School Desegregation Versus Public Housing Desegregation : The Local School District and the Metropolitan Housing District

Federal housing programs are planned for and implemented on a metropolitan or regional basis; consequently, to remedy federal discrimination in the administration of such programs, it is not only appropriate but necessary that the adopted remedy be on a similar metropolitan or regional basis. In this way, federal housing programs are distinguishable from the public school context, since educational programs are planned for and carried out on a local school district basis.In Milliken v. Bradley, a school desegregation case, the United States Supreme Court held that a federal court should not impose metropolitan-wide "inter-district" relief for de jure segregation violations occurring ·within a single school district unless certain conditions are met. Subsequently, in Gautreaux v. Chicago Housing Authority, the Seventh Circuit held that equitable considerations mandated metropolitan-wide relief to remedy public housing segregation in Chicago. In early 1975 the Supreme Court granted certiorari at the request of the federal government to examine the Seventh Circuit decision in Gautreaux.This Article argues that Milliken is not applicable to the public housing context because the appropriate housing "district" is the metropolitan area rather than simply the central city. Since Gautreaux involves federal housing programs and the development of a remedy for constitutional and statutory violations by the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) the federal government's definition of the "district" should apply. That definition can be gleaned from statutes, regulations, policy statements, and administrative practices related to the planning and implementation of housing programs. These materials reveal that the proper definition of a "housing district," insofar as the federal government is concerned, is the metropolitan area or region, rather than a local municipality