The Trump administration’s inconsistent positions on whether discrimination is unfair

Regular readers of the blog will know that the Biden CFPB took the position that discrimination is unfair within the meaning of the Consumer Financial Protection Act, the CFPB’s UDAAP statute. After the Chamber of Commerce sued to block that interpretation and won before a Trump-nominated judge, the CFPB appealed. But before the appeal could be heard, the Trump administration took over. Ultimately, the administration dismissed the appeal, strongly suggesting it disagreed with the Biden CFPB. But in President Trump’s debanking Executive Order, the president directed bank regulators to impose sanctions if they found that banks had debanked conservatives because of their political views under the CFPB’s UDAAP statute, if it applied. The administration can’t have it both ways. Either discrimination is unfair or it isn’t. To make matters worse, at least some federal statutes explicitly prohibit discrimination on the basis of race, etc.–but no federal statute bars discrimination on the basis of ideology. Which makes the argument that discrimination on the basis of ideology is unfair a much harder sell. For the argument that discrimination is unfair, go here.