Freedom to Discriminate: How Realtors Conspired to Segregate Housing and Divide America
Although California’s Proposition 14 (1964) is long forgotten, the referendum, allowing racial discrimination against home buyers, was a turning point in American history, housing advocate Gene Slater argues convincingly. This pushback to civil rights wasn’t led by Southern segregationists or the National Review but by the nation’s realtors whose association crafted a racially neutral-sounding argument based on freedom of choice and property rights. In essence, Proposition 14 said: It’s my right as a realtor or property owner to keep Blacks and others from buying homes—because I don’t want them around.
California voters adopted Proposition 14 by a landslide. Although soon declared unconstitutional, its language continues to echo in the racial anxiety of white America as well as fears of being put upon and regulated by a “liberal” bureaucracy. Freedom to Discriminate is a reminder that the mindset behind Proposition 14 hasn’t changed in a nation where self-centered individualism is prized over the common good.
