Beginning with the Home Owners’ Loan Corporation maps of 1935 and codified by the Federal Housing Administration’s 1938 Underwriting Manual, the federal government refused to insure mortgages in neighborhoods rated “hazardous” — almost exclusively those with Black, Jewish, or immigrant residents. Combined with restrictive racial covenants and FHA-subsidized whites-only suburbs like Levittown, redlining produced the modern American racial wealth gap. Richard Rothstein’s The Color of Law (2017) is the canonical text; the practice was not formally outlawed until the Fair Housing Act of 1968.

Why it’s been targeted

The Color of Law has been removed or restricted in multiple districts including Central York School District (PA) — part of a 2021 “freeze” on anti-racist resources later rescinded after student protest — and was named on Texas state Rep. Matt Krause’s October 2021 list of 850 books for districts to “investigate.” The College Board removed redlining-related framing from the optional secondary topics in AP African American Studies after Florida’s January 2023 rejection.