Six years ago, Girardeau A. Spann, a black law professor at Georgetown University who was on the lookout for a house to buy, decided that an Arlington, Virginia, real estate developer was violating fair housing laws, so he decided to sue.

A federal jury agreed with him and ordered Colonial Village Inc. to pay Spann $200,000—along with another $650,000 to two nonprofit fair housing groups.

Had Spann put in a bid for a house and been turned down on account of his race? No. Had he approached a Colonial Village agent and been told there were no vacancies because of his race? No. He had noticed that the company's ads depicting happy Colonial Village residents used only white models.

"It made me angry and it still makes me angry to this day," Spann told the Washington Post. Since 1986, when the suit was filed, Colonial Village has dutifully used black models in its advertising, and the Post has scrupulously adhered to its own agreement (also prompted by Spann's suit) to require 25 percent of all models used in real estate ads to be black. And Spann still hasn't bought himself a house.

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