(NASHVILLE, Tenn.) — Tennessee’s “trigger” law banning abortions went into effect Thursday, making providing abortions a felony in the state.
The Tennessee near-total abortion ban, which was enacted in 2019, criminalizes performing or attempting to perform an abortion, only making exceptions for cases where it is necessary to prevent death or serious and permanent bodily injury to the mother, according to the law.
Trigger laws are written to go into effect after an event occurs, in this case the law was written to go into effect 30 days after a Supreme Court ruling that overturns Roe v. Wade, overturning federal protections for abortion rights, in whole or in part. While the Supreme Court released its opinions in June, the formal judgement was issued by the court in July.
In a letter to the Tennessee Code Commission last month, the state’s attorney general, Herbert Slatery III, announced the effective date of the law, called the Human Life Protection Act, is Aug. 25.
Under the law, performing or attempting to perform an abortion is a Class C felony.
For an abortion to be legal under the law’s exception, it must be performed or attempted by a licensed physician, the physician must determine the abortion was necessary to prevent the death or serious injury of the pregnant woman and the abortion must provide the best opportunity for the fetus to survive, unless that threatens the life of the pregnant woman or could cause serious injury, according to the law.
Under the ban, abortions cannot be authorized based on a “claim or diagnosis” relating to mental health, including claims that the woman would “engage in conduct that would result in her death or substantial and irreversible impairment of a major bodily function,” according to the law.
The law does not criminalize women or pregnant people seeking an abortion.
Tennessee’s heartbeat law was already in effect, as of June 28, banning all abortions after embryonic cardiac activity is detected, which generally occurs around six weeks, before many women or pregnant people know they are pregnant.
(LOS ANGELES) — A California man has pleaded guilty to importing wild animals into the country, federal prosecutors in Los Angeles announced Wednesday.
Prosecutors said Jose Manuel Perez, 30, smuggled more than 1,700 wild animals, including 60 reptiles, worth $739,000 into the U.S. and was arrested at the U.S.-Mexico border in February. Officials found reptiles hidden in his clothing in small bags, prosecutors said.
When he was caught crossing into the U.S., federal agents said he had about 60 reptiles on him — including some in his pants.
He pleaded guilty to two counts of smuggling goods into the country and one count of wild trafficking, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Los Angeles.
Perez, who also went by the name Julio Rodriguez, used social media to arrange and smuggle animals into the U.S. between January 2016 and February 2022, federal prosecutors said.
The wildlife, which came from Mexico and Hong Kong, included Yucatan box turtles, baby crocodiles, Mexican box turtles and beaded lizards, federal prosecutors said, and he didn’t declare them through U.S. Customs or obtain the required permits through the Convention on the International Trade of Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES).
Perez worked with others in his smuggling operation, according to federal prosecutors. His sister, Stephany Perez, 26, was allegedly involved and is scheduled to go on trial in February, prosecutors said.
Jose Manuel Perez faces a maximum of 20 years in federal prison for each count of smuggling and up to five years in prison for wildlife trafficking, according to federal prosecutors.
His attorney did not immediately provide a comment to ABC News.
(UVALDE, Texas) — In a March 3, 2021, school board meeting, Uvalde police chief Pete Arredondo, raised concerns about security issues in schools.
Uvalde school board officials unanimously voted Wednesday to fire Pete Arredondo, the school district’s police chief, exactly three months after the school shooting that killed 19 students and two teachers.
The termination is effective immediately.
Arredondo was not in attendance at his termination hearing out of concerns over his safety, his attorney, George Hyde, said in a 17-page statement released shortly before the community gathered Wednesday evening.
Hyde claimed that the district did not file proper legal procedures in proceeding with disciplinary action and that follow-up requests for access to district complaints or investigations “have been ignored by the district,” calling the proceedings an “illegal and unconstitutional public lynching.”
Arredondo has been the target of criticism for the delayed response to the May 24 tragedy.
School officials have continued to face pressure to hold officers accountable for the 77 minutes it took before law enforcement breached a classroom door and killed the 18-year-old gunman.
The Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District recommended that Arredondo be fired. The Uvalde school board canceled its July 23 special session to consider the district’s recommendation “in conformity with due process requirements, and at the request of his attorney.”
School board members agreed in an Aug. 15 meeting to hire outside attorneys ahead of the hearing.
Parents and community members have called on officials to fire Arredondo immediately, with some calling for the firing of other members of Uvalde’s school district police force who were present during the shooting.
According to an investigative report by the Texas House of Representatives into the events of May 24, the school district’s written active shooter plan assigned Arredondo “to assume command and control” during an active shooter incident.
“But as events unfolded, he failed to perform or to transfer to another person the role of incident commander,” the report from the state House read. “This was an essential duty he had assigned to himself in the plan mentioned above, yet it was not effectively performed by anyone.”
The report goes on to describe the general consensus from witnesses that officers on the scene either “assumed that Chief Arredondo was in charge, or that they could not tell that anybody was in charge of a scene described by several witnesses as ‘chaos’ or a ‘cluster.'”
Uvalde:365 is a continuing ABC News series reported from Uvalde and focused on the Texas community and how it forges on in the shadow of tragedy.
In an interview with The Texas Tribune, Arredondo said he did not consider himself the commanding officer on the scene. He has said he was not made aware of the 911 calls coming from the children in the attacked classrooms.
Arredondo has defended the police response to the incident.
“We responded to the information that we had and had to adjust to whatever we faced,” Arredondo said. “Our objective was to save as many lives as we could, and the extraction of the students from the classrooms by all that were involved saved over 500 of our Uvalde students and teachers before we gained access to the shooter and eliminated the threat.”
Fifteen months before the school shooting, Arredondo at a school board meeting mentioned some of the security issues that investigators found played critical roles in the failures connected with the May 24 massacre, including problems with police radios and school doors left open.
In other remarks, Arredondo pointed out the need for more active shooter training.
Arredondo resigned from his city council post and is currently on leave from his position as UCISD police chief.
He is calling for the board to “immediately reinstate him, with all back pay and benefits and close the complaint as unfounded,” his attorney said Wednesday.
(LOS ANGELES) — After nearly two weeks of testimony, a jury has reached a verdict in Vanessa Bryant’s invasion of privacy trial over photos taken at the scene of the 2020 helicopter crash that killed her husband, basketball star Kobe Bryant, and their 13-year-old daughter.
The jury deliberated for several hours before reaching the verdict, which is expected to be read shortly.
The federal trial began on Aug. 10, with the jury hearing from those in law enforcement, first responders and the family of the victims, including Vanessa Bryant. Attorneys gave closing statements on Tuesday and Wednesday.
Vanessa Bryant filed a lawsuit several months after the 2020 crash against Los Angeles County, alleging that first responders took graphic photos of human remains at the scene as “souvenirs” and shared them with others. She is claiming she suffered emotional distress and sued for an undisclosed amount of damages for negligence and invasion of privacy.
Kobe Bryant and their daughter, Gianna, were headed to a basketball game at his Mamba Sports Academy in Thousand Oaks along with others connected to the basketball program on Jan. 26, 2020, when the helicopter they were traveling in crashed in Calabasas. All nine people on board were killed.
Vanessa Bryant took the stand in Los Angeles federal court on Friday, telling the jury she lives in fear every day that the photos could be leaked and wants “justice for my husband and my daughter.”
Orange County financial adviser Chris Chester is also suing the county over photos taken of his wife and daughter, who were killed in the same crash. In July, U.S. District Judge John Walter decided to consolidate Bryant’s and Chester’s cases into one trial.
Chester took the witness stand on Thursday, telling the jury he was in “disbelief” after hearing reports that deputies and firefighters took and shared photos of his wife, Sarah, and their 13-year-old daughter, Payton.
“It was grief on top of grief,” he said, calling for “justice and accountability.”
Throughout the trial, the defense maintained that the photos have not surfaced online since the tragedy. Multiple county fire and sheriff’s personnel have also testified that they deleted whatever crash-site pictures they had on their cellphones.
Both Bryant’s and Chester’s lawsuits argue that the photos were shared before being deleted by first responders.
The jury was instructed that they could find either the county sheriff’s office or fire department, or both, to be liable, and that Bryant or Chester, or both, were warranted damages.
(NEW YORK) — Disgraced former Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein has been granted an appeal in his New York sexual assault case.
The New York Court of Appeals, the state’s highest court, agreed Wednesday to hear his appeal of his 2020 sex crimes conviction in Manhattan.
Weinstein, 70, was sentenced to 23 years following a landmark trial during the #MeToo movement that found him guilty of criminal sexual assault and rape in the third degree.
He has argued certain testimony allowed at trial was improper and a juror who wrote a novel about “predatory older men” should have been disqualified.
Weinstein’s attorneys have until Oct. 18 to file a brief with the court to begin the appellate process, the docket shows.
The Appellate Division’s First Department previously upheld Weinstein’s conviction, but outgoing Chief Judge Janet DiFiore granted Weinstein’s motion for leave to file an appeal.
In a statement provided to ABC News, Harvey Weinstein said, “I am innocent of these charges, and I am so grateful to my attorneys for working hard and smart of this. Their hard work will help me prove my innocence in the end. I look forward to this opportunity to be heard by the New York Court of Appeals.”
A spokesman for Weinstein said in a statement to ABC News that the court’s decision “demonstrates that there is, in fact, merit to the appeal. There was plenty wrong with the trial and conviction and Harvey’s attorneys will do what is needed to prove his innocence of the charges.”
The Manhattan District Attorney’s office, which brought the charges against Weinstein, declined to comment Wednesday.
The sentence included 20 years for criminal sexual assault in the first degree, which stems from an accusation from former “Project Runway” production assistant Mimi Haley. It also included three years for rape in the third degree, stemming from an accusation from Jessica Mann.
Weinstein faced a minimum of probation and a maximum of four years in prison on the rape conviction, and between five and 25 years on the criminal sexual assault conviction.
He was found not guilty in that trial of the more serious charges of predatory sexual assault and of rape in the first degree.
Weinstein is currently jailed in Los Angeles awaiting trial there on sex crime charges. He faces four felony sexual assault charges for allegedly attacking two women in separate incidents in February 2013 within a day of each other.
(BEVERLY, Mass.) — A convict was indicted Wednesday in the murder of a college student who was found strangled to death more than 35 years ago, officials said.
The body of 20-year-old Claire Gravel was discovered in the woods on June 30, 1986, in Beverly, Massachusetts.
In the intervening years, authorities have interviewed dozens of witnesses and persons of interest in the cold case, Essex District Attorney Jonathan Blodgett told reporters during a press briefing Wednesday.
A grand jury indicted 63-year-old John Carey in her death Wednesday morning, Blodgett said. Carey is currently serving a 20-year sentence at a Concord prison after he was convicted in 2008 of attempting to strangle another woman to death in Massachusetts.
“For 36 years, Claire Gravel’s family and friends have had nothing but questions about her death,” Blodgett said. “Today, we were able to give them some of the answers.”
Evidence recovered from Gravel’s clothing “was instrumental in solving this case,” Blodgett said, noting that investigators continually review cold cases “hoping that new techniques and a fresh look would result in a breakthrough.”
Carey, who had been a person of interest in the case, will be arraigned on a first-degree murder charge at a later date, Blodgett said. It is unclear if the suspect has an attorney.
Blodgett said prosecutors have not yet speculated on a motive in Gravel’s murder, but said “we feel confident” based on the evidence presented to the grand jury “that we have the right person.”
Gravel, a student at Salem State from North Andover, was last seen alive the day before her body was found. After a night at a local bar with members of her softball team, a friend dropped Gravel off at her apartment at around 1:30 a.m. on June 29. Three workers found her body in the woods off Route 128 in Beverly on the afternoon of June 30. The medical examiner determined that she had been strangled to death.
Blodgett said he has been in touch with Gravel’s family, who expressed “relief” that a suspect has been identified in her murder.
“I want to thank everyone for their tireless and relentless pursuit of justice for Claire,” he said.
(NEW YORK) — Indiana’s new abortion law will go into effect on Sept. 15, which would ban abortion in nearly all cases with limited exceptions including rape and incest.
Indiana was the first state to pass new legislation restricting reproductive rights after Roe v. Wade was overturned on June 24.
Dr. Katherine McHugh, a practicing doctor who provides abortion services in Indiana, spoke with ABC News’ podcast “Start Here” about how her practice has been shifting following the overturning of Roe v. Wade and how the new state law will impact her practice.
START HERE: Dr. McHugh, can you just tell me about where you work and what the last couple months have been like?
MCHUGH: Yeah, absolutely. Thanks so much for having me and for taking on this issue. I am primarily in Indianapolis, although I travel all over the state of Indiana providing abortion care. And over the last two months, we have seen a real change in our patient demographic. We’ve seen an influx of patients from outside of the state, they are coming to us from other states that have already banned abortion.
And this has all been in the setting of anticipating an abortion ban in Indiana as well. So we’ve been able to increase access over the last few months and been very fortunate that we have been able to take care of a lot of people that needed healthcare and at the same time, working with collaborative networks and strengthening those referral places because we know that we will be sending our own patients away in just a few short weeks.
The patients that we’re seeing are the ones that can afford childcare, that can afford the gas money, they can afford to take time off of work. We’re also seeing much earlier patients, patients whose pregnancies are much earlier in their gestation. People are scared. People are nervous about what it means to be pregnant in a place or in a time when all of their options are not available to them. So that is probably the most common thing that I talked about with patients, is how scared they are to be pregnant.
START HERE: That makes me curious, if there’s this fear of pregnancy from women seeking abortions, I’m wondering about the fears of women who are pregnant who aren’t seeking abortions or don’t know if they want an abortion. Is it getting more complicated, for example, for women I was mentioning earlier, who are suffering miscarriages or other abnormalities early on?
MCHUGH: That has been a complicated topic for physicians and certainly a very challenging experience for patients. Patients who have a miscarriage that is diagnosed, but the fetus still has a heartbeat– that is very complicated in states like Kentucky and Ohio that have what they’re called heartbeat bans, which means that they can’t have an abortion after the time that you can see fetal cardiac activity. So that means that even if the patient is bleeding, even if the cervix is open, and there is no way that the pregnancy is able to continue, they cannot interfere, the physicians cannot interact.
START HERE: Oh, there’s still technically a heartbeat.
MCHUGH: There is a heartbeat even though there is not a viable pregnancy. I’ve seen several people coming from surrounding states where the physicians in those states are unclear enough about the legality of interfering in what is, in the legal sense, a continuing pregnancy even though medically speaking it is not a viable pregnancy, that the patients have to come to Indiana where that doesn’t exist yet. It doesn’t have that same legal impact here in Indiana.
I saw a patient recently who came to me from out-of-state and she had a situation where she was pregnant, and she was bleeding so she went to an emergency room and had an ultrasound to evaluate what was going on. What the doctors there saw was that her pregnancy was inside the uterus, so it wasn’t an ectopic pregnancy, but she had significant bleeding and the cervix had started to open. The pregnancy already had and still had a heartbeat. She was about seven weeks pregnant.
So at this point the doctors were faced with a really challenging moment where they didn’t know what they were allowed to do legally. Could they offer what is standard of care, which would be to offer some sort of termination of this pregnancy? And they decided they could not. The reason that this situation would warrant terminating a pregnancy is called an inevitable abortion or a pregnancy that is not able to be continued. And in the intervening time, the woman or the pregnant person can lose a lot of blood and become infected, can get very very sick and can even die from this.
START HERE: So it feels like you’re sentencing this woman to, best-case scenario, a very painful miscarriage, worst-case scenario is much worse than that. And those are the two options.
MCHUGH: Exactly right. And so this is a very common scenario we diagnose inevitable abortion all the time. For this particular patient, she was able to come to Indiana, she saw me in one of my clinics, and we were able to provide that pregnancy termination for her, save her uterus and potentially save her life. But in her home, state physicians did not feel that they were legally able to do that. So they sent her away.
START HERE: Wow, I see and then they come to you because right now it’s legal where you are. But on September 15th, I believe, this new law goes into effect in Indiana. It outlaws virtually all abortions that are not the result of rape or incest or that endanger the life of the mother. Even in those circumstances, though, there are timelines to deal with. And I found this interesting, there are also timelines for fetal abnormalities, right, what happens in those situations?
MCHUGH: Yeah, great question. That part of the new law echoes our previous laws, where we had the ability to terminate a pregnancy up to 22 weeks. However, what’s different is under the new law, if the government doesn’t agree with the medical opinion that this was a lethal anomaly, suddenly instead of it just you know, quote unquote being a medical decision that is controversial, now it’s a felony. So this becomes much more complicated to navigate from a medical perspective. You know, it’s already very complicated and very emotional to tell a patient with a desired pregnancy that the baby they’re carrying is not going to live, that they are carrying a baby with profound anomalies that is not able to live outside. That is a devastating day for everyone involved.
And now we are also faced with telling patients that offering them their options which include abortion, which is a compassionate way to treat this pregnancy and this fetal anomaly, and yet if the government does not agree with our medical diagnosis or medical plan of care, treatment plan, then we have the threat of a felony charge which carries six years in jail.
START HERE: So if the stakes are that high for someone like you all of a sudden, what are you going to do starting September 15th?
MCHUGH: After this ban goes into effect, I will no longer be able to provide abortion care in Indiana. This is an integral part of my practice and reason for going into obstetrics and gynecology and so I will move that part of my practice out of state.
START HERE: Oh, you’re gonna have to like move your practice because of this?
MCHUGH: Yeah, the closest state to me is Illinois, so I will work to find a place in Illinois where I can work. The rest of my career will also adjust, to accommodate for the travel and so forth.
START HERE: It’s the moment that your state becomes one of the states that you have been helping up until now.
MCHUGH: Exactly right.
START HERE: Dr. Katie McHugh in Indiana, for now, thank you so much.
(LOS ANGELES) — After closing arguments concluded, the jury began deliberations Wednesday in Vanessa Bryant’s invasion of privacy trial over photos taken at the scene of the 2020 helicopter crash that killed her husband, basketball star Kobe Bryant, and their 13-year-old daughter, Gianna.
Bryant and Orange County financial adviser Chris Chester, whose wife and daughter were also killed in the crash, are suing Los Angeles County for negligence and violation of privacy, alleging that first responders took graphic photos of human remains at the scene as “souvenirs” and shared them with others.
Bryant filed the lawsuit several months after the 2020 crash and U.S. District Judge John Walter in July decided to consolidate Bryant’s and Chester’s cases into one trial.
The judge instructed the jury to consider liability and any damages due in the case separately; meaning one or both the Los Angeles Fire Department and the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department can be found liable, and one or both Bryant and Chester can be found to warrant damages.
Jury deliberations officially began at 11:24 a.m. local time. Judge Walter asked attorneys for both sides to remain in the building. If a decision is reached, Walter said he wants to move quickly with the proceedings.
Throughout the trial, the defense maintained that the photos have not surfaced online since the tragedy. Multiple county fire and sheriff’s personnel have also testified that they deleted whatever crash-site pictures they had on their cellphones.
Both Bryant’s and Chester’s lawsuits argue that the photos were shared before being deleted by first responders.
Bryant is claiming she suffered emotional distress and is suing for an undisclosed amount of damages.
Kobe and Gianna Bryant were headed to a basketball game at his Mamba Sports Academy in Thousand Oaks, California, along with others connected to the basketball program on Jan. 26, 2020, when the helicopter they were traveling in crashed north of Los Angeles. All 9 people on board were killed.
(LONDON) — The internet personality and former kickboxer Andrew Tate has spoken out after being banned from Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and TikTok this week, accused of misogyny.
Tate, who first came into the public eye when he was ejected from the U.K. reality show Big Brother in 2016, has gone viral across these platforms over the last few months, amassing hundreds of thousands of followers in the process.
The ban comes after the 35-year-old’s comments were branded to be “wildly misogynistic” by activist groups.
In videos originally uploaded to YouTube, Tate appeared to claim that women should “stay at home” and that women “belong” to their male partners.
He was banned from Twitter in 2017, after allegedly saying that victims of sexual assault must ‘bear some responsibility’ in response to the rise of the #MeToo movement.
Before being banned from Instagram, Tate had managed to acquire 4.7 million followers on his Instagram and over 760,000 subscribers on YouTube, according to HypeAuditor, an analytics website.
As well as his popularity on his social media accounts, Tate has amassed over 100,000 subscribers on his website ‘Hustler’s University.’
The online platform gives subscribers classes on topics such as cryptocurrency and personal finance for a $49 monthly fee.
Users were encouraged to share Tate’s controversial content in order to get more sign-ups for Hustler’s University through their personal affiliate links, earning them a commission. The affiliate system was shut down this week after Tate’s ban from Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram.
A spokesperson from Meta told ABC News that he had ‘violated [their] policies’ which resulted in the ban.
Although his official account is banned, the hashtag #AndrewTate on TikTok has 14.1 billion views.
Some of these videos are clips of Tate shared by his supporters, however many of them are individuals’ reactions to Tate’s controversial views, which in turn has amplified his messaging.
“Misogyny is a hateful ideology that is not tolerated on TikTok,” a spokesperson for the social platform told ABC News. “Our investigation into this content is ongoing, as we continue to remove violative accounts and videos, and pursue measures to strengthen our enforcement, including our detection models, against this type of content.”
YouTube did not immediately respond to a request for comment from ABC News. The video platform told the Independent, “We terminated channels associated with Andrew Tate for multiple violations of our community guidelines and terms of service, including our hate speech policy. If a channel is terminated, the uploader is unable to use, own or create any other YouTube channels.”
In a video shared on Vimeo on Wednesday, Tate discusses how he believes that other creators edited videos of him out of context in order to get views.
“They understood that if they can make a YouTube video purporting a lie about me or saying bad things about me, it’s more likely to get clicks,” he said. “People, through their own selfish desires of trying to piggyback off the back of my massive fame and becoming the most famous man on the planet, have decided that making a bunch of negative videos is a fantastic way for them to personally gain clout.”
Despite denying the allegations, Tate states that he does have “some responsibility to bear.”
Asked about the decision to ban Tate, Michael Bronski, a professor in women and gender studies at Harvard University, told ABC News: “I’m less worried about banning people than I am about thinking of ways to make people act better.”
“The real problem comes from the normalisation of it, where this behaviour simply becomes acceptable because it’s so common,” she added. “Even though it’s been contested by some people, the prevalence of It makes it acceptable.”
HOPE Not Hate, a charity which aims to ‘oppose far right extremism’ had campaigned for Tate’s de-platforming. In a statement on their website, they have stated that their campaign had been “hugely successful, but it’s not over yet.”
“Tate is a symptom of wider societal misogyny, and we all have to do more to combat its corrosive impact on society and the very real dangers it poses to women,” the organization said in a statement.
(HOMELAND, Md.) — A Black couple whose home valuation increased nearly $300,000 after their Homeland, Maryland, property was re-appraised with a white colleague serving as the homeowner is suing two firms alleging racial discrimination.
Nathan Connolly and Shani Mott, who are both professors at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, allege that Shane Lanham of 20/20 Valuations racially discriminated against them by undervaluing their 2,600-square-foot home at $472,000. That’s just over the $450,000 they paid for the home in 2017, according to the lawsuit. Their complaint states that they invested more than $50,000 in renovations and improvements between 2020 and 2021.
The couple is also suing loanDepot, alleging the company discriminated against them by using the 20/20 Valuations appraisal to deny them a refinance loan.
“My jaw dropped. I was like, this is racism. Because we had done the research, right?” said Mott, during an interview with ABC News Live. “We didn’t go into this process, this refinance process, blindly.”
A spokesperson for loanDepot issued a statement to ABC News.
“We strongly oppose bias in the home finance process and support the plans to combat appraisal bias and promote more sustainable, affordable housing for minority and low- to moderate-income families and communities put forth by the Interagency Task Force on Property Appraisal and Valuation Equity and by the Mortgage Bankers Association. While appraisals are performed independently by outside expert appraisal firms, all participants in the home finance process must work to find ways to contribute to eradicating bias.”
Lanham declined a request for comment.
Mott, an Africana Studies lecturer, said she and Connolly, a professor of history focusing on racism, capitalism and notions of property, had reviewed several comparable homes and educated themselves on what to expect. Based in their research, the couple found the $472,000 valuation “impossible.” Earlier this year, they looked to another lender for an appraisal, this time removing their children’s artwork, artifacts and other signs that indicated a Black family resided in the home. Then, Connolly and Mott had a white colleague answer the door when the new appraiser arrived.
The new home appraisal was $750,000.
“We were aware that there were examples of whitewashing being effective in helping Black families get the value that they were entitled to,” Connolly said of how the couple came to “curate” the house to appeal to appraisers’ potential expectations of a more valuable home.
Paige Glotzer, the author of “How the Suburbs Were Segregated: Developers and the Business of Exclusionary Housing – 1890-1960,” told ABC News that they see a deeply rooted connection in Connolly and Mott’s lawsuit to racially exclusive housing covenants that once prohibited Black residents from living in Homeland, a still predominantly white neighborhood. Glotzer is also an assistant professor and the John W. and Jeanne M. Rowe Chair in the History of American Politics, Institutions, and Political Economy at University of Wisconsin-Madison. Glotzer is also Connolly’s former Ph.D. advisee.
“The creation of Homeland was so bound up with the codification of discrimination in a national real estate industry,” Glotzer said. “That was a moment where you really had everyone, both consumers and home buyers, acknowledging that race was a part of property value.”
According to Glotzer, signs of Blackness in the home from books, art, and decorations are as significant in marking a ‘Black home’ as the physical presence of Black homeowners.
“And part of this process, it really did require us to think about what whiteness represents. Right? If you whitewash your house, you’re going in with historical awareness of what is it that your average kind of white appraiser would want to see,” Mott said. “We kind of tapped into our historical imagination, but also our historical knowledge and kind of set out on a course to do that.”
Gabriel Diaz, an attorney at civil rights law firm Relman Colfax PLLC who is representing the family, told ABC News that his clients’ case “illustrates how pervasive this issue is” and highlights the emotional and financial harm it may cause. He said this lawsuit is about making sure people understand how disparate appraisals like Connolly and Mott’s happen so that they don’t happen again.
ABC News’ Victoria Moll-Ramirez and Milan Miller contributed to this report.
