Freedom of Choice and Segregation

In the early twentieth century, cities across the nation began enacting zoning ordinances that prohibited blacks from buying a home in a predominantly white neighborhood and vice versa. Beginning in the 1930s, the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) refused to insure mortgages for black homeowners. For decades, at both the federal and local level, government essentially forced Americans to live in racially segregated neighborhoods.

Today, government’s past actions are decried by individuals across the political spectrum. However, many housing advocates are calling for government to correct its past immoral actions by taking new immoral actions. As an example, an Obama-era rule called Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing, required local governments to take “meaningful actions, in addition to combating discrimination, that overcome patterns of segregation and foster inclusive communities.” In other words, the “solution” to forced segregation is forced integration.

Forced integration may sound familiar. In 1970s, busing was used to integrate government schools, which had previously been highly segregated by race. Busing was very controversial. According to Wikipedia, only 4 percent of whites and 9 percent of blacks supported busing students outside of their neighborhood in an early-1970s Gallup poll. Even advocates of busing could find few benefits after several years of the practice, often concluding that race relations had deteriorated and bused students weren’t performing better academically. And this shouldn’t be surprising.

Forced integration is just as vile as forced segregation. Both negate the individual’s freedom of choice. Both negate the individual’s freedom to choose with whom to associate or where to live. The individual’s own choices are irrelevant and the only important characteristic is the color of his skin.

Prohibitions that prevented blacks and whites from marrying, eating in the same restaurant, or living in the same neighborhood have long been abolished. Because such laws were enacted and enforced by government, many argue that government must be equally forceful in remedying any perceived consequences of those racist policies. In other words, because government once prohibited us from acting on our own judgment, the “solution” is to prohibit us from acting on our own judgment.

But the solution to unjust laws is not more unjust laws. The solution is to repeal the unjust laws (which has been done) and restore the freedom of each individual—black or white—to act on his own choices.