Civil rights advocates suffered a blow in federal court this month, losing a lawsuit, filed in May, against the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and its secretary, Ben Carson. Unlike the last time advocates sued HUD, in 2017 — a case they won — this time the same judge, U.S. District Court Judge Beryl Howell, dismissed the plaintiffs’ suit for lack of standing.

The lawsuit centered on a desegregation rule, known as the Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing rule, which was finalized in 2015. The rule was designed to more effectively implement the integration mandates of the Fair Housing Act, the landmark civil rights law passed 50 years ago to eliminate discrimination and segregation in housing.

Despite the Fair Housing Act’s requirements, for decades after its passage, HUD did little to ensure that jurisdictions receiving federal housing dollars were actually working to reduce government-sponsored segregation.

In 2010, the Government Accountability Office released a report detailing how local communities fail to comply with federal fair housing mandates, and how HUD fails to enforce those obligations. This report came on the heels of a 2008 national fair housing commission chaired by two former HUD secretaries, which also found abysmal fair housing compliance.

The Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing rule was the product of the next five years of work, as stakeholders worked with the Obama administration to design a rule that not only gave communities more tools and resources to carry out their fair housing duties, but also strengthened HUD’s fair housing enforcement mechanisms. Finalizing the new rule in 2015 was considered a major milestone for civil rights.

But advocates worried that the Trump administration would try to dismantle this achievement. Before Carson was appointed HUD secretary, he wrote an op-ed comparing the Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing rule to other “failed socialist experiments.” After joining the administration, he told the Washington Examiner that the federal government will need to “reinterpret” the rule because he doesn’t believe in “extra manipulation and cost.”

Advocates were right to be worried. In January 2018, HUD announced it would be delaying enforcement of the Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing rule for almost three years. The federal housing agency released a statement claiming it was simply “extending the deadline” for compliance while HUD works to improve the rule. “HUD stands by the Fair Housing Act’s requirement to affirmatively furthering fair housing,” HUD’s statement read, “but we must make certain that the tools we provide to our grantees work in the real world.”

In May, advocates filed a suit, alleging that HUD was effectively ending oversight over billions of dollars to be doled out to local governments, and that the delay amounted to a suspension of the rule. The lawsuit was filed by Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, the American Civil Liberties Union, the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Public Citizen, the Poverty & Race Research Action Council, and the law firm Relman, Dane & Colfax.

Less than two weeks after the lawsuit was filed, HUD quickly reinstated the rule, but withdrew the rule’s so-called assessment tool, the central accountability mechanism communities use to comply with the rule.

The plaintiffs promptly amended their complaint, arguing that HUD’s new maneuver was simply a rose by another name, and still illegal. In June, the state of New York filed to intervene, arguing that its interests “are directly and adversely affected” by HUD’s actions, which “will make it more difficult for New York’s local jurisdictions to analyze barriers to fair housing” and further “subjec[t] New York’s residents to ongoing segregation and discrimination.”

The hearing was held in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on August 9.