by Jeff Sovern In our casebook, we quote a 1982 article that reports on a credit scoring system that took into account, in calculating the score, the first letter of the applicant's last name. Credit scoring has evolved since then but maybe history is repeating itself or at least rhyming. Today's Times includes an article, […]
Category Archives: Credit Reporting
by Deepak Gupta Perhaps betting that the third time's a charm, the Supreme Court this morning once again granted a petition over whether disparate-impact claims — based on seemingly neutral practices with discriminatory effects — are cognizable under the Fair Housing Act. The case, Texas Deparatment of Housing and Community Affairs v. The Inclusive Communities […]
Elizabeth De Armond of Chicago-Kent has written Preventing Preemption: Finding Space for States to Regulate Consumers’ Credit Reports. Here is the abstract: The Great Recession awoke state legislators to the power of individuals’ credit reports to hinder economic opportunities. Many legislators would like to assuage the effects of bad historical events on the futures of […]
by Jeff Sovern Our casebook includes a problem raising the question of whether discrimination against same sex couples in the granting of credit violates ECOA (some states have statutes explicitly barring discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, see, e.g., N.Y. Exec. L. 296-a(1)(a), and a HUD rule bars discrimination on the basis of sexual […]
Co-blogger Paul Bland, the new Executive Director of Public Justice, was recently interviewed by Media Matters. In an engaging interview in his office Paul discusses his singular career as a champion for consumer rights, the importance of class actions as a means of challenging corporate wrondoing, and the pro-corporate bent of the Roberts Court. It's a […]
Chris Jay Hoofnagle of Berkeley has written How the Fair Credit Reporting Act Regulates Big Data for the Future of Privacy Forum Workshop on Big Data and Privacy: Making Ends Meet, 2013. Here is the abstract: This short essay, prepared for the Future of Privacy Forum's Big Data and Privacy: Making Ends Meet event in […]
Adam J. Levitin of Georgetown and Janneke Ratcliffe the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's Center for Community Capital have written Rethinking Duties to Serve in Housing Finance, in Homeownership Built to Last: Lessons from the Housing Crisis on Sustaining Homeownership for Low-Income and Minority Families (Brookings 2014). Here is the abstract: In this […]
by Jeff Sovern The CFPB announced yesterday that the big three credit bureaus have added a function to their web sites to enable consumers to upload documents supporting claims of errors–police reports, copies of correspondence, etc–in credit reports. That shouldn't be a big deal in 2014, but in the world of credit bureaus, where the […]
Here. Here's a list of the articles: Credit Reports and Employment: Findings from the 2012 National Survey on Credit Card Debt of Low- and Middle-Income Households by Amy Traub · Medical Debt and Its Relevance When Assessing Creditworthiness by Mark Rukavina Discriminatory Effects of Credit Scoring on Communities of Color by Lisa Rice and Deidre Swesnik The Misconception of […]
Here. An excerpt: In late March, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau—the consumer watchdog agency dreamt up by Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.)—issued new, voluntary guidelines aimed at ensuring car dealerships are not illegally ripping off minorities. Since then, 13 Senate Democrats, including Sens. Heidi Heitkamp (D-N.D.) and Mary Landrieu (D-La.); and 22 House Dems, including Reps. […]