Posted on 06/20/2023 4:13:44 AM PDT by CFW
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in 2017 began investigating Townstone Financial, a small mortgage company in Chicago, over possible violations of civil rights law.
The bureau bars lenders from making statements that "discourage" minorities from applying for loans. Townstone may have violated that regulation, the agency said, when its employees discussed crime in Chicago on a company-hosted radio show about the mortgage market, which also advertised Townstone's services.
The offending statements, plucked from five episodes recorded over a three-year period, included a reference to the South Side of Chicago as a "war zone," as well as a recommendation that home sellers "take down the Confederate flag." Merely mentioning the flag, the agency argued, could scare off black applicants.
Facing a possible lawsuit and potentially stiff penalties, Townstone in 2019 retained a consumer testing firm, Kleimann Communication Group, to see if the remarks did in fact alienate African Americans.
[snip]
Legal fees alone often reach hundreds of thousands of dollars in a case like Townstone's, said Jessica Thompson, an attorney at the Pacific Legal Foundation, who represented Sturner pro bono. Throw in the possibility of damages, and it's often safer to settle—a dynamic that allows the government to chill speech merely by opening an investigation and dangling the possibility of a lawsuit.
(Excerpt) Read more at freebeacon.com ...
Nice little nugget there at the very end of the article. What a joke we have as representation in congress.
a recommendation that home sellers "take down the Confederate flag." Merely mentioning the flag, the agency argued, could scare off black applicants.
Normal thinking people would feel that showing the Confederate flag would be scare black folk off more than taking it down...
The truth is a terrible thing to some.
So much for speaking Truth to Power…..
Shutting down businesses and bringing fear to the folks, disguised as civil rights enforcement.
It is truly scary the power that these unaccountable agencies have when it comes to going after small businesses.
Oh, but merely mentioning the confederate flag might offend the sensibilities of some and scare them off according to the agency.
So it can’t be discussed in any way, shape, or form because it might offend someone that is minority/protected class because they are incapable of discerning intent or context (how utterly racist of the agency to project that onto said class of individuals).
Kissing Black Ass is an existential necessity for the life of the Democrat Party
That’s what it all boils down to, at least for now. The Hispanic population is rapidly gaining on Blacks for “Favored Minority” status. Give it another 7 to 10 years for the grievance hierarchy to reset itself.
Well, we can’t have facts impede funneling loans to a demographic that can’t afford them, now can we? /s
Who even thinks that a radio program about bank lending had more than 5 black listeners?
“I hope the Seventh Circuit smacks the feds down hard. “
The CPB has a long and storied history of being bitch-slapped by the courts.
One of those Obama-era creations that just will not die. Banks loathe their existence.
“The offending statements, plucked from five episodes recorded over a three-year period, included a reference to the South Side of Chicago as a “war zone,” as well as a recommendation that home sellers “take down the Confederate flag.” Merely mentioning the flag, the agency argued, could scare off black applicants.”
Kind of hard to fight World War 3 against Russia and China, as the Neocons and their supporters want to do, when you have this crap going on at the same time.
Totalitarian government beginning?
I am surprised they haven’t gone after the TV series :”Chicago P.D.”
One thing for sure——IF they shut down that mortgage company-—or force them to move-—the pool of available mortgage companies will get SMALLER.
Another example of the totalitarian impulse of the Leftist controlling the federal government.
BUT WAIT!
There is more.
And it only get worse.
“As described in articles in Motor Finance and The Wall Street Journal, the CFPB has been criticized for the methodology it uses to identify instances of racial discrimination among auto lenders. Because of legal constraints, the agency used a system to “guess” the race of auto loan applicants based on their last name and listed address. Based on that information, the agency charged several lenders were discriminating against minority applicants and levied large fines and settlements against those companies. Ally Financial paid $98 million in fines and settlement fees in 2013. As the agency’s methodology means it can only guess who may be victims of discrimination entitled to settlement funds, as of late 2015, the CFPB had yet to compensate any individuals who were victims of Ally’s allegedly discriminatory practices?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consumer_Financial_Protection_Bureau
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