Arkansas whites-only community sued by woman with Jewish ancestry
The group Return to the Land and its effort to revive segregated housing was first exposed by the Forward
Eric Orwoll is co-founder of Return to the Land, which has established a segregated community in Arkansas. Screenshot of Eric Orwoll Return to the Land video
By Hannah Feuer May 20, 2026
A woman with Jewish ancestry has sued Return to the Land, the whites-only housing community in Arkansas, alleging the group discriminated against her by refusing to sell her land on the basis of race and religion.
Michelle Walker, the plaintiff, believes she was denied entry to the community because of her Jewish ancestry and the fact that she is married to a Black man and has biracial children, according to the complaint, filed in federal court Wednesday morning.
Last June, the Forward broke a story about Return to the Land’s effort to revive segregated housing, with the group screening applicants for race and religion before allowing them to live on its 160-acre property in Ravenden, Ark.
Walker, a real estate broker who lives in the St. Louis area, said she was interested in the land because of the “extremely affordable price” — advertised as three acres of land for just $6,000, according to the complaint. She viewed the property as an investment and did not plan to live there.
“A good investment is a good investment,” Walker told The New York Times.
The Return to the Land application asked Walker a series of questions about her ancestry and religion, the complaint says. Walker wrote that she is Christian and “believes Jesus died for my sins.” She was honest that her mother’s side of the family consists of Russian Jewish immigrants, and her husband is of African and Irish descent.
Nearly six weeks later, Walker had an audio interview with a Return to the Land representative who asked if she belonged to any white nationalist organizations. Walker replied that she did not.
She was also asked to submit a video to confirm that she appeared white, according to the complaint.
Later, she received a message saying that her application had been rejected because “she was not an ideal fit for RTTL,” the complaint says.
Walker and her lawyers could not immediately be reached for comment. Legal Aid of Arkansas, the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, and Relman Colfax PLLC are representing her.
The group’s legality
The lawsuit is viewed as a test of how anti-discrimination law will fare as President Donald Trump’s appointees have shifted away from prioritizing race-based discrimination claims, including in housing.
Natalie Baldassarre, a spokesperson for the Department of Justice, responded to the Forward’s inquiry about the legality of Return to the Land last September: “No comment.”
Arkansas Attorney General Tim Griffin said in August that the group had not broken any laws, walking back his previous statement that Return to the Land raises “all sorts of legal issues, including constitutional concerns.”
In a June 30 email obtained by the Forward through a public records request, Gary McGee, an investigator with the Arkansas Fair Housing Commission, wrote that investigators had “not discovered any actual property owned by this organization or its founder, nor any advertisements for housing.”
But records show that a limited liability company in Return to the Land co-founders Peter Csere and Eric Orwoll’s name, “Wisdom Woods LLC,” owns adjacent parcels of land totaling 157 acres near the town of Ravenden.
And Return to the Land’s own operating agreement from 2024, obtained by the Forward, references “sale of real estate,” “rental properties within the community,” and an “HOA,” or homeowners association.
Return to the Land has long been preparing for a lawsuit, fundraising for “legal research” since its inception and publishing blog posts about why the group qualifies as a private club and thus should be exempt from civil rights law.
“We’re not going to comment on it for now,” Orwoll told the Forward when asked about the recent lawsuit.
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