## Facts

- Black tenants and applicants brought class actions against the Chicago Housing Authority (CHA) and the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), alleging intentional creation and maintenance of racially segregated public housing in Chicago.
- The district court found CHA engaged in unconstitutional site selection and tenant assignment that concentrated public housing in predominantly Black neighborhoods and maintained racially identifiable projects.
- HUD was found to have participated in the unconstitutional system by approving and financing segregative public-housing actions in violation of the Fifth Amendment.
- The district court issued injunctive relief requiring CHA to take affirmative steps to dismantle segregation and, in earlier remedial orders, set targets and site-submission requirements to increase housing in predominantly white areas.
- On remand, the district court sought a “comprehensive plan” but adopted a HUD proposal that required HUD only to “cooperate” with CHA and excluded any relief outside Chicago’s municipal boundaries.
- Plaintiffs appealed, arguing an effective remedy required suburban and metropolitan-area opportunities and more definite obligations on HUD.

## Issues

1. Whether the district court could, or should, authorize desegregation remedies for proven public-housing segregation that extend beyond Chicago’s city limits.
2. Whether HUD, having been found to have contributed to unconstitutional segregation, could be ordered to undertake specific affirmative remedial actions, including actions affecting housing opportunities outside Chicago.

## Decision

- The Seventh Circuit held the district court had authority to order relief not confined to Chicago’s geographic boundaries.
- The court reversed the remedial limitation that excluded extra-city measures and rejected an approach that risked leaving the constitutional violation’s effects substantially unremedied.
- The court held the district court erred by imposing only a general “cooperate” obligation on HUD rather than considering concrete affirmative duties proportionate to HUD’s constitutional violations.
- The case was reversed in part and remanded for development of a more comprehensive remedial plan that could include suburban or metropolitan-area housing opportunities and more specific obligations for CHA and HUD.

## Legal Principles

- Equitable relief must be commensurate with the scope and effects of the constitutional violation; arbitrary geographic limits are improper if they render relief ineffective.
- In public-housing desegregation cases, federal courts possess broad remedial authority, including authority to consider remedies extending beyond municipal boundaries when necessary to eliminate the effects of de jure segregation.
- A federal agency that participated in unconstitutional segregation may be subject to specific affirmative remedial obligations tailored to correct the agency’s contribution to the violation.
- Practical and administrative difficulties do not excuse courts from ordering, and parties from attempting, effective relief once constitutional violations are established.

## Conclusion

The Seventh Circuit required the remedial decree to match the full scope of the proven unconstitutional public-housing segregation, holding that relief could extend beyond Chicago’s borders and that HUD could be ordered to take specific affirmative steps, and it remanded for a broader, more effective remedial plan.


Gautreaux v. Chi. Hous. Auth., 503 F.2d 930 (7th Cir. 1974)