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The Lars Larson Show Interviews
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The Lars Larson Show Interviews
Curtis Hill - Is race-based banking finally coming to an end?
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Major corporations pledged billions toward race-based lending and investment programs in the wake of 2020. Now, the Department of Justice is taking action against one of those efforts. Curtis Hill, Senior Advisor to the National Center for Public Policy Research's Free Enterprise Project and former Indiana Attorney General, joins the show to discuss the PayPal settlement and what it could mean for diversity-based financial programs.
Hey, welcome back to the program. I'm not a Democrat, which means I don't believe in race-based banking. But there are some major name brand companies like PayPal that apparently do believe in race-based banking. So I thought we'd talk about that with Curtis Hill, who's a senior advisor for the Free Enterprise project of the National Center for Public Policy Research and a Project 21 ambassador. Curtis, welcome back to the program after too long.
SPEAKER_00Thank you, Lars. Great to be back.
SPEAKER_01So tell my audience what PayPal was up to in their economic opportunity fund.
SPEAKER_00Well, PayPal, along with several corporations, had decided to jump on the uh the social justice bandwagon back in 2020 to prove or establish that they got it right on race. And so they established uh economic uh uh financial equal uh economic funds and lending opportunities that were based exclusively on black or minority representation, uh which is contrary to the uh equal opportunity uh uh uh lending uh uh function from the exactly. Um and they were doing it uh because it was politically expedient to do so. Now, to PayPal's credit, uh the Department of Justice uh came after them and they entered into a settlement. They didn't inter they didn't agree to any wrongdoing, but they they willfully determined that they were gonna change their policy and change their program to take away its racial preference focus and focus on more neutral lending concepts. And my point is I think we're gonna see this this uh the domino start to fall with all of these other corporations that are engaged in the same process.
SPEAKER_01Well, let's talk about one of the majors, and that's Chase Bank, arguably the largest bank in the world run by Jamie Dimon. Were they doing uh effectively the same thing?
SPEAKER_00They put a fund together, a $30 billion fund uh to focus on racial lending. And uh that's uh the biggest one I've seen so far. Um and that's that that's precisely uh contrary to what we what we have in equal opportunity. So I think we're gonna see some changes with uh JP uh Morgan. We're certainly gonna reach out and suggest that. Uh the best thing for these companies to do is to recognize that they were wrong in 2020 to jump on the social engineering bandwagon and to take proactive steps to change their lending practices to get away from race and get back into more neutral uh ideas such as veterans, uh manufacturing, technology, uh the the the more broad standards for lending opportunities?
SPEAKER_01I get I'm talking to Curtis Hill from the National Center for Public Policy. Did any of these companies come out and say, here's the explanation for why we thought that race-based lending was a good idea, that we would have a lending program, but you need not apply if you have white skin, or probably even brown skin. Did they ever explain that? Did Chase ever explain why you would put thirty billion dollars into something specifically aimed at black, Hispanic, and Latino communities and not to white people?
SPEAKER_00I don't know if they came out and explicitly explained it, but uh think back to 2020, Lars. You didn't have to explain it because the the pressure that was put out there was if you didn't get along, go along with the George Floyd narrative uh and do something for the black community, you were part of the problem. And that's what we're dealing with. We're dealing with a a signal, not so much that these lending institutions felt that they needed to do something for to cure their own ills, uh, but really just to sit to to send a message out there that they were a part of the movement. And uh that was a uh, you know, we saw corporations, individuals falling like flies. I mean, that's what people were doing back in 2020. Uh we also see a change in administration and a change in the Justice Department that says, no, that's not an appropriate standard uh for for loaning money. And not to mention, uh it creates a a bubble, if you will, where those who who didn't necessarily qualify for loan for loans uh would get overextended and uh would lose their rating.
SPEAKER_01Well, and in fact, one of the things I wonder about, because I agree with you, the important thing is to get these institutions to admit we did this, it wasn't just illegal, it wasn't just immoral, but it was wrong, and we should have seen it at the time. Except if they're not willing to admit that it was wrong, then then I guess the chances are they'll probably go back and do it again. I would think that when they see this settlement with PayPal, 30 million bucks, uh, that they would say, Wow, we've been doing that too, or or our program is not that much different from PayPal's program. Maybe we should go in and fix it on our own. Have you seen any sign that that's happening at Chase or City or any of the other majors?
SPEAKER_00Uh we're looking into that. I mean, I I don't know if any of them thought about it as being right or wrong at the time they entered into it. I think it was out of fear. I think it was out of fear of being canceled, out of fear of being protested, out of fear of being uh uh singled out by the masses, uh, which was very was happening all the time back in 2020, 2021. Uh, I think what we're seeing now is PayPal uh uh getting a uh an action by the yes uh Department of Justice saying to themselves, you know what, we don't need to be in this in this fight. Uh we will take our lumps, we'll change our program. We're not admitting that we did anything wrong. Um we'll we'll take a $30 million hit our feet, our processing fees to demonstrate our goodwill. Um and I think that's a step in the right direction. Better to better to acknowledge that you went down the wrong path and put some fixes in place than to be forced into it by the federal government.
SPEAKER_01I mean, I'd agree with you about that, except Curtis, the thing I wonder about, were there ever any white lenders or borrowers who went to the banks or went to the regulatory agencies and said, by the way, I've been trying to get a loan, I can't get one, but the bank I'm trying to get it from or PayPal that I'm trying to get it from is giving the same kind of loan to other people, but based on their skin color, I'm kind of amazed that nobody brought any kind of action to say, you can't tell me I'm not allowed to borrow from you because I'm not black.
SPEAKER_00Well, that's the that would be the the the the ultimate problem with this type of a program is that it it it places what we call reverse racism. I mean the idea is you don't use race. We think of that as meaning you don't use black as a race, but you don't use race means you don't use race. Uh and it's important that we get these learning institutions and other corporations to start focusing on the neutral uh ideas as opposed to uh race and ethnicity.
SPEAKER_01Because this idea that, well, fear can drive us to do something that I think is both illegal, unconstitutional, and immoral uh is really amazing. You know, that honest or otherwise honest, responsible people might say, well, it's not legal to do this. We can't discriminate based on race, but we're going to do it anyway because otherwise the mob in the streets is going to come after us.
SPEAKER_00Well, that's that's that's the motivator. And that's that's why uh in pointing out what PayPal did, um, I don't give them too many too many bad marks because I like the fact that that when faced with the choice of fighting the Department of Justice to justify the program, they said, you know what, there's a better way of doing this. And that better way of doing this is to change our program, to acknowledge that our program may be the wrong type of program. Uh I I think that's as close as we're getting from them saying they screwed up. Um but that's uh that that's quite a lot, and to and turn that program around and then to be a model for the JP Morgan's, for the Bank of America, uh for the other institutions that are facing the same circumstance.
SPEAKER_01And by the way, shame sh shame on the Department of Justice, which has a specific civil rights division that's supposed to go after this, but apparently under the Joe Biden DOJ, they didn't care if the banks were breaking all the rules and doing something that was immoral. Curtis, it's a pleasure as always to have you on. That's Curtis Hill. He's a senior advisor to the Free Enterprise Project at the National Center for Public Policy. Back in a moment. You're listening to the Lars Larson Show and the Radio Northwest Network.