The United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Race Discrimination (CERD) issued its Concluding Observations on March 7. These Observations followed formal review of the U.S.  report to the CERD under the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, a treaty the U.S. ratified in 1994. In the “positive aspects” section of the report on the U.S., CERD applauds California Housing Element Law as an effective anti-discrimination and anti-segregation tool. California Housing Element Law requires each jurisdiction in California to plan and zone for the housing needs of all economic segments of its population, including the needs of residents in the lower income strata who are disproportionately people of color. While many civil rights and affordable housing advocates advocate for a strong housing element law, many have used it to promote more equitable development policies and patterns. Such application is described in the January 08 REP e-newsletter article by Michael Rawson of the Public Interest Law Project (PILP). Other positives in the CERD report include the recent reauthorizations of the Violence Against Women Act and the Voting Rights of 1965.

Among the many concerns, with recommendations, listed in CERD’s report are persistent racial segregation in housing, persistent lack of access to opportunity among people of color, particularly African-Americans and Latinos, the failure of national and state law and jurisprudence to recognize and remedy discrimination caused by disparate impact, the U.S. Supreme Court decisions in Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. 1 and Meredith v. Jefferson County Board of Education and their after effects, and the ongoing displacement and disenfranchisement of African-Americans from the gulf region two years after Hurricane Katrina. The National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty, the Poverty and Race Research Action Council, PILP and Public Counsel are among the organizations that contributed to the report.

See also the CERD Housing Report: Residential Segregation and Housing Discrimination in the United States.