Is discussing crime in Chicago now a violation of federal civil-rights law?

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in 2017 began investigating Townstone Financial, a small mortgage company in Chicago, over possible violations of civil rights law.

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The bureau bars lenders from making statements that “discourage” minorities from applying for loans. Townstone may have violated that regulation, the agency said, when its employees discussed crime in Chicago on a company-hosted radio show about the mortgage market, which also advertised Townstone’s services.

The offending statements, plucked from five episodes recorded over a three-year period, included a reference to the South Side of Chicago as a “war zone,” as well as a recommendation that home sellers “take down the Confederate flag.” Merely mentioning the flag, the agency argued, could scare off black applicants.

[This is insane, and a violation of First Amendment speech rights. How can one *avoid* discussing crime in the context of Chicago real estate? The firm even conducted a survey to see if the discussions alienated black clients and found it had the opposite effect, as Aaron Sibarium relates, but that’s beside the point. This is an absurd intrusion into free speech and should be shut down immediately by the courts. — Ed]

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