The real opposition came from some of the neighbors. A community meeting in January 2016 served as something of a flashpoint.

At the meeting, one woman fretted that the tall building would violate the privacy of a nearby public school. Another argued that the project needed to be 100 percent affordable housing. Two representatives from local Latino Cultural District Calle 24 said that even a 100 percent affordable housing project was out of the question, given the proposed height of the development.

When Tillman said he saw his project as necessary so people like his daughter could afford to come back and live in the city, one particularly motivated activist said she wished his daughter was killed in a terrorist attack.

As long as Coates is indifferent to the links between race and international political economy, he is more likely to induce relief than guilt among his white liberal fans. They may accept, even embrace, an explanation that blames inveterate bigots in the American heartland for Trump. They would certainly baulk at the suggestion that the legatee of the civil rights movement upheld a 19th-century racist-imperialist order by arrogating to the US presidency the right to kill anyone without due process; they would recoil from the idea that a black man in his eight years in power deepened the juridical legacy of white supremacy before passing it on to a reckless successor.

In her analysis, Sophir writes that employers should be given “particular deference” in trying to enforce anti-discrimination and anti-harassment policies, since these are tied to legal requirements. And employers have “a strong interest in promoting diversity” and cooperation across different groups of people. Because of this, “employers must be permitted to ‘nip in the bud’ the kinds of employee conduct that could lead to a ‘hostile workplace,’” she writes.

The lawsuit cites a settlement the city reached in 2013 that initially allowed 16 strip clubs to operate outside the provisions of Chapter 28 of the Houston Code of Ordinances, which outlines regulations for sexually oriented businesses, in exchange for a combined $1 million annual donation to a human-trafficking abatement fund. That fund was also used to create a 12-person HPD unit tasked with investigating human trafficking. Five more strip clubs have since been added to the list of 16 since 2013, Bernstein said.

Fantasy Plaza is not one of the clubs included in the 2013 settlement.

The lawsuit brought by Van Huff calls the donation to the fund in exchange for non-enforcement of the law a "commercial bribery scheme."