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 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 complete conference brochure with agenda, please click here.

I love Puerto Ricans and Negroes
As long as they don't move next door
               Phil Ochs, 1965

Forty years ago marked the passage of the Fair Housing Act following the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King.  At that time, the Kerner Report predicted that the United States was evolving into two societies - one black and one white.  In sponsoring the Fair Housing Act, Senator Mondale 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.

To Register Click Here

 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