American Civil Liberties Union

Safe at Home: Fighting Against Sexual Harassment in Housing | ACLU

Landlords lag far behind employers, schools, and other institutions in addressing sexual harassment.

The Fair Housing Act provides protections to confront many of these barriers, including policies that seem neutral but disproportionately harm protected groups, like people of color, women, and people with disabilities. For example, the ACLU has challenged policies evicting domestic violence survivors based on the abuse they experience, as well as policies that reject housing applications from people based on an arrest or conviction record (even if the record is inaccurate, old, or minor) because of the disparate impact on women and people of color, respectively. After decades of legal precedent recognizing “disparate impact” liability, HUD issued a formal regulation in 2013, and affirmed it again last month — providing advocates with an important tool to eliminate practices that shut out too many families from housing.

Another critical provision of the FHA established that HUD and programs it funds must “affirmatively further” fair housing in communities. The FHA was never meant to be simply a static tool for people facing discrimination. Instead, the FHA requires proactive, inclusive programs dismantling racial segregation and creating thriving communities for all.

In 1995, the ACLU of Maryland filed a class action lawsuit against the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development on behalf of Carmen Thompson and five other residents of Baltimore public housing units. The resulting federal court victory in Thompson v. HUD supported thousands of families to move from racially isolated, high-poverty neighborhoods and helped establish the responsibility of communities to promote housing opportunity under the Fair Housing Act.

HUD recently issued a proposed regulation on how communities can affirmatively further fair housing by creating equity plans that analyze barriers to fair housing and propose concrete steps for addressing them. The new regulation, once it is issued, will be a major step forward in realizing the full promise of the Fair Housing Act.

Particularly after the housing crash of 2008 and the COVID-19 pandemic, both of which had outsized economic impacts on communities of color, the fight for fair housing remains a central project in the fight for more just communities. The ACLU and its nationwide affiliate network continues to lead in this fight. Here are a few examples of our recent work:

• We challenge local nuisance or “crime-free” housing ordinances, which authorize cities to coerce landlords into evicting families because they called the police or live in properties where legal violations occur, as well as impose arrests and conviction record screening on all housing applicants — not to make communities safer but to keep out families of color. These laws particularly threaten Black families, domestic violence survivors, and people with disabilities with the loss of their homes.
• We push for legislation establishing right to counsel in eviction cases. Research clearly shows the cascading harms of evictions, as well as the enormous costs it imposes on communities. Nationally, only 3 percent of renters have legal representation, compared to 81 percent of landlords on average. Providing counsel to renters is a crucial step for advancing due process and ending unjust evictions.
• We combat screening policies that categorically deny housing applicants who have any type of eviction record. This black-listing especially harms Black women and their families, as they are much more likely to face housing rejections based on a prior eviction filing, even if they won their cases.
• We advocate for the housing rights of domestic and sexual violence survivors, who are too often evicted because of the violence they experience, especially when they are women of color.
• We push for courts and the federal government to fully implement the FHA through decisions, regulations, and other measures. Opening safe and affordable housing opportunities to all is vital to fostering thriving communities, and the FHA is an essential tool toward achieving that goal.

Learn more about the ACLU’s work for fair and just housing and our fight for systemic below:

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Systemic Equality: Equal Access, Better Futures | American Civil Liberties Union

When we have full and equal access to education, jobs, housing, voting rights, and more, better futures are possible.

Every year, people, including families with small children, come to the U.S. seeking safety from violence and persecution. The U.S. is bound by both international and domestic laws — born out of the tragedies of World War II — to allow those with a “well-founded fear of persecution” on account of race, religion, nationality, political opinion, or membership in a particular social group to apply for asylum. Yet over the last several decades, multiple administrations, guided by political rather than humanitarian considerations, have turned their backs on people fleeing persecution. As a result, countless refugees have been forced to remain outside the U.S. or returned to their countries of origin only to be abducted, tortured, and even killed.

The ACLU has been at the forefront of the fight to defend asylum every step of the way — and we will never back down. Here’s a look at how we’ve shown up to protect this critical right over the years.

In the aftermath of the Holocaust, dozens of nations commit to never again slam the door on people in need of protection, enshrining the right to seek asylum in the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights and then again in the Refugee Convention of 1951 and its 1967 Protocol, which the U.S. ratifies.

Congress passes the Refugee Act of 1980, bringing the U.S. into conformity with the Refugee Convention of 1951, and ensuring people who are fleeing persecution on “account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion” are not sent back to places where they risk persecution.

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Immigrants' Rights | American Civil Liberties Union

The fundamental constitutional protections of due process and equal protection apply to every person, regardless of immigration status.

The ACLU Immigrants’ Rights Project is founded under the leadership of Lucas Guttentag with a mission to protect the rights of immigrants.

The ACLU joins several religious and civil rights organizations in a class action lawsuit challenging the Reagan administration’s discriminatory denial of 97 percent and 99 percent, respectively, of asylum applications from people from El Salvador and Guatemala, where civil wars involving U.S.-funded militaries were raging. Eventually, the government agreed to give new asylum hearings to 240,000 Salvadorans and Guatemalans.

The ACLU Joins the Center for Constitutional Rights and Yale Law Students in challenging the detention of Haitian asylum seekers living with HIV at a detention camp at Guantánamo, eventually winning their release and closure of the camp.

Credit: ACLU

The U.S. implements an “expedited removal” system that operates in virtually complete secrecy and short-circuits due process for people seeking asylum. Low-level Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) inspectors have authority to deny entry to people seeking refuge based on an on-the-spot determination. The ACLU — leading a coalition of civil rights organizations, refugee groups, and pro bono law firms — organizes a legal challenge to the expedited removal system.

Credit: Ilana Panich-Linsman

Expedited removals are expanded and news stories emerge of asylum seekers with well-founded fears of persecution being returned to danger. The ACLU supports bipartisan legislation intended to stop improper removals. Though the legislation never passed, the ACLU continues to document the harms of expedited removals.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals orders the immediate release of a Sri Lankan asylum seeker, Ahilan Nadarajah, who had been detained for five years, as a result of a lawsuit brought by the ACLU of Southern California.

The Ninth Circuit upholds an injunction ordering the government to provide bond hearings to asylum seekers detained for six months or more, after the ACLU files a class action lawsuit, Rodriguez v. Hayes, challenging prolonged detention of asylum seekers without a bond hearing.

Credit: Julia Robinson

The ACLU files two lawsuits challenging the Obama administration’s policy of locking up asylum-seeking mothers and children in Texas and New Mexico in order to intimidate and deter others from coming to the United States.

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Ms. L v. ICE | American Civil Liberties Union

The ACLU filed a federal lawsuit seeking to reunite an asylum-seeking mother and daughter fleeing violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

The ACLU files a lawsuit challenging the Trump administration’s family separation policy. The lawsuit, expanded to a class-action in March, was filed on behalf of an asylum-seeking Congolese mother who was separated from her 7-year-old daughter, one of thousands who suffered needless cruelty under a policy intentionally designed to separate children from their parents.

The ACLU and partners file a lawsuit challenging the Trump administration’s arbitrary detention of asylum seekers fleeing persecution, torture, or death in their countries of origin. Shortly after, a federal court blocks the arbitrary detention of asylum seekers and orders a case-by-case review of whether each asylum seeker in the class-action lawsuit should be released on humanitarian parole.

A federal judge orders the reunification of thousands of separated parents and children after the ACLU pursued a preliminary injunction to halt the Trump administration’s inhumane practice of separating asylum-seeking families.

Credit: AP Photo/Scott Sonner

The ACLU and other groups file a lawsuit challenging the Trump administration’s rollback of protections for those seeking asylum from domestic violence and gang brutality.

A federal judge blocks a Trump asylum ban that illegally denied people who entered between ports of entry the opportunity to seek asylum, in response to a lawsuit brought by the ACLU, the Southern Poverty Law Center, and the Center for Constitutional Rights.

Credit: Guillermo Arias

The ACLU and other groups file a lawsuit challenging the Trump administration’s implementation of the Migrant Protection Protocols, more commonly known as “Remain in Mexico,” a policy that forces asylum seekers to remain at risk in Mexico while their cases are considered in the U.S.

The ACLU and other groups file a lawsuit against and help to successfully block the Trump administration’s “transit ban” that bars migrants who passed through other countries en route to the U.S. and did not request asylum there first.

The ACLU of Texas and ACLU Border Rights Center file a complaint with the Office of Inspector General of the Department of Homeland Security demanding that they investigate and put an end to “metering,” under which Customs and Border Protection officers turn back asylum seekers at ports of entry by arbitrarily limiting the number of asylum cases they will consider each day.

Credit: Carlos Moreno/Sipa USA via AP Images

The ACLU, the ACLU of Texas, and legal partners file a lawsuit seeking an immediate halt to the Title 42 expulsion policy, which illegally restricts immigration at the border based on an unprecedented and unlawful invocation of the Public Health Service Act.

The American Civil Liberties Union and the ACLU of Texas file a lawsuit against Texas Gov. Greg Abbott over an executive order that bars the transportation of certain migrants in the state, including asylum seekers trying to make their way from the border to networks of care elsewhere in the U.S.

American Civil Liberties Union

Huisha-Huisha v. Mayorkas | American Civil Liberties Union

The American Civil Liberties Union and partners are challenging the Title 42 expulsions.

Following a lawsuit from the ACLU and other groups, a federal appeals court orders the government to stop expelling families under Title 42. The Supreme Court later allows the expulsions to go on while litigation proceeds. The ACLU continues to fight against Title 42 in the courts and to push back against Congressional efforts to codify it.

The CDC terminates its Title 42 order, finding that the expulsion policy no longer serves a public health necessity. The decision follows weeks of pressure by the ACLU and other groups calling on the CDC to exercise its independent judgment free of political interference. A coalition of Republican led states challenges the CDC’s decision and succeeds in keeping the order in effect longer.

Credit: Blueline Media

Reports emerge that the Biden administration is considering replacing Title 42 with a new asylum ban, taken straight from Trump’s playbook, that would bar asylum for vulnerable migrants fleeing danger who did not apply for asylum in another country before reaching the U.S. The ACLU swiftly condemns the measure and promises to sue if the administration moves forward with the ban.

The Biden administration formally introduces the new asylum ban for public comment. The ACLU issues a condemnation of the illegal policy, saying it will cause “immense, avoidable suffering,” and encourages the administration to reverse course.

Credit: Photo by Bryan Olin Dozier/NurPhoto via AP

The ACLU and partners rally in D.C. to denounce the asylum ban, as well as reports that the Biden administration is considering bringing back the practice of family detention.

Through litigation, public advocacy, and mobilization, we continue to fight for the right of people fleeing persecution to seek asylum in the U.S., showing up with our affiliates, allies, members, and supporters in the courts, the streets, and in the halls of power to protect this crucial right.