We have another victory to report to you! Last week, a federal judge granted a joint motion to dismiss Californians for Equal Rights Foundation v. City of San Diego et al. We reached a favorable settlement after the San Diego Housing Commission (SDHC) had dropped its unconstitutional race requirement in its first-time homebuyer pilot program in November 2024 and agrees to pay reasonable financial restitution to the CFER member represented by us in the lawsuit.

To recap, CFER filed a federal lawsuit against the San Diego Housing Commission, City of San Diego and Housing Authority of the City of San Diego in March 2024. Our lawsuit challenged the “City of San Diego First-Time Homebuyer Program for Middle-Income, Black, Indigenous, People of Color (BIPOC) Households,” a pilot program launched in 2023 to help first-time, middle-income homebuyers of color to achieve home ownership in San Diego.

Thanks to our legal counsel – the Pacific Legal Foundation, we were able to secure satisfactory outcomes for this case, including the permanent repeal of a racially discriminatory program and financial recompense to settle a sanctions issue (the defendant breached the protective order by violating the CFER member’s privacy).

For the last four years, CFER has confronted government discrimination head on by taking a slew offending public agencies to court. Our growing track record shows CFER’s resolute commitment to equality:

• In July 2024, we won CFER et al. v. Alameda County et al., successfully halting two Alameda County public contracting programs that imposed race-based preferences for minority-owned enterprises.
• Also in July 2024, we prompted City of San Francisco to cancel a gender-based public welfare program called the Guaranteed Income for Trans People (GIFT) program, which was challenged in CFER et al. v. City and County of San Francisco et al.
• In January 2022, we reached a favorable settlement with the State Department of Education, which agreed to remove two religious chants in the Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum, challenged in CFER et al. v. State of California et al.

CFER stands at the forefront of exposing and challenging pervasive government discrimination. We are the watchdog that monitors California policies, legislation and programs related to race, gender, merit and more. We are a team player connecting our grassroots network, such as whistleblowers and potential victims, with our state and national allies, including reputable public interest law firms.

While we have achieved notable progress in challenging unconstitutional discrimination in court, we must keep going. There are around 1,000 public K-12 school districts, vast state university systems, 58 counties and 483 municipalities. We all know that many of them have similarly unconstitutional programs in place. But it takes time and money to identify these programs and build legally actionable cases. Our work to research, monitor and take proactive actions is urgently needed. If you support CFER’s mission and trust our track record, will you consider making a kind donation today to help us expand our legal battles?