Musings on Residential Segregation

I was interested to see a  discussion on residential racial segregation in Milwaukee on the Political Environment Blog run by former journalist and Mayor Norquist aide Jim Rowen.

I was once absorbed in this debate. As a young associate at Foley & Lardner, I was part of the defense team representing twenty-four suburban school districts who were sued by the Milwaukee Public Schools. MPS sought a metropolitan-wide integration plan. We tried the case for a few months and then it settled on terms largely favorable to the suburbs.

I was in charge of the “housing” case, i.e., our response to the plaintiffs’ claim that residential racial segregation (causing school segregation) was caused by discriminatory government practices over a period of fifty years or so. Very heady stuff for a young lawyer still north of thirty.

I have kept up with the issue casually since then but I think that there were three important things that we learned then that are still relevant today.

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New Sick Pay Ordinance May Lead to Rejuvenation of Milwaukee Equal Rights Commission

Books The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel has the scoop:

Milwaukee’s dormant Equal Rights Commission could be back in business early next year – just in time to enforce the city’s controversial new sick pay ordinance.

On Tuesday, the Common Council will consider legislation to reconstitute the body with a focus not only on the sick pay measure, but also on the city’s own equal rights performance and on forms of discrimination that aren’t covered by state or federal laws. If that measure is approved, Mayor Tom Barrett will nominate a slate of seven panel members for confirmation in January, mayoral aide Leslie Silletti told the council’s Judiciary & Legislation Committee last week.

The Equal Rights Commission was founded in 1991 to investigate complaints of discrimination in housing and employment.

But the commission disbanded in 2003, amid complaints that former Mayor John O. Norquist’s administration never gave the seven-member panel the resources it needed to do its job. Since then, a single staffer in the city Department of Employee Relations has been carrying out the body’s mission, investigating some complaints himself and referring others to state and federal agencies . . . .

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Responding to the Foreclosure Crisis in Milwaukee

Everyone by now knows of the terrible consequences we face stemming from the foreclosure debacle. As part of the $700 billion bailout plan passed by Congress this fall, certain monies were allocated for cities and states to address some of the problems with the foreclosure crisis: increased crime in neighborhoods with a concentration of foreclosed (and oftentimes abandoned/vacant) properties; a depressed housing market with rapidly declining housing values; and a declining property tax base as a result of the declining home values and reduction in home ownership.

In order to make recommendations to the City of Milwaukee regarding these problems and on how to spend the $9.2 million allocated to the City in the bailout plan, Mayor Barrett established the Milwaukee Foreclosure Public Initiative (MFPI), a public-private partnership. Our own Assistant Dean for Public Service Dan Idzikowski was one of the leaders of the MFPI, serving as a workgroup chair (which oversaw three committees related to the MFPI’s work). In fact, the Mayor specifically recognized and thanked Dan in his press release on the final work product of the MFPI.

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