Introduction

Cooper Neill for The New York Times

For decades, courts have held that if housing policies and practices had a racially discriminatory effect, they violated the federal Federal Housing Act, even if the discrimination wasn’t intentional, a doctrine called disparate impact. But the Supreme Court is considering a case in which the justices could reverse that, making it far more difficult to fight segregation in housing and racial disparity in lending practices.

Is it fair to say that a harmful impact is enough to prove that discrimination exists? Can segregation be fought without having to prove it was intentional?