# Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs v. Inclusive Communities Project *Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs v. Inclusive Communities Project, Inc.*, 576 U.S. 519, decided **June 25, 2015**, is the Supreme Court ruling that the [[Fair Housing Act of 1968]] allows claims based on [[Disparate Impact]]: a housing policy can be unlawful because of what it does to a protected group, even when no one can prove it was meant to discriminate. The vote was **5 to 4**. ## Why it matters This is the ruling that keeps effects-based fair housing law alive while the federal government tries to stop enforcing it. In 2026 HUD proposed deleting its own disparate-impact regulation, but an agency cannot overrule the Supreme Court. As long as this decision stands, tenants, fair housing groups and states can still bring disparate-impact cases in court. It is also the most likely target if opponents of the doctrine want a permanent win: four justices already voted the other way in 2015, and the Court's membership has moved to the right since. ## The dispute The Inclusive Communities Project, a Dallas nonprofit that helps low-income families find housing in better-resourced neighborhoods, sued the Texas agency that hands out federal low-income housing tax credits in 2008. It argued that Texas gave too many credits to housing in mostly Black inner-city neighborhoods and too few to housing in mostly white suburbs, keeping subsidized families segregated. The trial court agreed, based on the statistics. The Fifth Circuit held that disparate-impact claims were allowed but sent the case back because the trial court had used the wrong test. Texas asked the Supreme Court to rule that such claims were not allowed at all. ## The decision Justice [[Anthony Kennedy]] wrote for the majority, joined by Justices [[Ruth Bader Ginsburg]], [[Stephen Breyer]], [[Sonia Sotomayor]] and [[Elena Kagan]]. The Court gave three main reasons: - **The words of the statute.** The Act makes it unlawful to "otherwise make unavailable" housing because of race. Like similar language in employment law, that phrasing looks at consequences, not just motives. - **Congress had already accepted it.** By 1988 all nine federal appeals courts that had considered the question allowed disparate-impact claims under the Act. When Congress amended the law that year, it added exemptions (for appraisals, occupancy limits and refusing to rent to people convicted of making or distributing drugs) that would make no sense unless such claims existed. - **The law's purpose.** Disparate-impact liability lets plaintiffs "counteract unconscious prejudices and disguised animus" that would otherwise escape notice. Kennedy also set limits. A statistical imbalance alone is not enough. Plaintiffs must show "robust causality," pointing to a specific policy that caused the disparity, and only "artificial, arbitrary, and unnecessary barriers" are struck down. Housing authorities and developers must be allowed to explain the valid interests their policies serve, and remedies should be race-neutral where possible. ## The dissents Justice [[Samuel Alito]], joined by Chief Justice [[John Roberts]] and Justices [[Antonin Scalia]] and [[Clarence Thomas]], argued that the Act's words "because of race" require proof of intent. Thomas also wrote separately to argue that [[Griggs v. Duke Power Company]], the 1971 employment case that created the doctrine, was wrongly decided. ## What happened next The Inclusive Communities Project won the legal question and then lost its own case. Back in the trial court, Texas's practices were judged under the new "robust causality" requirement, and in **August 2016** the judge dismissed the claim, finding the group had not identified a specific policy that caused the disparity, as opposed to local zoning, community opposition or developers' choices. Lawyers on both sides have pointed to that result ever since as proof of how demanding the 2015 limits are. The decision itself has not been revisited. HUD's January 2026 proposal to delete its disparate-impact rule acknowledges the 2015 holding and says it would leave these questions "to courts," which means the cases will continue without the agency's written standards or its support. See [[Disparate Impact]] for the full rollback. ## Connections - [[Fair Housing Act of 1968]] - [[Fair Housing Amendments Act of 1988]] - [[Disparate Impact]] - [[Statistical Discrimination]] - [[Supreme Court of the United States]]