NYC thwarted in bid to avoid trial in discrimination case challenging its outsider-restriction policy in affordable-housing lotteries

Motion to reconsider

The Court’s opinion regarding disparate impacts can, unfortunately, be summarized as follows:

The SJ Opinion effectively concluded that the law prohibiting disparate impact does not prevent a Black New Yorker living in Central Harlem who applies in a lottery for housing on the Upper East Side from being told, “Don’t complain that you are being disadvantaged on the basis of race in the lottery on the Upper East Side; at some point there will be a lottery in Central Harlem and you might decide to apply there and yield an advantage on the basis of race. Being discriminated in one place and potentially being favored in another place balance each other out, unldess you show that the Upper East Side lies within an ‘inherently more desirable’ community district.”

We encourage you to read the briefs filed by both sides on the motion for reconsideration. You will note that the City has no substantive response to plaintiffs’ critiques of the Court’s opinion relating to disparate impacts.

Plaintiffs’ opening brief (filed May 5, 2023)

Defendant’s opposition brief (filed June 29, 2023)

Plaintiffs’ reply brief (filed July 10, 2023)

Whether or not you know the details of legal doctrine, can you imagine a policy with these impacts still being the way New York City conducts its business in 2023?

Get updates by email

RSS

Twitter

READ ERROL LOUIS IN NEW YORK MAGAZINE

“The solution is simple: Equalize future lotteries so that all qualified low-income applicants get equal access to available subsidized apartments.”

“In a city that routinely deals with hard things like falling cranes, a violence-plagued jail system, and a never-ending stream of homeless migrants, this problem is an easy one to solve and almost entirely under the mayor’s control. A wide range of civic voices, including the editorial boards of the Daily News and the New York Post, say it’s time we cut the exclusion policy from future lotteries. And we should.” Read more.

READ THE EDITORIAL IN THE NEW YORK POST

“Asked during his 2021 mayoral run about the issue, Eric Adams told The Post that he’d restrict the lottery to only a few neighborhoods….Yet as mayor, Adams has yet to drop the city’s opposition to the lawsuit or to end the policy.”

“Adams would be wise to settle the suit and strike the community-preference priority from future lotteries.” Read more.

READ THE EDITORIALS IN THE NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

From Nov. 2020: “What New York City needs is a less myopic affordable housing policy, one that builds the case for creating drastically more housing, affordable and market rate, citywide, instead of pitting neighborhoods and the people living in them against each other in a cage match for a vanishingly scarce supply.”

From May 2023: “So far, the evidence strongly suggests” that the City’s policy “winds up cementing segregation and limiting opportunity.”

READ COVERAGE OF THE CASE IN THE NEW YORK TIMES

Annotated to provide context and detail beyond the scope of a short article, and to provide a few clarifications. Click here to open in new window.

READ THE AMICUS BRIEF OF THE LAWYERS’ COMMITTEE FOR CIVIL RIGHTS UNDER LAW IN SUPPORT OF PLAINTIFFS

“Amicus curiae respectfully submits this brief in order to highlight the important ways in which the positions urged on this Court by [the City] would not only deprive the Plaintiffs (and hundreds of thousands of other New York City households) of their fair housing rights, but would, if accepted, also deal devastating blows to the ability of anyone in the United States to vindicate the rights guaranteed them by the FHA.” Read more.

NYC thwarted in bid to avoid trial in discrimination case challenging its outsider-restriction policy in affordable-housing lotteries

Motion to reconsider

Plaintiffs’ opening brief (filed May 5, 2023)

Defendant’s opposition brief (filed June 29, 2023)

Plaintiffs’ reply brief (filed July 10, 2023)

Pages