Benefits to Newark-area residents will continue through September 2027
August 3, 2026 – The U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey rejected the Trump administration’s attempt to terminate a consent order that holds Lakeland Bank (now part of Provident Bank) accountable for alleged discriminatory redlining in majority-Black and Hispanic neighborhoods in the Newark, New Jersey metro area.
The consent order requires Lakeland Bank to take corrective actions to remedy alleged redlining, including by opening a branch in a historically excluded Newark neighborhood, investing $12 million in home loan subsidies, and conducting outreach and education in those affected communities. As of last year, approximately $4 million of the loan subsidy fund had yet to be disbursed.
Last year, when the Trump Administration attempted to terminate the consent order, New Jersey Citizen Action Education Fund (NJCAEF), Housing Equality Center of Pennsylvania (HEC), and the National Fair Housing Alliance (NFHA), represented by the Public Interest Law Center and Stapleton Segal Cochran LLC, submitted an amicus brief to assist the U.S. District Court, and argue that the consent order should stay in place.
The court agreed. Accordingly, despite the federal government’s U-turn last year, the consent order will remain in place until September 2027.
“It was unconscionable that the Department of Justice even attempted to vacate its own consent order that helped provide Newark’s black and brown families equitable access to homeownership and other critical financial tools.” said NJCAEF Executive Director Dena Mottola Jaborska. “The District Court’s decision is especially significant at a time when the Trump Administration has sought to weaken the Community Reinvestment Act, reduce fair lending enforcement, and retreat from the federal government’s historic role in combatting housing and lending discrimination. We look forward to the continued good work of Lakeland/Provident Bank to make the promise of equal opportunity real.”
The Department of Justice’s motion came in the wake of an April 2025 executive order by the Trump administration that directs federal agencies to roll back enforcement efforts based on “disparate impact” liability. This executive order, intended to dismantle protections for communities harmed by systemic discrimination, directed all agencies to evaluate consent orders that rely on disparate impact and “take appropriate action.” Soon after, the DOJ began to file motions seeking to terminate fair lending consent orders such as the one to which Lakeland previously agreed. The Trump Administration has taken a number of other actions to weaken fair lending protections, including a rule by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (currently under challenge by NFHA and others) that would eliminate many of the redlining and other protections of the Equal Credit Opportunity Act.
“The people of Newark and its surrounding areas are entitled to a lending market free from discrimination, period.” said Dan Urevick-Ackelsberg, Senior Attorney at the Public Interest Law Center. “This ruling will help them have it.”
The United States’ 2025 motion to terminate the consent order was unopposed, without any explanation of the governing legal standards for terminating an order of this kind, let alone an analysis of whether that standard has been met. Believing the motion to be deficient, the coalition of civil rights groups filed a brief explaining why.
“We are grateful that a court again stood firmly in support of civil rights principles and established law by rejecting the Trump Administration’s attempt to prematurely terminate a vital consent order,” said Sasha Samberg-Champion, Special Counsel for Civil Rights at the National Fair Housing Alliance. “This decision, like the others we have won, sends a powerful message that commitments to combat housing discrimination cannot be abandoned on a political whim. We will continue to stand up against these systematic efforts to dismantle civil rights. The fight for fair housing requires vigilance at every turn, and we must not allow any administration to roll back decades of progress.”
In its opinion, the court rejected the federal government’s assertion that Lakeland’s hitherto progress towards the order’s requirements justify its termination, saying: “A promise to reach substantial compliance in the future is not substantial compliance. Once again, the presence of these existing obligations under the consent order show that what remains of the consent order is not ‘minor or trivial.’” The court cited a 2025 decision that stopped the premature termination of a consent order in Philadelphia. That effort was led by some of the same civil rights groups.
“This is a victory for the New Jersey communities who fought hard for these protections just two years ago,” said Rachel Wentworth, Executive Director of the Housing Equality Center of Pennsylvania. “For decades, banks of all kinds have used redlining to deny neighborhoods of color access to wealth and opportunity, and this ruling signals that lending discrimination will not be tolerated in our communities.”
“Communities of color have been deprived of their civil rights for too long,” said Eli Segal of Stapleton Segal Cochran LLC, which partnered with the Public Interest Law Center on the matter. “The court’s decision makes clear that the efforts to remedy those wrongs must be continued.”
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The Public Interest Law Center uses high-impact legal strategies to advance the civil, social, and economic rights of communities in the Philadelphia region facing discrimination, inequality, and poverty. We use litigation, community education, advocacy, and organizing to secure their access to fundamental resources and services in the areas of public education, housing, health care, employment, environmental justice and voting. For more information visit www.pubintlaw.org.
