These days the most common claims of lending discrimination have been "reverse redlining" cases.
But the NY Attorney General is hot on the trail of apparently resurgent good-old-fashioned redlining discrimination. The AG filed a suit for discriminatory redlining practices against the parent company of Hamburg-based Evans Bank -- and has described the alleged redlining as a textbook example of an illegal redlining policy:
“This is classic redlining,” Schneiderman said, tracing his finger around the boundary. “If you had to make up a hypothetical to explain to law students what redlining is, you would use a map like this.”
Schneiderman also cited statistics showing that from 2009 to 2012, Evans received 1,114 applications for residential mortgages in the Buffalo metro area, but only four were from African-American applicants. He also said of those 1,114 applications, only eight came from the East Side and just one of those was from an African-American. Schneiderman said that competing banks were lending at much higher rates." (link)
Here's the relevant map of Evan's lending:
To be blunt, this map does very much look like it could be in a lending discrimination textbook.
Moreover, it looks like there's more good-old-fashioned redlining litigation to come:
“We are looking at other banks in other parts of the state, and if banks do not agree to resolve these really disgraceful practices, then there will be further litigation,” Schneiderman said at a news conference in his Buffalo office." (link)
Stay tuned for some discrimination classic hits!
