Equal protection lawsuits over waste siting fail on the intent requirement

Evidence

All of the equal protection lawsuits that have been decided by the courts have encountered the same problem of proving intentional discrimination: after Washington v. Davis, 426 U.S. 229 (1976), the equal protection clause is no longer a viable cause of action in most cases. In three reported cases, Bean v. Southwestern Waste Management, East Bibb Twiggs Neighborhood Association v. Macon-Bibb County Planning & Zoning Commission, and R.I.S.E., Inc. v. Kay, community groups were tripped up by the intent requirement. In these cases, neighborhood groups challenged the siting of a garbage dump in a predominantly African American neighborhood on equal protection grounds, and in all cases the neighborhood groups lost because, the courts held, the groups had not shown an intent to discriminate on the part of local decision makers. — Luke W. Cole and Sheila R. Foster, From the Ground Up, 1121

Categorization

• XREF: This pays off the ch9 claim that Washington v. Davis made discriminatory intent a prerequisite, showing the concrete dead-end it created across three siting cases. — connects to: EJ litigants win environmental claims while civil rights claims go unreached; Intent-to-discriminate requirements block Muslim equal protection claims; Neutral permitting laws perpetuate waste-siting inequalities — Luke W. Cole and Sheila R. Foster, From the Ground Up: Environmental…, 353 (+2 more)
• DEFINE: Concretely defines the intent requirement’s operation by tracking it through Bean, East Bibb, and R.I.S.E.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Luke W. Cole and Sheila R. Foster, From the Ground Up: Environmental…, 1121
• recurring: this claim recurs 2 times within its source

Broader Connections

• Intent-to-discriminate requirements block Muslim equal protection claims #expands (0.90)
• Neutral permitting laws perpetuate waste-siting inequalities #qualifies (0.85) — Luke W. Cole and Sheila R. Foster, From the Ground Up, 353
• Title VI regulations allow discrimination suits on discriminatory effect while the statute demands intent #expands (0.80) — Luke W. Cole and Sheila R. Foster, From the Ground Up, 1007
• Facially neutral ordinances enforced discriminatorily violate equal protection #contradicts (0.80) — Lawrence M. Friedman, A History of American Law, 2955