A Minnesota First: Twin Cities Suburb Requires Removal of Race-Based Deed Restrictions

Mounds View, Minnesota is making history with its new ordinance requiring home sellers to remove race-based deed restrictions before selling. Mounds View adopted its new ordinance on July 23, 2024.

It’s official. Mounds View, a Minneapolis – St. Paul suburb, will now require the removal of racially restrictive covenants from deeds.

Racial covenants (a.k.a. race-based deed restrictions) could say a property was off-limits to anyone from named racial groups. No more, say the mayor and council. From now on, no one will buy a home with a race-based exclusion on the deed.

Before transferring their deeds, homeowners now must remove references, for example, to “persons not of the Caucasian race” as excluded from living in a home. Mounds View the first city in Minnesota to approve such a rule.  

How Can Race-Based Housing Restrictions Be Legal?

Wherever they were used, racial covenants kept people out of certain neighborhoods. They denied certain people specific opportunities to build and bequeath wealth. They forced non-white residents to rent, or to buy homes in what the industry considered less valuable neighborhoods. They reserved well-funded schools and green spaces for some buyers and excluded others.

And yes, racially restrictive covenants offend federal fair housing laws. Most of these restrictions were written into deeds before there actually was a law against them. But some were written later, in spite of the law.

As a state, Minnesota banned race-based residential deed restrictions in the 1950s. And the entire United States enacted the federal Fair Housing Act in 1968 — effectively voiding racial deed restrictions in bulk.

As a society, we now understand that no one should be kept out of housing because of personal traits like race, religion, national origin, sex, disability, sexual orientation, or whether someone’s married or has kids. Today, deed restrictions aren’t enforceable when they’re based on these personal traits.

But that doesn’t take the divisive words out of the title records.

Government Enabled Discrimination. Now, Governments Are Working to Undo It.

Tens of thousands of Minnesota homes still have this type of hurtful deed language in their chains of title. Now the deed holders, under state law, can take action when they find that language.

But wait. Why are there tens of thousands of these grotesque relics in Minnesota (and many other places)? As you’d imagine, there had to be strong institutional support and participation to create this widespread form of social segregation.

Back in the day, planners of entire subdivisions would paste discriminatory wording onto deeds in bulk. And the National Association of Realtors®, along with numerous financial institutions, backed the practice of writing race-based restrictions into neighborhoods.

In fact, U.S. government policy actually incentivized people for buying into race-restricted neighborhoods, by offering discounts on mortgage interest. And recording offices throughout the United States became the official keepers of racially divisive deeds.

No more, say the mayor and council of Mounds View, Minnesota. This summer, the city announced its plan to renounce these deed restrictions. Exclusionary deed language had always followed the deed from owner to owner. No more, say the mayor and council.

“Mapping Prejudice” Volunteers Are Scanning Deeds, County by County.

In 2016, researchers at the University of Minnesota began their work on the Mapping Prejudice project. The project is dedicated to making visual records and resources that uncover racial exclusions from properties.

The research started with Hennepin County — home to Minneapolis. It was an unprecedented model, and by 2020 it had broadened its scope to include Ramsey County — home to Mounds View.

So far, Mapping Prejudice has found more than 5,000 Ramsey County properties with racially restrictive language. The project has also started its review of the Anoka County deed records.

Volunteers for the project scan the county’s records, using custom-designed software to spot deeds that contain race-based words. Flagged properties are sent to volunteers to examine. The race-based deed restrictions are entered onto interactive maps. This work is ongoing.

In 2019, Minnesota adopted a law enabling individual deed holders to renounce offensive language by recording discharge forms with county deed recorders. Now, the formal approval of a suburban ordinance brings forth the first Minnesota city to mandate the recording discharges of racial covenants, through its certificates of compliance. According to media reports, residents are praising the achievement of Mounds View and those who work for it.

What’s Actually Happening in Mounds View?

Working with Mapping Prejudice, the leaders of Mounds View embarked on a mission to find city-owned and privately held deeds that contained race-based exclusions. They found hundreds. Mounds View turned out to have Ramsey County’s second-highest ratio of these restrictions to the number of residents. Only Falcon Heights has more of them.  

So now, Mounds View is making it as easy as possible for residents to discharge race-based deed restrictions. Here are the actions Mounds View has taken so far:

• The city has assisted residents who’ve looked up their records through Mapping Prejudice, and found discriminatory covenants on their deeds. And the process is free, thanks to Ramsey County’s fee waiver.

• The city has mailed letters and discharge forms to its residents who hold deeds with racially exclusive language, letting them know about the new procedure.

• The city offers a notarization process for those who come to City Hall to record their certificates. People have reported being in and out of City Hall in a few minutes.

• Councilmember Julie Clark and Mounds View Administrator Nyle Zikmund have both removed their own deeds’ race-based restrictions.

• The Mounds View council also voted to become part of the Just Deeds Coalition. This network offers public education about racially offensive deed language, and supports compliance with the 2019 state law. The Coalition offers deed holders free legal assistance. It has discharged hundreds of racial deed restrictions, with many more in the works.

Meanwhile, in Minneapolis, people who find racial covenants on their deeds are displaying educational lawn signs, in a public project called Free the Deeds. And many Minnesota cities and towns have joined the Twin Cities in the Just Deeds Coalition.

Watch for Other Cities to Follow the Mounds View Approach.

Madeline Dolby for Press Publications checked the Twin Cities’ other northern suburbs. Most administrators reported being unaware of the new Mounds View ordinance. Yet they acknowledged that a domino effect could be in the works.

Lindy Crawford, the city manager for White Bear Lake, called the new Mounds View policy “something we would need to discuss” and noted that the council could decide whether to fashion a similar ordinance.

At Deeds.com, we’ll keep you posted.