Race, Gender, "Redlining," and the Discriminatory Access to Loans, Credit, and Insurance: An Historical and Empirical Analysis of Consumers Who Sued Lenders and Insurers in Federal and State Courts, 1950-1995

Part I presents a brief overview of federal and state fair-lending and anti-mortgage "redlining" statutes. Part II briefly reviews federal and state statutes that prohibit insurance discrimination and redlining. But an exhaustive analysis of both federal and state administrative enforcement activities appears in Part III. This latter section stresses that the several agencies are authorized to enforce federal fair-lending laws. Yet these federal agencies have not eliminated nor significantly reduced mortgage redlining and the discriminatory access to loans and credit.

Parts IV and V examine judicial enforcement of fair-lending, access to insurance, and redlining laws. Specifically, Part IV discusses the disposition of cases when federal and state agencies commence anti-redlining, access-to-capital, and access-to-insurance litigation in federal and state courts. And Part V outlines the private enforcement of anti-redlining and fair-lending laws in federal courts. The reported findings in those parts support the basic theme of this Article: Federal and state judicial proceedings are truly inferior settings for addressing these types of consumers' complaints.

Finally, Part VI presents a case study of aggrieved consumers who sued lenders and insurance companies in federal and state courts between 1950 and 1995.