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.8 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.9 This latter practice is known as "redlining.11
Housing discrimination on the basis of racial and ethnic background has existed in the United States from the time of the country's earliest history. As late as 1969, "white only" housing was openly advertised in the Southern states, and, in Northern urban areas such as south Boston, violent racial harassment continues in the 1990s in an attempt to deter blacks from moving into the neighborhood.
Legal Efforts to Address the Problem
In 1977, the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) became law.10 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.11 The CRA was, in 1977, the latest in a series of federal laws designed to attack the problems of unequal access to credit that were confronting some segments of the American population. The CRA was related to these other laws, but the act and its provisions were specifically designed to deal with the problems related to mortgage and business lending, to establish guidelines for bankers, and to provide a mechanism for public review and protest.12
In the mid-1970s, the concept of equal opportunity was one of the prime societal concerns of the day in the United States. For the public at large, equal employment opportunity, equal education opportun...