In 1976 the Supreme Court adopted lower court findings that the Chicago Housing Authority (CHA), with the complicity of federal housing agencies, had unconstitutionally selected sites to maintain the city’s segregated landscape. Although the authority had suggested tracts that would integrate white neighborhoods, each project was subject to veto by the alderman in whose ward it was proposed. In his ruling, the district judge who originally heard the case wrote, “No criterion, other than race, can plausibly explain the veto of over 99½% of the housing units located on the White sites which were
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