Redlining

The Trump administration has argued that the Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing rule, issued in 2015, was too prescriptive.

The banking industry lost a key battle in the Supreme Court over the use of “disparate impact,” but legal observers see potential for the tide to turn if Judge Brett Kavanaugh is confirmed.

Courts have validated the legal theory behind punishing lenders for unintentional discrimination, but the Trump administration has shown interest in revising the Obama-era policy.

A bill passed by the House would raise the threshold that allows smaller banks and credit unions to avoid expanded Home Mortgage Disclosure Act requirements imposed by a 2015 rule.

In a new book, Mehrsa Baradaran argues that the same forces of poverty that African-American banks were supposed to alleviate are now holding them back.

Efforts to repeal a Dodd-Frank mandate for lenders to report data on small-business applicants — including race and ethnicity — overlook the benefits of the provision to both communities of color and banks.

While the courts have affirmed cities’ right to file predatory lending suits, they are also now holding them to a much higher standard in proving that banks knowingly steered minority borrowers into high-cost home loans.

The city joins a growing list of municipalities that have filed similar lawsuits, just two weeks after the Supreme Court ruled that municipalities have standing to sue lenders under the Fair Housing Act.