ethnic background is not only illegal in the United States, it is also relatively rare. Such legal prohibitions are often circumvented in a number of ways, however, such as a failure to offer certain loan programs to certain individuals, and rejection on the basis of other factors that appear unrelated to racial or ethnic background, but which, in fact, may be contrived, and may not be applied equally to white applicants (Foust, p. 43). Although illegal, this practice often results in the denial of funds to members of racial and ethnic minorities, and even to neighborhoods that are predominantly occupied by members of racial and ethnic minorities (Schiller, 1993, p. 100). This latter practice is known as "redlining."
In 1977, the CRA became law (Canner, Smith, Bowen, Benkovic, Freeland, Johnson, Orndorff, & Schultz, 1991, p. 876). The CRA deals with two of the specific issues of overriding interest in the equal opportunity area--equal access to housing, and equal access to credit. The CRA was, in 1977, the latest in a series of
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