Stevie J. Swanson, Creatively Concealed but Still Persistently Pervasive: Racial Steering in American Real Estate, 40 Wis. J.L., Gender & Soc'y 61 (2025).
Racial steering has been illegal in the United States since 1866. The Civil Rights Act of 1866 stated that “[a]ll citizens of the United States shall have the same right, in every State and Territory, as is enjoyed by white citizens thereof to inherit, purchase, lease, sell, hold, and convey real and personal property.” Despite nearly one hundred sixty years of illegality, racial steering is alive and well in America. How has it survived? This article explores historical forms of steering and assesses their current efficacy. It illuminates modern forms of steering and considers methods to curb them. It concludes with an analysis of remediation attempts to rectify the harms of over a century of racial steering in America.
Racial steering is continuing to further segregation, which deprives Americans of the benefits of integrated communities. This article will begin with a discussion of the benefits of integration and the challenges that plague Americans due to extensive and pervasive segregation in housing. Next, it will examine impediments to ownership, occupancy, and alienability of real property because of racial steering. It will explore historical methods of steering such as blockbusting, direct realtor-based action, and redlining. It will assess whether any of these mechanisms have been resolved and/or remediated, or whether they continue to impact land ownership in new ways. Individual, governmental, and institutional types of steering will also be examined.
Having painted the historical backdrop, this article will transition into the modern era. While redlining and race-based covenants are less likely to steer land occupancy demographics in the present, this article posits that race-based steering is alive and well. It will explore the dramatic differences in property values when appraisers are valuing white-owned homes versus those owned by non-whites. The article will examine how an inability to extract equity from one’s home impacts the homeowner’s upward financial and geographic mobility, while further perpetuating segregation.
Later, this article will explore new changes in realtor fee arrangements that impact how buyers, brokers, and agents, are compensated, the challenges to affordability, and the increased access issues this presents for homebuyers. It will assess whether these fee structure changes will inhibit purchasers’ ability to buy homes in more affluent areas.
Additionally, the article will highlight racial steering through problematic algorithms utilized by social media platforms. It will examine how these hidden steering techniques are damaging access to housing opportunities and what the government is trying to do about it.
The article will conclude with suggested processes to eradicate steering and create remediation techniques for those negatively impacted.
