March 28, 2019

Brown Calls on HUD to Fully Combat Housing Discrimination Following Facebook Charges

 WASHINGTON, D.C. — U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) – ranking member of the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs – released the following statement on the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) decision to file charges against Facebook for violating the Fair Housing Act by encouraging, enabling and causing housing discrimination through the company’s advertising platform.

“Facebook’s actions demonstrate that housing discrimination – even literal redlining – is still with us 50 years after the passage of the Fair Housing Act. While I am glad that the Trump Administration re-opened its investigation of Facebook after public outcry and questions from me and other lawmakers, this Administration has engaged in a troubling pattern of undermining bedrock tools that find and remedy systemic discrimination, like undoing regulations on the use of disparate impact analysis and HUD’s own Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing Rule. If this Administration cares about fair housing, they will work to combat discrimination in all its forms,” said Brown.

Sen. Brown has led the charge on demanding the Trump Administration do much more to fight systemic discrimination, including restoring the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s (CFPB) Office of Fair Lending and firing its chief, Eric Blankenstein, for his racist and derogatory blog posts. Earlier this month during a Senate Banking Committee hearing, Sen. Brown asked CFPB Director Kathy Kraninger to read aloud some of Blankenstein’s racist statements. Director Kraninger declined to read the statements aloud and refused to fire Blankenstein citing an ongoing investigation into Blankenstein’s blog posts. The exchange can be found here:

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