Over the last few weeks, President Donald Trump has ramped up his election-year pitch to the suburbs, and it has drawn criticism for being a racist and dated appeal to voters. His focus on a supposed suburban ideal also draws attention to the longstanding connections between housing and schools, and what those connections mean for educational inequities.
Last month, Trump highlighted a New York Post , the former lieutenant governor of New York state, deploring presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden鈥檚 support for high-density, affordable housing. In doing so, he declared to the 鈥溾�� that he would save their communities from destruction at the former vice president鈥檚 hands. He also made at a White House event.
His rhetoric is linked to policy. On July 23, two days after the Post published McCaughey鈥檚 column, Trump鈥檚 Department of Housing and Urban Development announced it would for state and local governments to show that they are using federal dollars under the Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing requirements to combat discrimination.
鈥淚 am happy to inform all of the people living their Suburban Lifestyle Dream that you will no longer be bothered or financially hurt by having low income housing built in your neighborhood,鈥� to highlight the new HUD rule, which was effectively a repeal of an Obama administration directive. 鈥淵our housing prices will go up based on the market, and crime will go down.鈥�
Trump did not mention education directly in those comments about 鈥渟uburban housewives鈥� and the suburbs, , according to a 2016 New York Times exit poll. But they also serve to highlight how 鈥渟chool policy is housing policy, and vice versa,鈥� said Peter Piazza, a researcher at the Massachusetts Consortium for Innovative Education Assessment who supports school integration efforts.
鈥淭hat rhetoric is just an age-old device to signal to white people that, 鈥業鈥檓 just going to protect you from poor, violent black people,鈥欌�� said Andre Perry, a fellow at the Brookings Institution鈥檚 Metropolitan Policy Program, about Trump鈥檚 comments. 鈥淗e鈥檚 trying to get reelected by appealing to not just white people, but racist white people.鈥�
That sentiment draws on a growing body of research about how education and other local officials have responded to the increasing diversity of their suburban communities. And clashes about school integration and rezoning in suburbs have drawn significant media coverage.
Yet Piazza said he was concerned that even 鈥減eople that I鈥檓 not even sure will necessarily vote for Trump鈥� might sympathize with support for what they see as key characteristics of suburbs.
Ultimately, the impact of Trump鈥檚 rhetoric on the election could be quite limited either way, in part because of how ostensibly liberal suburbanites say they favor diversity and integration but often resist concrete local school integration plans, said Max Eden, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute. He pointed to a major in Howard County, Md., as one such example.
鈥淎ny effort to change the composition of their schools [they would see as] a threat to their community. And they would become defensive against that. And they would never admit that there is a racial component to that. And I don鈥檛 want to accuse them of harboring secret racist or racialist ideas,鈥� he said. But many outside of those communities would see such motivations at work nevertheless, he added.
鈥楳akes Our Work Harder鈥�
The rule Trump brought into the public arena last month isn鈥檛 his administration鈥檚 only significant initiative that highlights the connection between housing and education.
Last year, the administration introduced a proposal that essentially would for people to sue developers, banks, and others for racial discrimination under the Fair Housing Act. Several groups criticized the proposal at the time because, they said, it would make it more difficult to address the root causes of housing discrimination that create a 鈥渄isparate impact鈥� for people of color, regardless of whether such discrimination is intentional.
, they said, are racially segregated schools that often lack the same financial resources as their majority white counterparts.
鈥淓very time we see standards used under the Fair Housing Act, in this case disparate impact, weakened ... it also makes our work harder on the education integration side,鈥� said Sherrilyn Ifill, the president and director-counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, when discussing the proposal last year. (The proposed rule has not been finalized by HUD.)
Regardless of how much these and similar shifts in policy have affected Trump鈥檚 overall political standing, there鈥檚 that with the presidential election less than three months away, Trump鈥檚 support among suburban voters has sharply declined. That clearly hasn鈥檛 gone unnoticed by the president and his supporters. In her New York Post column, for example, McCaughey noted the increasing diversity of suburbs and that Trump鈥檚 comments should appeal to people who live in them regardless of their race.
While it鈥檚 fair for suburbanites to have certain expectations for their communities including their schools, another factor limiting the political impact of Trump鈥檚 rhetoric either way is that the issue remains abstract for many people, Eden noted. It鈥檚 not as if, for example, Hillary Clinton was elected in 2016 and implemented aggressive housing rules and school integration schemes that Trump could now promise to tear down as a challenger in 2020, Eden explained.
鈥淭he argument that Trump is making would appeal to them if they actually had to see the effects of what they鈥檙e saying,鈥� Eden said.
Demographics, Data, and Opinion
It鈥檚 not clear how much recent suburban demographic change itself might affect Trump鈥檚 vote share in November. But for years, think tanks and others have focused on how, even as the in many instances, this demographic shift does not necessarily translate into similar educational experiences for different racial groups.
A recent from two researchers published by the MacArthur Foundation, for example, followed 24 Black families looking for the 鈥減ackage deal鈥� of moving to a good neighborhood with a good school. They found that just 13 were able to make the move to the suburbs, and just three were ultimately satisfied with the quality of their suburban school.
By contrast, of 12 white families studied, eight made the move to the suburbs and all eight were satisfied with their suburban school. Yet for all that, Piazza said, he works with districts in Massachusetts where educators have worked hard to support nonwhite students and make integrated schools work.
A recent study published by Piazza and two other researchers conducted in the state in the number of 鈥渋ntensely segregated鈥� schools where at least 90 percent of students were white, but a simultaneous if not equivalent rise in intensely segregated nonwhite schools, over the past dozen years.
If the federal government were to exercise more aggressive legal oversight of school segregation, use the bully pulpit and share important data to focus attention on the issue, and direct voluntary grants to communities interested in desegregation efforts like those created at the tail end of the Obama administration, according to Piazza, the collective weight of those actions could affect everyday conversations among many suburban white parents.
鈥淥ftentimes, once those policies are in place, people鈥檚 attitudes change,鈥� he said.
Language and Self-Reflection
Just how consistent Trump鈥檚 鈥淪uburban Housewives of America鈥� rhetoric is with his approach to education issues in recent months is up for debate.
In June, Trump鈥檚 campaign called attention to former vice president Joe Biden鈥檚 in the Senate that ultimately helped protect the tax-exempt status of private schools accused of barring black students.
The Trump administration has in several public events recently, amid increased outreach by his campaign to the Black community; some polling shows support for school choice measures among Black voters. Trump said that 鈥渟chool choice is the civil rights statement of the year鈥� at a White House event in June.
But Trump鈥檚 pitch to the suburbs not only underestimates suburban voters鈥� support for diverse communities and schools, but uses prejudice to pit people against each other, said Liz King, the program director for education at the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights. 鈥淭he fallacy that white children will succeed only at the expense of black children is just that. It is a fallacy,鈥� she said.
The president鈥檚 unsubtle rhetoric might also lead to some self-reflection and make it very clear to suburban voters where they should stand and what actions they should take, King said.
鈥淵ou have euphemisms and you have jargon as a way of avoiding the underlying agenda,鈥� King said. 鈥淲hat Trump is doing is sidestepping the jargon and the euphemisms.鈥�
