A Missouri woman has sued an Arkansas settlement that advertises itself as “whites only,” accusing the group behind it of illegal discrimination after her application to buy land was rejected, per WGAL. 

In the lawsuit, Michelle Walker said she tried to purchase land in Return to the Land, a private membership community in northern Arkansas, but was turned away after the group reviewed her application. Walker has Jewish ancestry, is married to a Black man and has biracial children.

According to The New York Times, after seeing news about the settlement in 2025 and learning that the land was significantly below market value, Walker, who identifies as white, applied. The St. Louis real estate broker wanted to build an investment property. According to the complaint, the community’s screening process asked about race, religion, and family background. Though it also asked about her views on gay marriage, the Covid vaccine, abortion, and “the Roman Empire.” She was rejected as “not an ideal fit.”

The lawsuit, filed in federal court by the Washington, D.C.-based firm Relman Colfax PLLC along with the Legal Defense Fund and Legal Aid of Arkansas, says the community violated federal and state fair housing laws. The complaint seeks damages and a court order to stop what Walker’s attorneys call discriminatory housing practices.

Eric Orwoll, the community’s co-founder, recently said the lawsuit wasn’t a shock. “It’s not something we hadn’t anticipated,” he said to The Times. “This is going to be a competition between our right to freely associate and then civil rights laws, which seem contradictory to our claims.”

Return to the Land is a 160-acre development that requires members to be white and heterosexual. The community has drawn attention for its stated aim of creating a settlement for white families in Ravenden, in the Ozark Mountains. 

Last year, Orwoll told CNN: “You have to be someone who identifies with your European heritage and ancestry. You have to celebrate traditional European values and we get those values from our religious documents within Christianity, within Norse paganism.”

The group has promoted plans to expand similar communities elsewhere. Despite Walker's lawsuit, the dispute asks a much broader question: How far can private groups go when it comes to controlling who gets to live where?