New Rules on Housing Segregation

Guest: Jacob Rugh, BYU Sociology  Housing and Segregation are Top of Mind today. In spite of fair housing laws passed during the Civil Rights-era, many US cities remain starkly divided by race. The Obama Administration last week unveiled stricter rules aimed at the broader goal of those fair housing laws. Yes, they prohibit discrimination based on race, but they also require local governments to actively foster integration in communities. That piece of the Fair Housing Act of 1968 has gone largely unenforced - and according to President Obama – the result includes the racial imbalances and lack of opportunity that have contributed to unrest in cities like Ferguson, Missouri and Baltimore.