Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/22pdf/20-1199_hgdj.pdf
Page Number: 216.0

8 

STUDENTS FOR FAIR ADMISSIONS, INC. v. PRESIDENT 
AND FELLOWS OF HARVARD COLLEGE 
JACKSON, J., dissenting 

the federal Home Owners’ Loan Corporation (HOLC), cre-
ated  in  1933.26   HOLC  purchased  mortgages  threatened 
with  foreclosure  and  issued  new,  amortized  mortgages  in
their place.27  Not only did this mean that recipients of these
mortgages could gain equity while paying off the loan, suc-
cessful  full  payment  would  make  the  recipient  a  home-
owner.28  Ostensibly to identify (and avoid) the riskiest re-
cipients,  the  HOLC  “created  color-coded  maps  of  every
metropolitan area in the nation.”29  Green meant safe; red 
meant risky.  And, regardless of class, every neighborhood
with Black people earned the red designation.30 

Similarly, consider the Federal Housing Administration
(FHA),  created  in  1934,  which  insured  highly  desirable 
bank mortgages.  Eligibility for this insurance required an 
FHA appraisal of the property to ensure a low default risk.31 
But, nationwide, it was FHA’s established policy to provide 
“no  guarantees  for  mortgages  to  African  Americans,  or  to
whites who might lease to African Americans,” irrespective
of  creditworthiness.32  No  surprise,  then,  that  “[b]etween
1934  and  1968,  98  percent  of  FHA  loans  went  to  white 
Americans,” with whole cities (ones that had a dispropor-
tionately large number of Black people due to housing seg-
regation) sometimes being deemed ineligible for FHA inter-
vention on racial grounds.33  The Veterans Administration 
operated similarly.34 

One more example: the Federal Home Loan Bank Board 

—————— 

26 D. Massey & N. Denton, American Apartheid: Segregation and the 

Making of the Underclass 51–53 (1993); Oliver & Shapiro 16–18. 

27 Rothstein 63. 
28 Id., at 63–64. 
29 Id., at 64; see Oliver & Shapiro 16–18; Baradaran 105. 
30 Rothstein 64. 
31 Ibid. 
32 Id., at 67. 
33 Baradaran 108; see Rothstein 69–75. 
34 Id., at 9, 13, 70.