University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa Assistant Professor Andrea Freeman of the William S. Richardson School of Law joined an outstanding group of law faculty from across the country in presenting papers at the Yale/Harvard/Stanford Junior Faculty Forum held at Yale Law School in June. Freeman’s article, “A Rehabilitative Reparations Approach to Racism Against Credit Card Consumers,” is the first to apply a critical race theory analysis to the problem of racism by credit card companies.
“Racism against credit card applicants and consumers is a core piece of the systemic inequality that perpetuates dramatic disparities in wealth, employment, health and education,” Freeman writes.
She notes that the use of credit cards by low and middle-income families has evolved into an essential tool to maintain their financial stability.
“Credit card companies take advantage of this reality, imposing exploitative fees, interest rates and other conditions on consumers who have no choice but to use their products,” she writes. “Even worse, the companies do so in a racially discriminatory way, burdening Black and Latino customers with the worst credit card terms, unrelated to credit risk.”
Freeman identifies “fatal flaws” in the two laws designed to address racial discrimination and inequality in credit, the Equal Credit Opportunity Act and the Community Reinvestment Act. She proposes amendments to the Consumer Accountability Responsibility and Disclosure (CARD) Act that would require credit card companies to make reparations, including “significant investments into the communities they harm.”
Freeman is the first faculty member from the William S. Richardson School of Law to be invited to participate in this prestigious forum. Senior scholars from Yale, Harvard and Stanford select the papers from approximately two hundred blind submissions. Law School Dean Avi Soifer stated, “This recent recognition simply underscores what is already clear: Andrea Freeman is a rising star in the realm of legal scholarship.”
—By Beverly Creamer
