“Housing is the most powerful driver of segregation, especially when we have a state that assigns schools based on municipal lines,” said Adam Gordon, executive director of the Fair Share Housing Center, a nonprofit created to defend the doctrine. In town, about 25% of the township’s housing stock is multi-family homes. About 40% receive free or reduced lunch, an indicator of the proportion of low-income families. The 7,000 students at Franklin Schools speak more than 65 languages and are about 37% Hispanic, 33% Black, 15% Asian and 11% white, enrollment data shows. In that regard, they said, Franklin Township is a leader. One solution, housing advocates have long argued, is to make the state’s housing policy better reflect the economic and racial diversity of New Jersey’s population. The lawsuit cites a study that found New Jersey schools are among the most segregated for Black and Latino students in the U.S. The nonprofits say assigning children to schools based on where they live - in a state with 564 municipalities and nearly 600 school districts - replicates existing residential segregation inside classrooms. Now the state is fighting a lawsuit filed by a coalition of nonprofits alleging it sends tens of thousands of Black and Latino students to segregated schools that are just 1% white.
For two decades, lawmakers allowed wealthy towns to pay their way out of their court-mandated housing obligations, and students in those municipalities generally attended much less diverse schools, Gothamist found. But the doctrine, which is still in effect, has a tattered history of enforcement. The unusual legal mandate known as the Mount Laurel Doctrine was the first of its kind in the country to incentivize low-cost housing production through municipal zoning rules.
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