ABSTRACT
The impetus for the Decatur Federal case was a crucial series of articles in 1988 in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution entitled “The Color of Money”. Those articles pointed out widespread disparities in the rates at which the large mortgage lenders in Atlanta were originating mortgage loans in white neighborhoods compared to black neighborhoods. Statistics showing high levels of unexplained racial disparities in the workplace, schools, housing, and voting are often telltale signs of purposeful discrimination. In applying these principles to Decatur Federal, Department of Justice found that the bank had operated in the Atlanta area since 1927, and that there was a large black population in and around the white areas where it conducted most of its business that received few loans from the institution. Decatur Federal was found to have arbitrarily excluded most of the black neighborhoods of Atlanta from its loan service area under the Community Reinvestment Act.
