Although Black History Month has ended, its lessons continue to inspire law students to challenge systems, advocate for justice, and create meaningful change. For UConn Law student Malachi Bridges, this means focusing his research on the complex interplay between property, citizenship, and race, and exploring how rules that appear “facially neutral” can still produce unequal outcomes.
In this Q & A , Malachi Bridges, an aspiring attorney committed to expanding equitable access to wealth and opportunity for Black communities, sits down with fellow law student Kwaku Aurelien to discuss his journey to law school, his current studies, and the goals guiding his future in the legal profession.
To begin the conversation, Kwaku started with a simple but powerful question:
KWAKU AURELIEN: Give us a portrait: Who is Malachi Bridges?
MALACHI BRIDGES: I am a man of God, a New Haven native, a public servant, and a future lawyer committed to expanding equitable access to wealth and opportunity, especially for Black communities. I am a visionary by nature, but City work has taught me how to turn dreams into real outcomes by respecting process and project management. Professionally, I work in economic development for the City of New Haven, translating policy into projects and programs people can actually live in, work in, and benefit from. Academically, I focus on the relationship between property, citizenship, and race, and how “facially neutral” rules can still produce unequal outcomes.
Personally, I am deeply optimistic; the kind of optimism that says, even if something sounds or looks crazy at first, it can be done with faith, consistency, and a little humor. But I try to practice a disciplined optimism, meaning hope that is backed by strategy, evidence, and accountability. My faith keeps me grounded, and my humor keeps me human, especially when the research, work, and lived experience could easily make you cynical.
And I am intentional about my legacy. I do not want my story to be someone who merely survived, or even individually succeeded. Instead, I want my life and work to make the path easier for the Black youth coming after me. I want to build something that lasts, something that changes outcomes, not just headlines. If my name ends up attached to a program, a scholarship, a school wing, or a community institution one day, I want it to be because the work helped people live with more dignity,
stability, and opportunity.
KWAKU: In 2020, you told UConn Today you might want to be mayor of New Haven. Does that goal still stand?
MALACHI: No, or at least not right now. The desire to lead and serve my city has not left me, but I honestly think I may be more effective as a career public servant than as an elected official. Whether I ever pursue public office is ultimately a question of timing, readiness, and whether I can offer something that is both principled and practical. Right now, my focus is becoming the strongest lawyer and policy
practitioner I can be. New Haven does not need more dreams, it needs DOERS, and it needs competent people whose work is tied to a moral compass. If I ever take that step, it will be because I believe I can measurably do something that leadership currently isn’t and won’t, not simply because I love politics.
KWAKU: If yes, what would you do differently as mayor? What would you change?
MALACHI: Mayor Elicker has done a great job, and I love being under his leadership as a resident, taxpayer, and employee. Subject to his administration, New Haven has maintained some of the highest permitting and construction activity in the state. We are building housing at record pace, and that matters. I am a firm believer that when you increase supply, you relieve pressure over time, as landlords thereby have to compete for tenants.
But, if I had a different emphasis, it would be industry and wage growth. Housing alone will not reduce poverty, increase homeownership, or improve public safety if residents do not have stable, higher-wage opportunities. However, I am realistic about our ability to attract major outside employers. Because of New Haven’s distance from NYC, places like Stamford often have an edge, and more populated
metros like Philly and Atlanta can support bigger corporate footprints. We cannot rely only on recruitment. We have to grow our own industry through innovation and entrepreneurship.
That is where Yale can be a powerful partner. Just as an early Stanford University anchor like Hewlett-Packard helped catalyze the innovation ecosystem that became Silicon Valley, Yale can help New Haven generate homegrown companies by supporting research commercialization, encouraging faculty and student startups, backing local founders, and building pipelines that connect New Haven residents to
the jobs and wealth those industries create.
KWAKU: What does your hometown mean to you and what does it need most right now?
MALACHI: New Haven taught me how to swim, literally, through PAL. It helped me attend college through New Haven Promise. It employed my mom, a nurse at Yale New Haven Hospital, and my dad, who worked nearly 40 years as a technician for SNET, now Frontier. So when I say New Haven is home, I mean it in the deepest sense. This is where my family built its life, and where the city’s institutions and
neighborhood networks shaped me in real, tangible ways. I have a real affinity for New Haven. As a Black man descended from enslaved people who migrated north in search of work and stability, New Haven is not just where I was born, but it is the ONLY place of settlement my ancestors CHOSE. And I think a lot of Black Americans carry that same loyalty to their hometowns, hometowns, especially because slavery and colonialism disrupted our connection to ancestral origins. You see it in places like Atlanta, Houston, Oakland, Baltimore, St. Louis, Detroit, cities that become more than geography but identity. I am grateful to be American, but I am not always proud of this country’s history or its present choices. New Haven, however, is something I will always be proud of. Yes, it has challenges like any city, but they do not outweigh the good, the love, or the resilience here. There is real pride, and a rare mix of institutional power and neighborhood-scale leadership. People love their blocks, organize, advocate, and keep the city alive.
And like the US, New Haven also carries a complicated history, including its ties to slavery, the denial of an HBCU in 1831, and the 1837 Amistad trials. The city is not perfect, but we try to face that history head on, preserve it, and move beyond acknowledgment through policies and programs that repair harm.
KWAKU: How did your undergraduate research on Black homeownership lead you to law school?
MALACHI: My undergraduate thesis pushed me to see that the barriers to Black homeownership are not primarily individual, they are structural, and many of those structures are still legal. Once you realize that the “racially neutral” rules decide who gets access to credit, land, and opportunity, law school becomes less optional and more necessary. I wanted to be able to read the doctrine, understand the statutory architecture, and challenge the “neutral” explanations that are often used to defend unequal outcomes. In short, my research made me want to move from describing inequality to litigating, legislating, and designing remedies.
KWAKU: What is your primary focus in law school? How do you intend to use your JD?
MALACHI: My primary focus is real estate, land use, estate law and planning. I am especially interested in how equal protection jurisprudence and modern “colorblindness” arguments constrain our capacity to repair harms that were created through explicitly racial legal regimes. I intend to use my JD in public service and in practice to expand access to housing and wealth building, and to defend policies designed to reduce racialized disparities. I also want to bring legal precision into development and government decision-making so equitable outcomes are not dependent on goodwill alone. And sure, I will always listen if Big Law calls, but my plan is to stay rooted in public work.
KWAKU: You completed a Fast-Track MPA degree. What, in your opinion, do a JD and an MPA degree each bring to the table? What does a JD offer you than an MPA alone wouldn’t, and vice versa?
MALACHI: The MPA trains you to understand systems: budgeting, implementation, performance, and how policy moves through institutions. It teaches you that good ideas fail when they are not conveyed in an operational plan. The JD trains you to understand power: who has authority, what limits exist, what rights attach to people and property, and how rules can be challenged or defended. The JD also gives you
tools to interrogate “neutrality,” because legality and legitimacy are not the same.
Together, the degrees let me design policy that can survive legal scrutiny and can be implemented practically.
KWAKU: Do you see yourself primarily being a policy person, legal advocate, politician, or all of the above?
MALACHI: All of the above but anchored in public problem-solving. I do not think communities benefit when lawyers stay only in the courtroom, or when policy people avoid the legal practicalities, or when politicians speak without building. My goal is to integrate these roles so that legal advocacy supports policy change, and policy change can be translated into credible, funded projects.
KWAKU: You worked on the Thomas/Winchester Homeownership Project and the Newhallville Youth Ambassador Program. Tell me about those.
MALACHI: In honesty, I was an intern at the time. My role was supporting the work through policy research and helping articulate the project’s purpose and need, while the core execution was led by my current boss and team. Even in that support role, Thomas and Winchester reinforced a key lesson that homeownership policy only works when it is paired with real implementation capacity (site control, aligned financing, and community trust). It is not enough to say we support homeownership
if the pipeline is dominated by corporate buyers and displacement pressure.
The Newhallville Youth Ambassador Program was equally formative because it reinforced that economic development is also about human development, creating paid opportunities, leadership training, and pathways that treat young people as assets rather than problems to manage.
KWAKU: Your research identified federal and municipal policies as the main barriers to Black homeownership. Which policies specifically?
MALACHI: At the federal level, historic FHA underwriting rules, redlining regimes, exclusion from wealth-building benefits tied to federally backed loans, and later credit scoring and appraisal practices have all structured unequal access to homeownership and stable appreciation. Federal highway and urban renewal policies also physically displaced communities and reinforced segregation patterns.
At the municipal level, exclusionary zoning tools like single-family-only districts, minimum lot sizes, and discretionary approval processes function as gatekeeping mechanisms for opportunity. Even when these tools are facially neutral, they can produce predictably disparate outcomes, especially when paired with uneven public investment.
KWAKU: How have zoning laws and urban planning created segregation in New Haven and other cities?
MALACHI: When explicit racial zoning became legally vulnerable, segregation reappeared through facially neutral tools, especially minimum lot sizes, density limits, bans on multifamily housing, and other restrictions that effectively price out working families. For example, some suburban towns historically required very large minimum lot sizes, sometimes an acre or more, which made it nearly impossible for Black families during the Great Migration to buy or build there. The predictable result
was concentration in cities like New Haven and Hartford, and in a smaller number of towns like Windsor and Bloomfield, where housing was more attainable. Urban planning has also produced segregation through siting decisions and infrastructure. Highways and renewal-era projects often cut through or isolated communities of color, then disinvestment followed, reinforcing long-term economic divides. In New Haven, you can see this clearly in how I-91 slices through the city. The west side of the interstate generally has higher property values and more concentrated wealth, while the east side tends to have lower property values and more concentrated poverty. That divide is not random. It tracks with race too, with many Black and Hispanic residents concentrated on the east side and more White residents on the west. In that way, I-91 functions as more than a road. It operates like a boundary line that shaped where investment accumulated and where lower land values and disinvestment persisted.
Zoning is often presented as technical, but it is one of the most powerful tools for distributing opportunity, and it has been used to decide who gets access to high opportunity neighborhoods and who does not.
KWAKU: What do you think it will take to dismantle structures that perpetuate and rectify systematic racism?
MALACHI: First, it requires legal honesty, meaning acknowledging that many modern disparities are not “cultural” or “individual,” they are the foreseeable outputs of policy. Second, it requires shifting from intent-only frameworks to impact-aware frameworks, because modern discrimination often hides behind proxies and administrative discretion. Third, it requires building race-conscious or race-attentive remedies that can survive legal scrutiny, including targeted investments, enforcement of fair housing obligations, and structural reform of zoning and lending systems. Finally, it requires institutions to measure success by outcomes, not process, and to accept accountability when outcomes do not improve.
KWAKU: In UConn Today, you talked about how your parents faced discrimination in becoming homeowners. How did their experience shape your research?
MALACHI: Their experience made the issue personal and concrete, not theoretical. It showed me how discrimination can appear through delays, denials, shifting standards, inflated costs, and informal steering, even when nobody says the quiet part out loud. My parents were determined to become homeowners in the 1990s and ended up with a subprime loan with a variable rate. That decision later put our family at risk of foreclosure during the 2008 financial crisis, and we did not feel secure again until the Attorney General stepped in. That lived experience is what pushed me to study fair lending, housing policy, zoning, and the so-called race-neutral rules that can reproduce racial inequality. It also shaped my decision to pursue a law degree. I want the tools to do more than analyze the problem. I want to be the advocate my family did not have, and to help other families like ours navigate the system and hold
it accountable when it fails them.
KWAKU: You said you want to purchase a home yourself. Has your research changed how you think about that?
MALACHI: Yes. It made me more strategic and more sober about the role of timing, interest rates, location, and long-term wealth planning. It also made me more aware of how information asymmetry harms buyers, especially first-generation buyers. I think about homeownership as both shelter and a legal-financial instrument, and I try to approach it with the same diligence I would bring to any major transaction.
KWAKU: What does homeownership mean to you personally?
MALACHI: It means stability, dignity, and the ability to build something that outlasts you. In Black communities, it also carries an extra layer of meaning because it has historically been denied, attacked, or made precarious through law and policy. Homeownership is not the only path to security, but it has been one of the most protected and subsidized paths to intergenerational wealth in the United States. That is why unequal access matters so much.
KWAKU: Your research is called “Blacks and the American Dream.” Do you think the “American Dream” is possible for Black Americans under current conditions?
MALACHI: Yes, but it is not equally available, and it often comes with a higher cost of
try. My work argues that formal equality is not the same as real opportunity. Race neutral rules can still preserve race-based outcomes when they ignore history, wealth gaps, and the systems that determine who gets access to safe credit, high opportunity neighborhoods, and asset growth. Right now, Black success is too often treated as proof the system is fair, instead of evidence that someone navigated a
system that is still uneven. If we want the American Dream to be real at a collective level, the law and policy have to move from denial to repair. That means changing the conditions that structure outcomes, including fair access to credit, more attainable housing supply in high-opportunity areas, and stronger pathways into wealth building opportunities that translate into ownership and stability.
KWAKU: Your research found that the wealth gap between White and Black families grew from 2 to 3 times to 6 times after the 1990s, even as Hispanic homeownership grew. Why did Black homeownership decline?
MALACHI: A major driver was the combination of predatory or extractive credit markets and unequal access to safe, wealth-building mortgage products. Many Black households were either excluded from prime credit or steered into higher cost products, making them more vulnerable to foreclosure when the market turned. The resulting loss of homes translated into a loss of equity, which is the core wealth-building mechanism for many American families. In addition, segregation patterns and unequal neighborhood investment depressed appreciation in many Black neighborhoods, even when households achieved ownership. So, you had a situation where entry was harder, the product was riskier, and the upside was often lower.
KWAKU: What would need to change for Black homeownership to rebound?
MALACHI: It is not one fix. It requires a mix of education, wealth pathways, fair access to credit, and more attainable housing supply working together. First, we have to stop treating education alone as the answer. In New Haven, 37% of adults hold bachelor’s degrees or higher (Vision 2034), yet the City’s homeownership rate is still roughly 28 percent (Data Haven). That tells you the barrier is not only individual attainment. It is also affordability, household wealth, and the structure of the market.
The strategy has to include stronger pipelines into high-wage sectors, entrepreneurship, and professional networks that convert education into actual income and asset formation.
Second, access to ownership has to be safer and fairer. We need stronger enforcement against steering and appraisal bias, more transparent underwriting, and first-generation homebuyer supports that actually meet the problem, including down payment assistance, credit-building tools, and counseling that prevents families from being pushed into risky products. In New Haven, Black-headed households have lower homeownership rates than white households, which reflects these long-standing access and market barriers.
Third, Connecticut has a supply problem that drives prices up and makes entry harder for first-time buyers. Housing policy is still fragmented across 169 municipalities, and too many communities restrict the housing types that working families can afford. We need zoning and permitting reforms that legalize more housing types and conditions (minimum lot size, number of units per parcel, etc.), reduce artificial cost drivers, and create predictable pathways for mixed-income and ownership-oriented development.
KWAKU: You interviewed New Haven residents about their home-buying experiences. What did they tell you?
MALACHI: Many residents described the process as confusing, expensive, and often discouraging, especially when they lacked trusted guidance. They also described barriers that were not always captured by formal policy language, like feeling unwelcome in certain neighborhoods, inconsistent treatment by actors in the transaction, and the challenge of competing with cash buyers or investors. A consistent theme was that even when people “did everything right,” the system still felt tilted. That is important because it points to structural features, not simply individual preparation.
KWAKU: What is “urban containment” and how has it confined Black families to “pockets of poverty?”
MALACHI: Urban containment is the use of policy and planning tools to constrain where certain populations can live, either directly through exclusion, or indirectly through disinvestment and barriers to mobility. It can include density restrictions, uneven public services, school boundary effects, and infrastructure that isolates neighborhoods from opportunity. In practice, it confines families by limiting access to high-opportunity neighborhoods while concentrating affordable options in already overburdened areas. The result is not just segregation, but the compounding of disadvantage through geography.
A clear example is the mid-century housing system. FHA and VA lending helped many White families buy homes in growing suburbs, while Black families were often denied access to those same wealth-building tools even when they were similarly qualified. That uneven access accelerated White flight and drained population and capital from urban neighborhoods. As jobs and investment followed suburban growth, many cities were left with declining tax bases and fewer economic anchors. Over time, that
produced the concentrated poverty and instability that people later labeled as “ghettos,” as if those conditions were natural instead of planned.
KWAKU: You used court documents and Ancestry.com to track family mobility. What did you find?
MALACHI: I found that mobility patterns often reflect legal eras. You can see periods where opportunity expands slightly, followed by periods where new “neutral” restrictions reshape the map. Many families experienced mobility that was lateral rather than upward, meaning moves did not translate into greater wealth or opportunity because the neighborhoods available to them were structurally undervalued or underinvested. It reinforced for me that mobility is not just about moving addresses, it is about whether the market and the state treat those addresses as worthy of investment.
KWAKU: How do you maintain hope when researching such deep structural inequalities?
MALACHI: Hope comes from refusing to confuse “structural” with “permanent.” I also maintain hope by staying close to communities and to implementation, because tangible wins, even small ones, matter. Finally, hope is sustained when you can name the source and design the remedy. Research becomes less depressing when it becomes a blueprint for action.
KWAKU: How do you move from researching problems to creating solutions?
MALACHI: I try to translate research into specific levers that over which institutions direct control. That means statutes, zoning text, program guidelines, underwriting standards, procurement tools, and enforcement practices. In government, solutions have to be legible to budgets, staffing, and timelines, not just values. In law, they have to be defensible under doctrine and evidence, not just morally compelling. So, your research must produce recommendations that can survive both realities. A practical example is work I have been advancing in New Haven. I noticed a clear mismatch between where economic opportunity is growing and who is positioned to access it. New Haven is experiencing major growth in sectors like bioscience and quantum-related innovation, but too often the workforce pipeline into those high wage fields is not homegrown and does not reflect the communities that have carried
this city for generations. That is not simply a “talent” issue. It is a pipeline and institution-building issue.
Once I learned more about New Haven’s 1831 history, including the effort to establish what would have been America’s FIRST Black college that was ultimately denied, I began shaping a solution that connects history to the present. In my personal capacity, I developed a concept to explore an HBCU presence in New Haven as a satellite or consortium model with a strong STEM focus. Structuring it as a partnership model matters, because it makes the concept more feasible, more fundable, and more legally durable in today’s landscape, especially after the Supreme Court’s decision in SFFA and the broader skepticism toward explicitly race based programs. The “no’s” and the “not right now’s” I received forced the concept to become tighter, more phased, and more defensible. That is the difference between a dream and a plan. Research identifies the problem and recommends solutions to said problems. Implementation requires you to break the dream into smaller steps, test it against legal and political constraints, and keep refining (not diluting) until it is realistic.
KWAKU: What did working within city government teach you about how change happens, or doesn’t?
MALACHI: It taught me that change is usually coalition work, and that the “right answer” is often delayed by capacity constraints, competing priorities, and political risk. It also taught me that institutions can become comfortable with process and forget outcomes, which is why performance and accountability are essential. At the same time, I learned that local government is one of the few places where you can connect legal rules to real projects quickly, if you can align stakeholders. You see
both the friction and the possibility up close.
KWAKU: You want to open a real estate firm and a financial literacy nonprofit. Why both?
MALACHI: Because the market alone will not close the wealth gap, and education alone will not overcome structural barriers. A firm can execute transactions, development, and wealth-building strategies, but a nonprofit can expand access to knowledge, counseling, and community-based support for first-generation households. I want both because I believe in building institutional capacity on both
sides of the equation: the supply side and the household empowerment side.
KWAKU: What don’t schools teach about credit, homeownership, and wealth building?
MALACHI: Schools rarely teach that credit is not just personal behavior, it is a system with rules that can be navigated strategically. They rarely teach how interest rates, debt-to-income ratios, appraisal practices, and closing costs actually function. They also do not teach how to evaluate housing as a long-term asset, including maintenance, tax implications, and neighborhood investment patterns. Most
importantly, they do not teach that wealth building is shaped by policy, not just by personal discipline
KWAKU: How does real estate function as both a wealth-building tool and a barrier for Black families?
MALACHI: It is a wealth-building tool because equity, appreciation, and leverage can compound over time, and because the U.S. legal system has historically protected property as a central right. It is a barrier because access has been rationed through law, credit markets, and planning systems that limit where Black families can buy, what products they can access, and what appreciation they can realize. My legal research emphasizes that “colorblind” frameworks can preserve those barriers by treating the market’s racial history as irrelevant. Real estate is both the ladder and, too often, the gate.
KWAKU: With the Newhallville Youth Ambassador Program providing jobs and college prep, what opportunities did you have growing up that you want to make sure other young people have?
MALACHI: I want young people to have paid opportunities that communicate value, not charity. I also want them to have exposure to professional environments, mentorship, and the belief that their city belongs to them, meaning they can shape it, not just survive it. For many young people, the missing piece is not talent, it is access and guidance at the right time. Programs like that can interrupt cycles by making
opportunity ordinary.
KWAKU: What would you say to other students who want to serve their communities but don’t know where to begin?
MALACHI: Start local and start specific. Pick one issue, one neighborhood, or one institution, and commit to learning how it actually works. Service becomes sustainable when you build competence, relationships, and credibility. Also, do not underestimate the value of being consistent, because community work is often less about one heroic moment and more about showing up repeatedly.
KWAKU: Is there anything I haven’t asked that you think is important for students to take away from your journey and or the work you’re doing?
MALACHI: I would add that students should not let doctrine convince them that justice is impossible. The law often describes limits, but it also contains openings, and history shows that openings expand when people are willing to argue, organize, legislate, and build. I also want students to understand that expertise is a form of service: learning how zoning, finance, constitutional doctrine, and administrative
systems work is not separate from justice work. If we want different outcomes, we need people who can do more than critique, we need people who can draft, defend, and implement.
Seeing how stressful and isolating law school can be, the founding members created RECESS to give students a chance to connect, unwind, and enjoy campus beyond the books.
