In a Feb. 9 BankThink article discussing a path forward for the Department of Justice’s civil rights division under President Trump, Paul Hancock claims that the Obama administration pursued too many fair-lending claims against banks and lenders, exceeding the statutory bounds of fair lending enforcement. In his view, these cases lacked adequate proof. But his op-ed overlooked clear evidence that financial institutions’ methods targeted in these actions were discriminatory, and that the regulatory approaches to address this discrimination meet current legal standards.
