In 1973, the U.S. Department of Justice filed a lawsuit against President Donald Trump and his father, alleging that Black people were routinely denied the right to rent apartments in buildings owned by the Trump family. Two years later, the case was settled, but only after Trump unsuccessfully tried to countersue the DOJ for making false statements. But Trump wasn’t the sitting president of the United States back then, so he wasn’t leading the authoritative, power-abusing, Constitution-flouting administration that he’s currently at the helm of now.

Fast forward to 2025, and now Trump is reportedly rewriting a Supreme Court precedent with what appears to be the intention of making racist housing discrimination great again by making it more difficult to prosecute.

According to a news release sent to NewsOne by the National Consumer Law Center (NCLC), a nonprofit organization that specializes in “consumer justice and economic security for low-income and other disadvantaged people in the U.S.,” Trump recently signed an executive order that requires federal agencies, including the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), to stop using “disparate impact” data to identify discriminatory policies and practices that disproportionately harm certain groups. In fact, on Wednesday, Trump signed a similar order discouraging school administrators from using “disparate impact” data to address racial disparities in disciplinary actions taken against students, labeling it a DEI practice, because, in Trump’s world, anything that addresses systemic racism against anyone but white people is a diversity, equity and inclusion effort. 

In other words,  Trump is not only out here making all things DEI unlawful, but he’s also moving to make it unlawful to observe and study any data that might indicate the need for DEI. 

“Disparate impact liability is a bedrock principle in ensuring fair and equal access to safe housing and affordable credit. Eliminating this standard in the federal agencies is a continuation of the Trump administration’s all-out assault on equity, civil rights, racial justice, and the rule of law,” said Odette Williamson, senior attorney at the National Consumer Law Center and director of NCLC’s Racial Justice and Equal Opportunity Project. “This executive order marks a sad day in the struggle for racial and economic justice.”

“The administration’s claim that this order to end disparate impact liability promotes ‘meritocracy and a colorblind society’ is grossly out-of-touch with the reality for people of color, women, LGBTQ+, and people with disabilities,” Williamson continued. “Whether intentional or not, discrimination in housing, lending, and credit reporting is a reality for millions of people, and government oversight and regulation is an essential weapon in the ongoing work of dismantling deeply entrenched problems. Disparate impact liability allows the government to address this type of systemic discrimination that has put generations in harm’s way and eroded their civil rights.” 

Oh, it’s intentional.

White conservatives’ “meritocracy and colorblind society” is really just a world where white people get to pretend we’re all starting from an even playing field. It’s an attempt to detach America’s present from America’s history, because that’s the only way to justify dismantling civil protections for marginalized groups that are meant to correct the well-documented systemic discrimination against those groups that has existed for the overwhelming majority of the nation’s existence. And the best way to reinforce the delusion that systemic discrimination (or “disparate impact”) doesn’t exist and/or never existed is to stop people from studying or even referencing the volumes upon volumes of data that prove it does.

“Congress needs to act to ensure that disparate impact remains a robust enforcement tool to hold discriminatory actors accountable and address longstanding systemic harms,” the NCLC press release reads. “States need to act to protect their residents from discriminatory lending and housing practices and push back on the Administration’s attempt to eviscerate civil rights protections.”

Exactly!

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