Politics Please say rock bottom is getting close

The Founders of This New Development Say You Must Be White to Live There
Housing rights experts say a community restricted to white residents is illegal, but the creators believe they could win a potential challenge in court in the current political climate.

In the Ozark Mountains of Arkansas, nearly an hour from the closest city, a small group of homesteaders is building an exclusive community from scratch.

Applicants to the community are screened with an in-person interview, a criminal-background check, a questionnaire about ancestral heritage and sometimes even photographs of their relatives.

The community’s two architects — a classically trained French horn player who has livestreamed his own sex videos, and a former jazz pianist arrested but not charged for attempted murder in Ecuador — say they must personally confirm that applicants are white before they can be welcomed in.


“Seeing someone who doesn’t present as white might lead us to, among other things, not admit that person,” said one founder, Eric Orwoll, who moonlights as a Platonic scholar on YouTube but is now focused on developing 160 acres in Ravenden, Ark., into a community strictly for white, heterosexual people called Return to the Land.

The far right is surging in the United States, driven in part by white nationalists exploiting economic anxieties and a populace increasingly frustrated with the political status quo. Now, as the Trump administration rolls back diversity, equity and inclusion policies, cracks down on immigration and offers pardons to white supremacists, some see an opening. In creating their community, the founders of Return to the Land are testing anti-discrimination housing laws that have been in place for 57 years.

The community’s other founder, Peter Csere, was arrested in Ecuador for stabbing a miner and is accused of stealing tens of thousands of dollars from a vegan community there. Both he and Mr. Orwoll say they believe Return to the Land meets the requirements for a legal exemption for private associations and religious groups that offer housing to their members.

Tim Griffin, the Arkansas attorney general, opened an investigation into potential legal violations by Return to the Land after reports on the community were published earlier in the summer in The Forward and on Sky News. Jeff LeMaster, his communications director, said in a statement, “We’re continuing our review of this matter.”

ReNika Moore, the director of the racial justice program at the American Civil Liberties Union, disputed the men’s claims that Return to the Land is legal.


“Federal and state law, including the Fair Housing Act, prohibit housing discrimination based on race, period,” she said in an email. “Repackaging residential segregation as a ‘private club’ is still a textbook violation of federal law.”

Representatives for America First Legal, the conservative advocacy group, did not respond to to a request for comment on the community’s legal status. Representatives for Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders of Arkansas also did not respond to a request for comment.

To date, there have been no legal challenges to Return to the Land. But John Relman, a civil rights lawyer who specializes in fair housing violations, said the group could be sued under not just the 1968 Fair Housing Act but also multiple sections of the U.S. Civil Rights Act of 1866.

“You’ve got a smoking gun case of intentional discrimination,” he said. “I think they’re misguided when they say that they’re home free.”


But Return to the Land say they see an opening under a federal government that has pushed the boundaries of laws and norms, especially when it comes to race.

“Return to the Land needs to strike while the iron is hot,” Mr. Orwoll wrote on a fund-raising page for the group, which has raised nearly $90,000.

“They see right now as a very opportune time. They see a friend in the White House at the highest level,” said Peter Simi, a professor of sociology at Chapman University in California who is an expert on extremist violence. “They see themselves quite literally in various positions in the administration, including the Department of Justice and Department of Defense.”

The timing, both Mr. Orwoll and Mr. Csere said, is right. “I would rather the precedent is set and the discussion is had while there’s a relatively favorable cultural and legal climate for it,” said Mr. Orwoll, 35. “So if we’re going to fight this battle — and it’s a battle that’s going to be fought at some point — it better be now.”

Read the rest here: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/19/...e_code=1.fU8.49QC.VSbVOZBewcfm&smid=url-share