Thorough investigation into claims and review of facts leads to determination that allegations were baseless and dismissal of all findings of discrimination
AUSTIN – Today, Texas Land Commissioner Dawn Buckingham, M.D. announced that, after a lengthy and thorough investigation, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has officially closed the civil rights investigation into the Texas General Land Office’s (GLO) administration of mitigation funds having found that the politically motivated claims of discrimination were both legally and factually flawed.
Commissioner Dawn Buckingham released the following statement:
“For many years, politically motivated claims of discrimination were allowed to go unchallenged by reporters and unsupported by evidence or rule of law. Today, HUD released a comprehensive report chronicling the history of the mitigation grant funding, the weaknesses of the allegations, and the facts of the case.
“In its investigation, HUD revealed the truth – the GLO followed regulations and the law while liberal political appointees and advocates decried racism to direct funding to their preferred outcomes.
“A simple fact remains uncontested - more than a million minorities – two thirds of the total population – benefited from this funding. 100% are low-to-moderate income – surpassing the metrics required by HUD. Most reporters and all Biden’s political appointees ignored this fact because it countered their preferred click-bait narrative.
“The investigation was lengthy, comprehensive, and clearly demonstrated the claims of discrimination were false and politically motivated. I applaud HUD Secretary Scott Turner and his team for their diligent efforts to examine the evidence and set the record straight once and for all.”
The Letter of Determination and Finding of Compliance from HUD’s Office of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity carefully outlined both the allegations and defenses as well as examined the evidence and legal arguments presented by both sides. HUD noted, “Despite GLO disclosing 80,000 pages of official documents and internal communications, the record discloses no direct evidence that GLO designed or operated the Harvey Competition (or any portion of the Action Plan) with a racially discriminatory motive.” HUD determined, “The facts of this case do not suggest that GLO intentionally discriminated against any racial or ethnic group through its administration of the CDBG-MIT funds.”
HUD Dismantles Unfounded Discrimination Claims
In 2021, liberal housing advocates claimed the GLO intentionally discriminated against Houston in conducting a HUD-approved competition for mitigation projects. However, HUD’s analysis chronicled the GLO’s efforts to help Houston by holding multiple application workshop meetings with government officials and modifying competition scoring specifically for Houston and Harris County to limit the impact of the management capacity criterion on their project application (page 20). Rather than discrimination by GLO, HUD instead determined that “Houston’s poor performance in the Harvey Competition is attributable, at least in part, to its expensive, low-impact project proposals.”
HUD’s investigation exposed failures in Houston’s applications and discrimination claims:
HUD concluded that the GLO could not reasonably expect to foresee Houston would submit high-cost, low-benefit proposals. HUD agreed with GLO staff’s surprise and confusion in Houston’s failure to take advantage of the city and region’s considerable population to submit high-dollar projects that would benefit many and not just a few.
HUD concluded, “For the foregoing reasons, no reasonable cause exists to believe that GLO violated Title VI, the Fair Housing Act, or the Housing and Community Development Act through its administration of the 2019 CDBG-MIT funds.”
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