Geotz responded, saying, “To take this position is to open yourself up to claims that you are a closet segregationist,” Goetz said. “I had to get to this position. I was pushed by people who live in these neighborhoods, who looked at me, and said, in effect, ‘Why do you look at our neighborhood and assume it’s bad?’ They are not blind to the problems in their communities. But their solution is not to move to a white neighborhood, but to ask, ‘Why can’t our neighborhood be safe?’”
Myron Orfield
Earl R. Larson Professor of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties Law
Director, Institute on Metropolitan Opportunity
Prof. Myron Orfield Argues in the Star Tribune that Racial Integration in Twin Cities Neighborhoods is Essential to Health and Prosperity in the Region
Professor Myron Orfield's and School of Public Health Professor Ed Goetz 's positions on integration and segregation were highlighted in a recent Star Tribune article by journalist Evan Ramstad. The article focuses on the challenges in the Twin Cities metro area to add more affordable housing in the communities— and the disagreements of interested parties in the housing area about how to achieve that goal. Ramstad says that the "fight over where to place affordable housing continues to rage in the Twin Cities. It boils down to segregation vs. integration."
Orfield and Goetz hold opposing views about integration and segregation when it comes to finding solutions to the TC Metro's affordable housing dilemma. Orfield, the Earl R. Larson Professor in Civil Rights and Civil Liberties and director of the Institute on Metropolitan Opportunity, states that "[p]articularly in the last 10 years, but really the last 20, we have built a deeply segregated society [in the Twin Cities],” Orfield said. “We went from a fairly integrated society to a segregated system of schools and a much more segregated system of neighborhoods. And philanthropy and government have supported a series of institutions that exist in the segregated society and they don’t know anything else.”
In contrast, Ramstad writes that Goetz "came to believe there are times when racial concentration and preference make sense." Ramstad asserted he personally couldn't support segregation as a solution, saying, "I told [Goetz] I didn’t think I could write anything that seemed to support segregation."
Ramstad endorses Orfield's view that racial integration is essential to the health and prosperity of the Twin Cities region, especially related to housing, but notes the challenges with these opposing views, "Minnesota needs new housing everywhere, but it especially needs affordable housing to be built throughout the Twin Cities region. To my surprise, even now in 2024, many people disagree.