On January 15, 2025, in the final days of the Biden Administration, the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) determined that the Texas General Land Office (GLO) “intentionally discriminated” in the design and distribution of $1 billion in disaster mitigation funding through a sequence of calculated decisions, which resulted more than 600,000 Texans of color and over a million Texans overall being denied money rightfully meant to serve their communities, mostly in Houston and Harris County. While there was ample time for HUD to rule on this case and trigger action, ultimately their contribution was limited to a “finding,” as HUD referred the case to the Department of Justice with too little time for enforcement. Both HUD and DOJ would soon be reconstructed a week later by the Trump Administration and its new priorities.
Now, one year later, much has changed. An investigative report from the New York Times revealed in September 2025 that HUD would be dramatically reducing the pursuit of Fair Housing and civil rights cases, and had closed or halted more than 100 open investigations. In addition, in early 2026, HUD proposed a rule to end the agency’s use of disparate-impact theory in fair housing and related civil rights enforcement, which will drastically reduce the enforcement of civil rights laws and put vulnerable people at risk of discrimination that threatens their housing stability and safety.
On January 29, 2026, HUD closed Texas Housers’ lawsuit against Texas GLO. What the department previously found to be intentional, deliberate discrimination supported by pages of evidence is now referred to as a “politically motivated” and “baseless” civil rights investigation based on disparate impact. This move denies the intentionality of GLO’s actions to bolster the Administration’s claims that disparate-impact theory, an important legal concept used to prove that housing discrimination has occurred in cases where intent is not clear, is not valid (despite legal precedent).
Texas Housers is not deterred by this current development with our case. We will continue to seek justice for Black and Brown Houston and Harris County residents who were discriminated against by the Texas GLO. Now more than ever, we must preserve civil rights protections and disparate impact rules.
These times are difficult for those defending civil rights, but as we currently fight for these basic rights in our city streets and halls of Congress, there will soon be a time when we may have the opportunity to create change on a policy level once again. And when it arrives, we must be forceful and uncompromising to ensure that those experiencing discrimination aren’t only protected, but their livelihoods and those of future persons are safeguarded beyond the reach of future administrations’ malintended undoings. We must demand that our future leaders act to permanently install systems of justice for those treated unequally, and not just set things back to the status quo. We cannot sit idly by in a nation where only a privileged few have unconditional access to unalienable rights. Without forging rigid, unbreakable safeguards, civil rights protections are merely words.
