Zoning and Anti-Semitism in the 1920s: The Case of Cleveland Jewish Orphan Home v. Village of University Heights and Its Aftermath

Abstract

In 1925, a Cleveland, Ohio, Jewish orphanage brought the first federal lawsuit involving zoning and religious discrimination. The case was Cleveland Jewish Orphan Home v. Village of University Heights. It is historically significant because it documents how federal courts treated a local government’s application of its zoning regulations for anti-Semitic purposes, the darker side of American land-use controls. This article describes the controversy over the proposed relocation of the home from the city of Cleveland to the village of University Heights, a then-small community of five hundred, and the Village’s decision to deny the necessary zoning approval. It follows the litigation through the federal district court, the U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, and the U.S. Supreme Court. The article chronicles the village’s continuing efforts to impede construction of the home by blocking the provision of a public school for the orphans after it had lost the federal case. It concludes with a commentary on the broader themes of the litigation, including its importance to planning law as an early recognition of the arbitrary and exclusionary dimensions of zoning, particularly as it affected the substantive due process rights of a religious-based social service organization.