‘Whites-Only’ Community Sued After Rejecting Woman Over Her Jewish Ancestry, Black Husband

A “whites-only” community in Arkansas now faces a federal discrimination lawsuit after a woman with Jewish ancestry and a black husband was denied the ability to buy land there.In 2025, a “private membership association,” Return to the Land, acquired 160 acres to set up a settlement in the Ozark Mountains. The group says that its community is limited to people with “traditional views and European ancestry.” On Wednesday, a Missouri resident, Michelle Walker, who identifies as white and Christian but has Jewish ancestry and is married to a black man, filed a complaint against the organization for denying her application to buy land in the settlement.“Its founders believe that white people are genetically superior to other races, advance the view that Jewish people are engaged in a plot to eliminate the white race, and advocate for segregated white communities for the purpose of creating a separate all-white nation state that will help avoid ‘white genocide,’” the lawsuit says. The founder of the organization, Eric Orwoll, told CNN last August, “We do view Jewish origins as having their roots in the near East, and so they wouldn’t fall under the category of European heritage.” Other group organizers say that the community is meant for individuals who are white, Christian, and heterosexual.When news of the land purchase first circulated, Democrats in Arkansas demanded an investigation, arguing that the settlement would violate anti-discrimination laws. However, Arkansas’s attorney general, Tim Griffin, said that an investigation into the group did not find evidence of illegal activity.Ms. Walker submitted an application in November 2025 after learning that Return to the Land was offering land for what she said was a low price. However, in her complaint, she said she was surprised when she encountered questions about her ancestry and religion, which “she understood as clearly violating federal and state fair housing laws prohibiting consideration of race and religion in a land-sale decision.”The lawsuit also says the application asked her questions about same-sex marriage and “transgenderism,” and whether she opposes segregation and multiculturalism. Despite the questions, Ms. Walker said she completed the application with the hope that she would not be denied due to her ancestry. She also said she was interviewed as part of the application process and asked if she belonged to “any other white nationalist organizations.”A month after she submitted the application, Ms. Walker said she was denied and told she was “not an ideal fit” for the organization.Her lawsuit asks a federal court to stop Return to the Land from engaging in housing discrimination and award her damages for the “emotional distress, humiliation, embarrassment, and pain and suffering” during the application process. She is also seeking punitive damages that would “effectively deter similar conduct in the future.”A lawyer for Ms. Walker, Jason Bailey, of the Legal Defense Fund, said in a statement, “A community grounded in the exclusion of people based on their race and religion cannot be squared with the Fair Housing Act and other civil rights laws that have been in place for decades.”“Return to the Land is attempting to revive housing policies and practices from one of America’s darkest eras, and we will fight to ensure this does not stand,” he added.Mr. Orwoll told the New York Times that the lawsuit is “not something we hadn’t anticipated.”“This is going to be a competition between our right to freely associate and then civil rights laws, which seem contradictory to our claims,” he said. Last year, reporters from several outlets toured the community. At the time, Mr. Orwoll told reporters that he did not believe the community violated discrimination laws, arguing that it was protected by the First Amendment and the right to freely associate.He told CNN in August, “If I was a private individual and I owned this much land, I could do anything I wanted with it, keep anyone out who I wanted. We’re a group of people. It’s our private land together. You’re allowed to freely associate in this country.”

‘Whites-Only’ Community Sued After Rejecting Woman Over Her Jewish Ancestry, Black Husband

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