CONFERENCES

Fall Conference		The Integration Debate: Competing Futures for American Cities, September 5 & 6, 2008
		Hosted by the Fair Housing Legal Support Center at The John Marshall Law School
		Early Bird Registration through July 31st (save $80) Register Now 9 CLE credits offered at this conference.
		The Fair Housing Legal Support Center conducts two or three national conferences yearly at The John Marshall Law School.

To view conference brochure, please click here.

In April 1968 --forty years ago and oly one week after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King  marked the passage of the Fair Housing Act. Released roughly a month before,  the Kerner Commission Report observed that the United States was "moving toward  two societies - one black and one white -- separate and unequal.".  In sponsoring the Fair Housing Act, Senators Mondale and Brooke III, proposed that the "law was to replace the ghettos by truly integrated and balanced living patterns."   

In recent years, "race fatigue" on the part of whites and "integration exhaustion" on the part of non-whites have set in and the pressure to integrate appears to be losing its hold.  This conference will examine the mandate to integrate, how much we have fallen short in achieving it, and whether the mandate has been or should be replaced by some other vision of where we want to go as a society.

Keynote addresses will be given by two very provocative thinkers and actors in the Fair Housing community:   Shanna Smith, CEO and President of the National Fair Housing Alliance, and Roger Wilkins, the Clarence J. Robinson Professor of History and American Culture at George Mason University.

On Friday morning, conference participants will focus on integration and the Fair Housing Act.  Is residential integration still our Nation's goal?  And if it is, is it achievable?   We will look at the existing demographics of Metropolitan America and discuss the progress we have made in the past forty years in achieving an integrated society.  Then we will look at the Fair Housing Act itself and whether it really has the tools to achieve integration or is better suited simply to reacting to individual complaints of racial discrimination.

On Friday afternoon, we will examine the economic consequences of segregation, including its effects on our schools, earning potential, and the accumulation of wealth.  We will also examine its political effects and its effect on the criminal justice system. 

Saturday morning's discussion will focus on mobility.  Is mobility a viable strategy for achieving greater integration?  Is it a civil right?  Is integration still an appropriate goal to pursue?

The discussion will focus on the newest social and legal research in the area and the varying visions that have developed since 1968.  This is a provocative subject, and the program is aimed at providing policy makers, those in the housing industry, and fair housing activists a sense of our Nation's future and what can be done to reinvigorate our Nation's housing agenda.

 Conference Schedule

 8:00 - 8:45 a.m.  Registration and Continental Breakfast

 8:45 - 9:00 a.m.   Introduction & Welcome
 Dean John E. Corkery,  The John Marshall Law School,  Chicago, Illinois

 Introduction to Conference
 Michael P. Seng,  Professor and Co-Director 
 The John Marshall Law School  Fair Housing Legal Support Center,  Chicago, Illinois

 9:00 - 10:15 a.m.

 The Changing Demography of Metropolitan America
 Moderator: Maurice McGough
 U.S .Department of Housing & Urban Development,  Chicago, Illinois

 "Integration Exhaustion, Race Fatigue, and the American Dream"
  Chester Hartman, Poverty & Race Research Action Council, Washington, DC
  Gregory D. Squires, George Washington University, Washington, DC

 "From Segregation to Integration: How Do We Get There?"
  Nancy A. Denton, University at Albany, SUNY, Albany, New York

 10:15 - 10:45 a.m.  Break

 10:45 - Noon

 Shifting Legal Mandates
Moderator: Philip D. Tegeler, Poverty & Race Research Action Council, Washington, DC

 "Making the Legal Case for Pro-Integrative Strategies"
  John Relman, Relman & Dane, Washington, DC

 "Constitutional and Statutory Mandates for Residential Racial Integration"
 Florence Wagman Roisman, Indiana University School of Law, Indianapolis, Indiana

 "Can Integration Be Achieved Through Litigation?"
 Michael P. Seng and F. Willis Caruso, The John Marshall Law School

 Noon - 1:45 p.m.

Keynote Address
"Market Barriers to Integration: Discrimination in Housing, Mortgage Lending, and Homeowners Insurance"
Shanna Smith and Cathy Cloud, National Fair Housing Alliance, Washington, DC

 1:45 - 3:00 p.m.

Economic Consequences of Segregation
Moderator: Aurie Pennick, Field Foundation of Illinois, Chicago, Illinois

 "Desegregated Schools and Segregated Education"
William A. Darity Jr., Duke University, Durham, North Carolina

"The Effects of Housing Market Discrimination on Earnings Inequality"
Samuel L. Myers Jr., University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota
Kris Marsh, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland
William A. Darity Jr., Duke University, Durham, North Carolina

 "Integration, Segregation, and the Racial Wealth Gap"
Melvin L. Oliver, University of California, Santa Barbara, California

"Integration and Health"
Dolores Acevedo-Garcia, Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts

 3:00 - 3:30 p.m. Break

 3:30 - 4:45 p.m.

 Race, Politics, and Justice
 Moderator: J. Damian Ortiz, The John Marshall Law School, Chicago, Illinois

"Both Segregated and Integrated: Black Voters and Elected Officials
in the Early 21st Century"
David Bositis, Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, Washington, DC

"Two-Tiered Justice: Race, Class, and Crime Policy"
Marc Mauer, The Sentencing Project, Washington, DC
Randolph N. Stone, University of Chicago Law School, Chicago, Illinois

 5:00 p.m. Reception

 Saturday, September 6, 2008

8:00 a.m.  Continental Breakfast

 8:45 - 11:00 a.m. (10:00 - 10:15 a.m. Break)

Housing Policy: Opportunities and Challenges
Moderator: Allison Bethel,  The John Marshall Law School Fair Housing Legal Clinic
Chicago, Illinois

"Housing Mobility is a Civil Right"
Elizabeth K. Julian and Demetria McCain, Inclusive Communities Project, Dallas, Texas

"Policy Choices in Designing Residential Mobility Programs: Comparing SocialMechanisms in Different Kinds of Programs"
James E. Rosenbaum, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois

"The Ghetto Game: Apartheid and the Developer's Imperative in Post-Industrial American Cities"
Mindy Thompson Fullilove, Columbia University, New York, New York

 "Concentrated Poverty"
Stephen Steinberg, Queens College and the Graduate,Center, City University of New York

"Integration: Solving the Wrong Problem"
Janet L. Smith, University of Illinois at Chicago

 11:00 a.m. - Noon

Keynote Speaker "Segregation: The Murderous Legacy"
Roger Wilkins, George Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia

 Noon - 12:30 p.m.  General Discussion
"Strategies to Achieve the Goals of the Fair Housing Act"

                            Program Subject to Change

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  The Center also participates annually each February in a conference sponsored by the Fair Housing Center of San Diego.

The Fair Housing Legal Support Center is available to participate in outreach conferences. For information regarding training, please call Nadia Whiteside at 312.987.2397.

PAST CONFERENCES

National Conferences

Outreach Conferences

U. S. Department of Housing and Urban Development Trainings