The Battle of Brandy Creek: How One Black Community Fought Annexation, Tax Revaluation, and Displacement

The Brandy Creek community is a working class, Black neighborhood located just east of I-95, south of Weldon, North Carolina.\u27 In 2005, this rural neighborhood and its surrounding land were legislatively annexed into the city of Roanoke Rapids as part of a planned economic development project. The decision to pursue legislative annexation allowed city officials to bypass the statutory notice and municipal service requirements of a city-initiated, involuntary annexation. Residents were never informed of Roanoke Rapids\u27 intent to annex the community and had no opportunity to voice their opinions on the issue to town officials. In fact, the community first learned of the annexation several days after it occurred. As one resident said, We went to bed in Weldon one night and woke up the next day in Roanoke Rapids. The city proceeded with the implementation of its planned redevelopment, which included rezoning all residential properties to commercial, without regard for the residents living there. When community members first raised concerns about preserving their neighborhood and quality of life, the city responded that the residents would see huge profits when selling their now commercially zoned property to developers. That residents might want to stay in their homes or preserve their neighborhood was never considered by city or county officials. Within a few years, the redevelopment plan was a failure; the only property owner who cashed in was the neighborhood\u27s largest (and absentee) landlord, and the sale of her property resulted in almost half of the community\u27s residents being evicted. Meanwhile, annexation brought significantly new city property taxes for residents-a financial burden for many families. Residents began paying these taxes despite lacking many of the basic public services provided to other residents of the city (particularly sewer, paved roads, and regular police patrols). In addition to the imposition of city property taxes, an additional tax burden was imposed on the community. Because of the countywide property tax revaluation, the neighborhood was reassessed pursuant to its new commercial zoning designation. As a result, property valuations and taxes in the Brandy Creek neighborhood rose an average of over 800% and as high as 1,400%, an intense hardship that further devastated the community. Residents struggled to make these inflated payments; many had their wages garnished to pay the taxes, and several were unable to stay in their homes. But residents refused to be pushed out. They were determined to fight against racial discrimination and for what remained of their neighborhood. Together, residents organized first to demand municipal services and then to demand deannexation, tax equity, and ultimately refunds for the illegally inflated property taxes they were forced to pay. Against the backdrop of the city\u27s ill-conceived and costly redevelopment plan, the plight of Brandy Creek stands out as an example of the disparate impacts of ostensibly race-neutral tax policies on Black communities. This Article explores the experience of the Brandy Creek community as a case study of how property taxes, tax policy, and annexation (or the refusal to annex) has been manipulated by local governments to control, displace, and exclude African-American neighborhoods and to maintain and entrench the continuing legacy of residential segregation and discrimination based on race and place. Part II focuses on the city\u27s plan to redevelop the area and the related displacement of the Brandy Creek community. Part III examines how the community organized to resist those efforts. And Part IV looks at some of the broader legal issues related property taxes, annexation, and residential racial exclusion

Backlash Against Justice: The Ideological Attach on the University of North Carolina Center for Civil Rights

In September 2017, the University of North Carolina\u27s Board of Governors (BOG) adopted a policy stating that no University center or institute could: file a complaint, motion, lawsuit or other legal claim in its own name or on behalf of any individual or entity against any individual, entity, or government or otherwise act as legal counsel to any third party; or employ or engage, directly or indirectly, any individual to serve as legal counsel or representative to any party in any complaint, motion, lawsuit, or other legal claim against any individual, entity, or government or to act as legal counsel to any third party. Although nominally applicable across the University of North Carolina (UNC) system, the revised policy was targeted at the Center for Civil Rights at the UNC School of Law, which was the only entity impacted by the restriction. The advocacy ban was the culmination of a three year attack on the Center for Civil Rights (CCR), which was established in 2001 by legendary civil rights lawyer, Julius Chambers. CCR\u27s mission includes direct advocacy and legal representation, research and public education, and training the next generation of civil rights lawyers. CCR\u27s work was focused on dismantling the legacy of institutional discrimination and racial exclusion, and its docket included education, fair housing, environmental justice, civic engagement, and equitable access to basic public services. The targeting of CCR was not an isolated or anomalous occurrence. In North Carolina, it was part of a partisan and ideological attack on the public university system in general and UNC Chapel Hill in particular. It was also part of a sweeping statewide and national campaign to restrict access to justice for people of color and low-wealth individuals and communities, particularly when they challenge race discrimination by government entities and powerful for-profit corporations. The former implicates issues of academic freedom and the First Amendment; the latter, issues of structural racism and the Fourteenth Amendment. This article explores both the legal and political context of the BOG\u27s action. It shows, through the legal precedents and similar past attacks on legal clinics in other states, that the same tactics have been used before to interfere with academic freedom, restrict access to the courts, and preserve a racially discriminatory status quo. More importantly, this article cautions that the attack on CCR is part of a larger ideological agenda being pushed on university campuses across the country

One Step Forward, Two Steps Back: Everett et al v. Pitt County School (Everett I and II) and the Ominous Future of Federal Court Desegregation Orders

During the brief zenith of school desegregation litigation in the late 1960s and early 1970s, hundreds of school districts across the nation, and particularly across the South, were found liable for intentional racial discrimination and became subject to federal court supervision of approved plans to achieve integration. The period of aggressive enforcement was short-lived however, and by the mid-1970s, and accelerating through the 1980s and 1990s, an increasingly conservative Supreme Court and presidential administrations first slowed the scope and intensity of school integration, and then actively pushed to end judicial enforcement and oversight of existing desegregation cases. This was true even in school districts that remained racially segregated or that had achieved some measure of integration, but had since-and while still under court order become resegregated. Despite the passage of time since these desegregation orders were entered and it is estimated that there remain over 100 school districts still subject to such orders- their legal significance in potentially achieving integration should have increased, especially in the face of Court decisions deifying intent in proving discrimination and severely limiting the role of race in student assignment for districts not subject to desegregation orders. This is because of the unique procedural posture of such cases. Under well established school desegregation jurisprudence, once a court finds the school district constitutionally liable for racial discrimination in violation of the 14th Amendment (i.e. that is has operated a racially dual system) and a desegregation order is entered, the district has an affirmative duty to remedy the segregation by taking all steps necessary to eliminate the vestiges of the unconstitutional de jure system. The legal presumption for a school district subject to such an order is that any current racial imbalances within the school system are vestiges of past discrimination. In order to be declared unitary and relieved of further court oversight, the evidentiary burden rests with the school board to rebut this presumption and prove that it has remedied the impacts of past segregation to the extent practicable, and to demonstrate that any remaining racial disparities are the result of independent factors unrelated to the board\u27s actions (or inactions). Thus, the distinction between a district still subject to court order and one that has been declared unitary (or was never subject to order) is significant. A district under court order to desegregate may and often must use race-based policies and practices as necessary to fulfill its affirmative remedial obligations under the order, while the much more restrictive and limited consideration of race in schools, as proscribed in Parents Involved, applies only to districts that have never been under court order or that were at one time but have since achieved unitary status. The continuing viability of the bright-line legal distinction between districts under court order with the concomitant burdens of proof and remedial obligations to address the continuing vestiges of racial discrimination-and those that are not was the focus of two recent decisions by the Fourth Circuit in a case that began in the 1960s. In its first opinion, the Court issued a ruling that resoundingly reaffirmed the progressive jurisprudence that helped the nation begin to achieve the promise of Brown and attain a significant measure of school integration. In a subsequent decision in the same case just three years later however, the Court retreated from its earlier holding, blurred the clear line it had previously recognized, and added another substantial setback to the legal struggle to end racial isolation in public schools

A Civil Rights Act for the 21st Century: The Privileges and Immunities Clause and a Constitutional Guarantee to be Free from Discriminatory Impact

As the nation reflects on the fiftieth anniversaries of the various civil rights legislation of the 1960s\u27 and considers the challenges that remain for fully addressing our history of racial discrimination, segregation, and suppression, we must begin with a very fundamental question: What is the harm that we are seeking to address, and how effectively do our current civil rights laws work towards achieving that goal? Given our collective success in addressing some of the most egregious intentional discrimination, as well as the intransigent, and evolving nature of institutional racism, it is time for a new Civil Rights Act that focuses on discriminatory impacts and effects. In light of the Court\u27s restrictive interpretation of the Equal Protection Clause this new Civil Rights Act should look to another portion of the Fourteenth Amendment, the Privileges and Immunities Clause, which should be interpreted to provide the basis for guaranteeing the inclusion of African Americans into the full range of benefits of our community. While the United States Supreme Court undercut the Privileges and Immunities Clause just five years after the amendment was ratified, the new challenges we face in achieving racial justice demand its revitalization and reaffirmation

North Carolina\u27s H.B.2: A Case Study in LGBTQ Rights, Preemption, and the (Un)Democratic Process

In 2014, community advocates in Charlotte, North Carolina, began organizing to press the city to amend its antidiscrimination ordinance to add several new protected classes, including sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expression. After a contentious hearing where opponents argued that the change-which would allow transgender people to use public restrooms according to their gender identity-would subject women and children to sexual predators, the city council voted down the amendment. Undaunted, advocates worked over the next several months to elect new council members and a mayor who supported LGBTQ rights. The amendments to the civil rights ordinance were then brought back before the council and passed in February 2015. Less than a month later, the state Speaker of the House Tim Moore and the Lieutenant Governor Dan Forest, both Republicans, called a special session of the legislature to address the bathroom issues of Charlotte\u27s new ordinance. Two days later, the General Assembly convened and, in one day, passed House Bill 2 ( H.B. 2 ). Governor Pat McCrory, the former mayor of Charlotte, who had earlier threatened city leaders with the specter of immediate state legislative intervention, signed the bill that same day. H.B. 2, mischaracterized as the bathroom bill, was a sweeping anticivil rights measure that extended far beyond the issue of access to restrooms. By narrowly defining sex as [b]iological sex-the physical condition of being male or female which is stated on a person\u27s birth certificate, the law not only denied transgender residents access to facilities based on their gender identity, but also undermined the existence of any antidiscrimination laws that included sexual orientation or gender identity and prohibited the adoption of any new local laws that would do so. And although unrelated to the Charlotte ordinance, H.B. 2 also expressly preempted any local antidiscrimination or workers\u27 rights ordinances related to wages, benefits, leave, or protections for minors in the workforce. Additionally, the law eliminated the longstanding public policy exception to the state\u27s employment-at-will jurisprudence, which authorized a state cause of action for employees who alleged they had been discharged because of illegal discrimination. H.B. 2 immediately became the highest-profile issue in the state. The American Civil Liberties Union ( ACLU ) quickly filed a lawsuit in federal court, and Roy Cooper, the Democrat Attorney General, announced that his office would not defend the State in the suit. The law also gained national notoriety, leading to boycotts and the cancellation of numerous events in the state, including a Bruce Springsteen concert, the NBA All-Star Game, and a range of collegiate sporting events. PayPal withdrew plans for a $36 million dollar, 400-job facility planned for Charlotte because of the law. Governor McCrory\u27s support for H.B. 2 played a critical role in his narrow defeat by Roy Cooper in 2016. The bill was formally repealed in March 2017, although the replacement statute, H.B. 142, continues to preempt local governments from passing new local legislation to protect LBGTQ civil rights. The legal and political struggle over H.B. 2 provides a primer on the issues of civil rights, local control, and state preemption and the particular challenges for progressive local governments in states controlled by conservative legislatures. While many tried to narrowly characterize North Carolina\u27s experience with H.B. 2 as a debate between local control and uniformity of state law regarding access to bathrooms (the statute was regularly referred to as the bathroom bill ), in reality, the issues and context regarding the passage, reaction to, and ultimate repeal of H.B. 2 are much deeper. At its core, H.B. 2 forced the state and nation to consider how our political processes address (or fail to address) the expansion of civil rights for historically marginalized groups; overtly discriminatory, anti-LGBTQ policy making, rhetoric, and prejudice; and the manipulation of the democratic process. Part II of this Article examines the passage of the Charlotte City Council\u27s antidiscrimination ordinance. Part III discusses the legislature\u27s response and passage of H.B. 2. Part IV describes the economic and political backlash following the law\u27s passage. Part V details the legislature\u27s repeal of H.B. 2. Part VI analyzes the broader political implications of the struggle over H.B. 2

Making America a Better Place for All: Sustainable Development Recommendations for the Biden Administration

In 2015, the United Nations Member States, including the United States, unanimously approved 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to be achieved by 2030. The SDGs are nonbinding; each nation is to implement them based on its own priorities and circumstances. This Article argues that the SDGs are a critical normative framework the United States should use to improve human quality of life, freedom, and opportunity by integrating economic and social development with environmental protection. It collects the recommendations of 22 experts on steps that the Biden-Harris Administration should take now to advance each of the SDGs. It is part of a book project that will recommend not only federal actions, but also actions by state and local governments, the private sector, and civil society. In the face of multiple challenges and opportunities, this Article is intended to contribute to a robust public discussion about how to accelerate the transition to a sustainable society and make America a better place for all