The Trump administration’s trend of pushing pro-segregation policies continued Tuesday when it gutted rules to prevent discrimination in the lending industry.
New rule changes at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, an agency Trump officials have tried to destroy, will erode antidiscrimination requirements in the housing and lending industries, The Hill reported.
Per the report:
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) on Tuesday ended some lending industry antidiscrimination requirements that have long protected different demographics’ access to credit, loans and home ownership. Under the newly approved rule, lenders are subject to a new interpretation of the 1974 Equal Credit Opportunity Act (ECOA). The law previously was interpreted to prevent disparate impact discrimination, which occurs when lenders implement policies that inadvertently exclude or harm protected classes (race, sex, religion, etc.) without a valid business necessity.
… Lenders will still be held responsible for intentional discrimination but will not be subject to disparate-impact claims and liability.
In keeping with the racist policies of its leader, who has falsely claimed that civil rights laws led to white people being treated “badly,” the Trump administration has killed numerous federal measures designed to prevent discrimination, including dissolution of a consent decree to discourage school segregation in a Louisiana parish and lifting a ban on federal contractors operating segregated facilities.
Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought said the Equal Credit Opportunity Act, under its previous interpretation, encouraged “new forms of discrimination” instead of ridding the industry of unfair or inequitable practices, Reuters reported. Vought’s justification for the change is consistent with other absurd claims from Trump administration officials and conservative influencers who falsely allege that antidiscrimination policies discriminate against white people.
Vought’s comment is also rich, given right-wing conspiracy theories, taken up by the administration, about financial institutions “debanking” conservatives. The president and his allies seem more concerned about thwarting the fake discrimination they’ve conjured in their minds than the real discrimination widely known to exist in the lending industry.
The ECOA has been seen as a bulwark against redlining. The National Consumer Law Center, a pro-consumer activist group, rebuked the rule change, saying it opens the door to a range of racist practices.
“It sets the stage for hidden discrimination and predatory lending, including old threats, like redlining, and new problems, such as algorithmically based discrimination,” Odette Williamson, the organization’s director of racial justice advocacy, said in a press release.
Several years into the Trump experience, some may feel it’s a lost cause to expect the president to stay true to his previous statements. But it’s worth noting how contrary this move is to his promises on the campaign trail in 2024: Trump explicitly pitched Black voters with an economic message that he would improve their access to housing and make their lives more affordable.
The Associated Press noted in September that Trump had yet to make good on those economic promises. Evidence suggests he still hasn’t, and rolling back tools to prevent housing segregation and discriminatory lending practices is unlikely to help Black people, or anyone else who needs protection from discriminatory corporations.
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