NPR. This is the indicator from Planet Money. I'm Adrian Ma.

And I'm Darien Woods.

Last week, trade groups that represent almost every bank in the country

filed a lawsuit against banking regulators.

And the claim centers around a law that's almost half a century old,

which is aimed at addressing this country's history of housing discrimination.

That law is called the Community Reinvestment Act or CRA. And the recent banks are suing now is because for the first time in decades, the regulators in charge of enforcing the CRA decided that the way they've been doing things wasn't good enough

and it was time to make a change. Today on the show the history of the government's explicitly racist

housing policies and how that informs the banks fight with the

government today.

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