The Disparate Impact of Shuttered Schools

A study comparing the budgets of school districts from 2008 to 2014 shows that the majority of states have decreased the amount of funds spent per student in this time period.1 Attempts to distribute scarce resources among public schools have caused school officials to implement redistricting initiatives. These redistricting initiatives inevitably mean that certain schools will be selected for closure, and reports show that schools selected for closure are located in the poorest communities, comprised mostly of racial and ethnic minorities, with the most distressed real estate markets.2 For illustrative purposes, note that the Chicago Board of Education voted to close forty-nine public schools in the spring of 2013.3 The schools selected for possible closure had a percentage of Black students that exceeded the average for the district.4 These closed schools are in addition to the twenty-four shuttered schools on the Chicago market as of 2012.5 The main factor to which school officials attribute these closures is the $1 billion shortfall in the public school system's budget6 as a result of over 200,000 residents leaving the city in the past ten years.7 This flight reduced the property tax base, which is the main financing source for school districts.8Pursuant to deconcentration of poverty efforts, several major cities razed public housing units comprised mostly of Blacks and other minorities.9 Residents dispersed, lowering the student population in low-income and minority communities, as these communities are where most cities built public housing units.10 Any population decrease lowers the tax base, since there are fewer residents and homeowners in the area paying taxes. The under enrollment of students and the underfunding of schools in impoverished areas are major reasons why these schools are closed when school districts commence redistricting.11 For example, in Atlanta, some schools are overcrowded while others, in low-income neighborhoods, are twenty percent full.12 This disparity was a driving force for the redistricting plan announced in Atlanta in 2012 that resulted in closing schools, the vast majority of which were located in poor Black communities.13 As described in Part II, the longer these properties sit idle, the more harm they cause.Mount Holly v. Mt. Holly Gardens Citizens in Action, Inc., a case in which a disproportionately high percentage of African American and Hispanic residents were displaced as a result of razing a blighted public housing development, settled in November 2013 just prior to the date on which oral arguments before the Supreme Court were scheduled.14 Although the settlement precludes the Court from deciding whether disparate impact is a cognizable claim under the Fair Housing Act (FHA),15 precedent and rules from appellate courts and the Office of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) support the validity of disparate impact claims.16 However, a recent lawsuit challenges the FHA's authority to prevent practices that have a disparate impact on protected classes absent evidence of intentional discrimination.17 Despite the fact that this question remains open, FHA disparate impact claims, as articulated in lower courts, establish a legal framework for evaluating the impact of vacant and abandoned schools.Most of these schools are located in low-income and minority neighborhoods and are the unfortunate result of the redistricting of public school attendance zones. Shuttered schools and other vacant buildings are magnets for illegal activity.18 In addition to increasing instances of criminal activity, these structures lower property values and reduce the likelihood of investment in the area.19 These factors create a selfperpetuating cycle of population decline and diminished property tax revenue, in turn raising the likelihood that schools in and around these neighborhoods will continue to be closed in the event redistricting takes place again in the future. The property element of shuttered schools partially explains why they are generally in the blind spot of school officials during the redistricting process, who are not well-versed in real estate matters. …