DEI and Public Universities: Guideposts for a New Era
This report analyzes the compliance challenges public universities face since the issuance of several executive orders that threaten investigation and defunding for a broad range of activities associated with “DEI” and other undefined terms. In Part I, we examine the language of the federal directives in light of universities’ historic obligations and current circumstances. Many institutions have so far chosen some version of either pre-emptive obedience, wait-and-see inaction or offensive defiance. We suggest that institutions will face some combination of four possible courses of action: continue to obey civil rights law, anticipate new standards, manage risks and defend current practices.
Schools’ circumstances are not uniform. Yet all must conform to current legal standards, which are often inconsistent with the new federal policy directives. To clarify, this report sets out the existing state of the law since Students for Fair Admissions, including the scope and limitations of that Supreme Court decision, the continued allowance of race-neutral means to achieve racially diverse learning environments and the applicable tests used by the Court under Title VI. Since many organizations and institutions have already challenged the federal administration in court, we conclude with an analysis of the legal defenses—mostly on First Amendment grounds—that have so far succeeded in securing injunctions against certain banned practices. Part II of this report sets out best practices universities across the United States have used to stay in compliance with civil rights law yet still maintain environments that are diverse, inclusive and consistent with equitable principles.
Read More
Urban Renewal’s Grandchildren: Remedying the Persistent Effects of Post-War Race Planning
Urban renewal, a mid-century federal-local redevelopment program that transformed American cities and displaced millions of Black migrants from the South, was a race-conscious government policy responsible for the enduring suppression of Black wealth. Its racial history and character are untold in legal scholarship. This Article argues that the 25-year regime enacted in the Housing Act of 1949 was a response to the Great Migration of Black workers and families to northern, midwestern, and western cities. It was codified to interact with other segregation policies, such as highway construction, restrictive covenants, redlining, and public housing through the colorblind veneer of rational planning principles. Race planning created durable conditions of “racial bargaining,” the discounted value of wealth-producing transactions in segregated Black communities. Since its mid-century enactment, urban renewal federalized a race-conscious segregation policy that eluded civil rights remedies and framed contemporary urban development programs. This Article shows how this framework sustained the racial wealth gap at the core of this country’s continuing struggle with structural inequality.
Read More
Memorandum: Campaign Against Federal Affirmative Action Programs
New Jersey's Assembly Bill A4 represents a landmark effort to comply with the Mount Laurel Doctrine and the state's growing affordable housing crisis by reforming how municipalities meet their fair share housing obligations. At the heart of this legislation is a standardized formula that requires each municipality to calculate its present and prospective affordable housing needs, along with other factors like population growth, land, and income capacity. By decentralizing housing planning, A4 shifts responsibility to local governments from the state and gives them a ten-year window to meet their fair share housing obligations.
Read More
Legislative Briefing: Affordable Housing Reform: New Jersey A4
New Jersey's Assembly Bill A4 represents a landmark effort to comply with the Mount Laurel Doctrine and the state's growing affordable housing crisis by reforming how municipalities meet their fair share housing obligations. At the heart of this legislation is a standardized formula that requires each municipality to calculate its present and prospective affordable housing needs, along with other factors like population growth, land, and income capacity. By decentralizing housing planning, A4 shifts responsibility to local governments from the state and gives them a ten-year window to meet their fair share housing obligations.
Read More
What to Do: When Facing Mortgage or Tax Foreclosure
There are many circumstances that could lead to failure to pay mortgage payments or property taxes. Unfortunately, in far too many cases, default on a mortgage or taxes leads to mortgage or tax foreclosure—where creditors seek to reclaim the property subject to the default.
Read More
Reimagining Criminal Justice: Leveraging Federal Grants to Foster Community-Based Criminal Justice Programs
Discussions about Vice President Kamala’ Harris’ record as a progressive prosecutor have offered an opportunity to consider what the next president could do to help spur equitable criminal justice reform. While recognizing that policing is largely a local endeavor, it is important to identify how the next president can leverage existing federal programs to contribute to larger criminal justice reform and equity efforts. In this paper we propose that the next administration restructure the Justice Assistance Grants (JAG) and Community-Oriented Policing Services (COPS) grants in order to support community-based criminal justice programs (CCJP) to achieve equitable criminal justice reform. These programs, which emphasize partnerships between law enforcement, prosecutors, and non-law enforcement organizations, aim to reduce crime and recidivism through rehabilitation, mental health services, and social support. The proposal we offer draws inspiration from Vice President Kamala Harris’s "Back on Track" program, which successfully helped first-time nonviolent offenders avoid incarceration through alternative sentencing that focuses on rehabilitation. The paper argues that similar programs, if federally supported, could help contribute to equitable criminal justice reform by fostering trust between law enforcement and communities, reducing police brutality while also preventing crime and recidivism.
Read More
What to Do: When Facing Mortgage Foreclosure
The following resource is designed to help understand and navigate mortgage foreclosure. For more detailed guidance, please review our What to Do: When Facing Mortgage or Tax Foreclosure memo.
Read More
What to Do: When Facing Tax Foreclosure
The following resource is designed to help understand and navigate tax foreclosure. For more detailed guidance, please review our What to Do: When Facing Mortgage or Tax Foreclosure memo.
Read More
Legislative Briefing: Wealth Preservation Act New Jersey No. 5664
On January 12, 2024, Governor Phil Murphy signed the Wealth Preservation Program law, an ambitious reorganization of the foreclosure process in favor of second chances, non-profit rights of second refusal and affordable home ownership. Then-Assemblywoman, now-Senator Britnee Timberlake, introduced this law because New Jersey has the highest foreclosure rate in the country, with one foreclosure for every 2,271 homes.[1] The potential impact of this law goes beyond just reducing the number of foreclosures. It potentially limits institutional investors’ opportunities to purchase foreclosed homes at sheriff’s sales by providing ordinary homebuyers initial opportunities to bid on properties on more favorable terms. Under the Act, defaulting homeowners, their next of kin or tenants have the first chance to re-purchase their homes from sheriff sales at a publicly disclosed discount price by paying only a 3.5% down payment with 90 days to close. If they do not elect to purchase, non-profit community development corporations (CDCs) have the next right of refusal in exchange for deed restrictions that keep the property affordable to subsequent owners or renters.
Read More
Memorandum: Anti-DEI Retrenchment and Litigation after Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard
In June 2023, the Supreme Court in Students For Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President and Fellows Of Harvard College (“SFFA”) found that Harvard University’s and the University of North Carolina’s affirmative action admission policies unconstitutionally employed race-based discrimination, violating the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment.[1]
Beginning with its first constitutional review of affirmative action, the Court has consistently found that the only governmental interest compelling enough to warrant the use of race in admissions policies and decisions, and thus satisfy strict scrutiny judicial review, is the institution’s interest in “obtaining the educational benefits that flow from an ethnically diverse student body.”[2] Before this first opinion in Regents of Univ. of Cal. v. Bakke, affirmative action initiatives were a “response to the legacy of Jim Crow segregation and, by extension, slavery. It was an outgrowth of the civil-rights initiatives… Diversity was part of the conversation, but it was only one of many reasons selective colleges employed affirmative action.”[3]
Read More
Legislative Briefing: New Jersey’s Revision to Tax Sale Foreclosures: New Jersey A3772
On July 10, 2024, Governor Phil Murphy signed a tax sale revision law (A3772/S-2334), which modifies the process for investors engaged in tax sale foreclosures and provides steps for homeowners to protect their equity. Senator Brian Stack (D-33) introduced this law in January 2024 in part because of the case of a 94-year-old Black woman named Geraldine Tyler, who lost her home and equity in the tax sale foreclosure process. In 1999, Mrs. Tyler purchased a one-bedroom condominium in Minneapolis, Minnesota. She lived in the condominium until 2010 when problems in the neighborhood prompted her to rent an apartment in a safer area. She experienced financial difficulties, leading her to get $2,300 in tax arrears, which increased to $15,000 with penalties and interest. In 2015, Hennepin County, Minnesota, seized her condominium, sold it for $40,000, and pocketed $25,000 in surplus equity. On May 25, 2023, the United States Supreme Court unanimously held in Tyler v. Hennepin County that the municipality violated the Takings Clause of the U.S. Constitution when they stripped and retained Mrs. Tyler’s equity.
Read More
Empowering Public Property: Simulating New Housing, Economic Development and Greenspace Policy with Newark’s City-Owned Property Inventory
This is a report about how cities can better organize and manage their data about the property they own in order to promote transparency and advance critical policymaking. Newark, like many legacy cities, owns hundreds of parcels through tax foreclosure and abandonment that can be put to more productive use and even generate needed revenue. Because of different inputs from different departments, its property data system contained duplication and gaps that prevented policymakers and stakeholders from getting a clear picture of these public assets. In partnership with city staff, CLiME helped to resolve the data organization problem and set property management on a new, more accurate and user-friendly course. Along the way, we learned details about the nature and amount of city-owned properties, how they’re zoned and where they’re located. We concluded that much more of this significant inventory can and should be put to work advancing long-held goals of equitable development. We built three demonstrations to simulate this usage that cover three major areas of policy: affordable housing production, commercial and industrial development and green space/environmental risk mitigation. Each of these is an area in which the Baraka administration is already active in setting aggressive policies. Some of those policies already make use of the asset of city-owned land. Until recently, it was impossible to see the scope of particular uses because the data did not readily permit it. Now the data is cleaner and clearer.
Individual break-out reports from the full report are also available:
Read More
Legal Memorandum: Equitable Redevelopment of Newark’s City-Owned Property
As the New Jersey Supreme Court recently noted in Malanga v. Township of West Orange, municipalities can sell or improve upon public property in a number of ways.¹ However, a redevelopment designation appears to be the best way for a municipality to maintain the greatest degree of control over the future of a given parcel, in terms of retaining ownership, choosing a developer and deciding the use to which the parcel will be put. Without such a designation, in order to facilitate non-publicly funded development of city-owned property, a city would have to auction property off to the highest bidder at an open public auction, a risky process over which the city could easily lose control.² Furthermore, though a municipality can impose conditions on the sale and restrictions on the use of property sold at auction,³ it cannot convey property for nominal consideration without a redevelopment designation, unless the property is conveyed to a very narrow set of noncommercial entities.⁴
Read More
What to Do: When a Loved One Has Passed
This memorandum provides useful information regarding the management of a loved one’s affairs (estate) when they have passed. Estate matters can be laborious and emotionally charged. This memorandum will explain probate and administration in New Jersey and provides information for you to begin navigating the process of managing your loved one’s estate. However, this memorandum provides general information, and is not intended to serve as legal advice. No two estates are the same and the law on the administration of estates is extensive. It is recommended that you consult with an experienced estate attorney to answer any questions related to your particular circumstances.
Read More
What to Do: When a Loved One Has Passed With a Will
The following resources are designed to help understand and navigate estate administration in New Jersey when a loved one passes with a will. A flyer is also available for when a loved one passes without a will here.
Read More
What to Write on Your College Essay
Thanks to the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision last June in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, the country’s 12th graders now applying to selective colleges face unprecedented angst—especially if they’re black.
You face an admissions process where your understanding of race and racism has been rejected, forbidden as a factor in considering you, on no less than constitutional grounds. Forget “affirmative action” that might deliberately correct for the persistent effects of longstanding racial exclusion from majority-white institutions. Forget societal discrimination—the Court already decided there is none that matters. Now, educational “diversity” is a barely lawful interest for schools to consider. Your race and all that comes with it is in unconstitutional territory.
Except on your personal essay.
Read More
What to Do: When a Loved One Has Passed Without a Will
The following resources are designed to help understand and navigate estate administration in New Jersey.
Read More
Limited-Equity Cooperatives: A Primer on Sustainable Affordability and Wealth Building
Limited-Equity Cooperatives: A Primer on Sustainable Affordability and Wealth Building is a research report on a promising alternative to traditional homeownership in a period of scarce inventory and high interest rates. Limited equity cooperatives offer communal ownership at more affordable prices—stabilty, wealth enhancement and long-term affordability. Author Elana Simon details the purpose and structure of such housing vehicles.
Read More
Beneficial Landowner Transparency Model Ordinance
To aid municipalities in regulating anonymous investor buying of 1-4 unit homes we drafted this model ordinance. A companion memorandum analyzes its legality and effectiveness under New Jersey law.
Read More
Memorandum: LLC Transparency Ordinance Justification
Continuing CLiME’s work on regulating institutional investors of 1-4 unit dwellings in cities like Newark, this legal research memo explains and accompanies model legislation, showing cities exactly how to mandate transparency of ownership among anonymous LLCs.
Read More
