INDY STAR — After more than two decades teaching about civil rights and poverty, I’ve never come upon a more powerful illustration of our nation’s failings other than a day in an Indianapolis eviction court. When our law school clinic made a switch during the pandemic to focus on representing low-income tenants, I expected students would learn a lot about housing law. It turns out that they — and I — would learn much more. We learned about racism, including the ongoing legacy of government endorsed redlining that blocked generations of Black families from home ownership. With home equity the chief source of family wealth in the U.S., housing discrimination is the driver behind white families still having nearly eight times the wealth of comparable Black families. That means Black families without equity to dip into during hard times are forcibly removed from their homes at rates far higher than white families. There was no margin of error for one client, who had to miss work to care for a sick child, or for another client when the car she relied upon to drive 35 miles to her job broke down. Paychecks are missed, rent comes due, and then the landlord tapes a court notice to their door.