and the problem is occurring nationwide. we will speak with investigative journalist aaron glantz of reveal and pennsylvania state senator vincent hughes. then we look at a supreme court case that could deal a massive blow to public unions nationwide. >> facing a legal argument of front of the supreme court, they are making a political attack on all of you. that is what this is about. it is a political attack. the first care about amendment. -- thinkt care about about making more money at the expense of all of you. amy: all that and more, coming up. welcome to democracy now! democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman. the supreme court has dealt a major blow to president trump's efforts to rescind daca, the obama-era deferred action for childhood arrivals programs, which gives at least 700,000 young immigrants permission to live and work in the united states. on monday, the court refused hear a white house appeal of lower court rulings saying trump's move to cancel the program was unconstitutional. monday's decision by the supreme court means the legal challenges to daca's cancellation will continue to work their way up through the courts. in the meantime, daca recipients will be shielded from deportation and allowed to continue to renew their protected status. but monday's move by the supreme court does not resolve the future of the program. a group of undocumented activists are currently on a 250-mile walk from new york city to washington, d.c., to demand congress pass a permanent solution to daca and protect young undocumented immigrants. president trump met with governors monday to discuss gun control, even as he bowed to demands by the national rifle association to back away from proposals to increase the age for purchasing an assault-style rifle and to change the rules on bump stocks. at the meeting at the white house with governors, president trump also claimed that he would have run into the marjory stoneman douglas high school during the february 14 mass shooting, in which 17 people were killed by a former student. pres. trump: i really believe, you don't know until you test it, but i really believe i would an -- even if i do not have weapon. and i think most of the people in this room would have done that, too, because i know most of you. at the way they performed was really a disgrace. president trump also he had amy: lunch with the leaders of the nra, wayne lapierre and chris cox, over the weekend and that lawmakers shouldn't be afraid of the nra. pres. trump: don't worry about the nra. they are on our site. half of you are so afraid of the nra. there's nothing to be afraid of. amy: during the meeting, washington state governor jay inslee spoke out against president trump's proposals to arm teachers to deter mass shootings. >> i've listened to the first grade teachers that don't want to be pistol past being -- is the packing is great teachers. i've listened to law enforcement who say they don't want to have to train teachers as law-enforcement agencies, which takes about six months. i think this is the circumstance were we need to listen that educators should educate and they should not be foisted upon us responsibility of packing heat in first grade classes. i understand you have suggested this and we suggest things and sometimes then we listen to people about it, and maybe they don't look so good a little later. i just suggest we need a little less tweeting a little more listening. amy: this all comes as in florida, broward county sheriff scott israel is facing increasing calls to resign over his department's inability to stop the mass school shooting. which included his department's failure to take seriously dozens of previous calls about the gunman douglas kruse, about whom -- nikolas cruz, about for residents had expressed fears for years. one of his deputies scot , peterson, has resigned after details emerged that he took cover outside the school during the shooting. he is now claiming that he didn't enter the school because he thought the shooting was happening outside. in georgia's republican lieutenant governor casey cagle has attacked the airline company delta after it said it would stop offering discounted prices to nra members, becoming one of a slew of companies to break ties with the nra. in response, lieutenant governor , who leads the georgia state senate, said republican lawmakers would retaliate against delta by eliminating a $50 million sales tax exemption on jet fuel, which benefits delta. the shipping company fedex, however, says it will not drop its discounted prices for the nra, despite pressure from activists. white house senior adviser ivanka trump, who is also president trump's daughter, refused to answer questions about the slew of sexual harassment and assault allegations against the president. ivanka trump has positioned herself as one of the key people within the trump administration working on policies related to women and gender equality. yet when asked in an nbc interview about the many women who have accused trump of sexual harassment or assault, ivanka said the question was inappropriate. >> do you believe your father's accusers? >> i think it is a pretty inappropriate question to ask a daughter. the accusers of her father when he is affirmatively stated that there is no truth to it. i don't think that is a question you would ask many other daughters. i believe my father. i know my father, so i think i have that right as a daughter to believe my father. amy: that is ivanka trump, senior white house advisor, who is just returned from south korea were she led the united states and the witch role of its closing ceremony. president trump is proposing appointing his private pilot to head the federal aviation authority. the faa has a man -- annual budget of $16 billion and is responsible for regulating and overseeing civil aviation in the u.s. members of the aviation industry widely said trump's personal pilot john duncan lacks the experience to head the agency. one anonymous lobbyist told politico "the only person that thinks it is a good idea, from what i gather, is the president." in syria, activists say the government is continuing to carry out airstrikes and artillery shelling in the rebel-held enclave of eastern ghouta, outside damascus, despite a daily five-hour pause in the fighting ordered by russia, the syrian government's main backer. meanwhile, the british foreign secretary boris johnson has expressed support for airstrikes targeting the syrian government, if there is incontrovertible evidence that the regime has carried out chemical attacks. the united nations and syrian and international human rights -- syrian human rights organizations have repeatedly accused the syrian regime of using chemical weapons, a charge the syrian government denies. china announced unexpectedly send it is dropping presidential term limits, clearing the way for president xi jinping to serve indefinitely. the announcement overturns decades-old term limits in china. meanwhile, the prominent chinese human rights lawyer li baiguang has died in a state-run hospital in nanjing. chinese human rights groups are calling for an independent investigation into his death. in the democratic republic of congo, government soldiers shot and killed at least four anti-government protesters on sunday during nationwide protests against president joseph kabila's extended rule. kabila's term ended in 2016, but elections have repeatedly been postponed, allowing him to hold on to power. in the israeli-occupied west bank, israeli soldiers raided the village of nabi saleh and arrested 10 members of the prominent activist family the tamimis, including 15-year-old muhammad tamimi, who was previously shot in the face by israeli soldiers. the tamimi family has gained international attention after a video went viral of muhammad's 17-year-old cousin, ahed tamimi, slapping an israeli soldier after learning her cousin had been shot in the face. he is scheduled to have reconstructive surgery on his skull next week. ahed is now facing a dozen -- has been held in prison for a and is now facing a dozen charges in an israeli soldier courtroom. it is being reported the same prosecutor's office for the first time historically linked benjamin netanyahu to the bribery scandal involving communications giant aimed at securing more favorable media coverage for netanyahu and his family. many in netanyahu's in her circle have already been arrested. back in the united states in washington state, the american civil liberties union has filed a lawsuit on behalf of a jailed mexican immigrant who says he was beaten and put into solitary confinement for joining a hunger strike. jesus chavez flores is one of 120 immigrants detained by ice at the northwest detention center who went on a hunger strike to protest conditions at the facility which is run by the private for-profit geo group. flores was able to record a video message after he was beaten. >> they hit friend in unit c3. they hit me and they hit another friend. when the guard comes towards me, i'm afraid to encounter him. it is a guard that when i pass him in the hall, i feel fear because he is a rough person who should not be working here in these centers because they are here to take care of us, not to beat us. just look at how he left my eye. amy: he recorded this in the jail. in the legal victory for the lgbt community, a federal appeals court has ruled a key civil rights law prohibits employers from discriminating based on sexual orientation. the case involved a gay skydiving instructor who had filed a civil rights lawsuit alleging his firing violated part of the landmark 1964 civil rights act. monday's ruling is also a blow to the trump administration's justice department, which unexpectedly intervened in the case against the gay skydiver. in georgia, u.s. intelligence contractor reality leigh winner is slated to appear in court today in augusta. she's pleaded not guilty on charges of leaking a top-secret document claiming russian military intelligence conducted a cyberattack on at least one u.s. voting software company just days before the november 2016 election. during today's court hearing, winner's lawyers are set to ask the judge to exclude her statements to fbi agents the day she was arrested, arguing she was denied her miranda rights. in sports news, members of the nba championship team the golden state warriors are meeting with kids in washington, d.c., today instead of meeting with president trump as a protest against the administration. last september, trump rescinded the customary invitation to the championship team after its star player, steph curry, spoke out against the president, and said he would not visit the white house. an art and entertainment news, bollywood fans around the world are mourning the death of superstar indian actress sridevi, who died on saturday at the age of 54 while attending a family wedding in dubai. she's one of the indian film industry's most famous actresses, widely credited with changing the role of women in the industry. she pushed for equal pay and equal screen time for women. among those mourning her death is political rapper and singer m.i.a., who tweeted -- "sad to loose the legend #sridevi its like loosing a legend like michael jackson for me. she did so much for #tamil women and indian movie industry and brown people everywhere. rip for now but hurry up and come back!!!!" and activist and cancer patient zahara heckscher has died at the age of 53. zahara heckscher was repeatedly arrested protesting against the trans-pacific trade partnership, known as the tpp, and its so-called death sentence clause, which would have extended drug company monopolies on medicines. this is zahara heckscher speaking on democracy now! about her mother, who also died of breast cancer. >> i was only 11 when she died of breast cancer, and that was before these drugs were available. she only lived one year after she was diagnosed, and that is what breast cancer means without access to the modern medicines, the biologics, and other emerging medicines, for example, have kept me alive for seven years so far and still going strong. so i know very personally what it means when people don't have access to the medicines. i also know that breast cancer, it is not about just the individual patient. it is about the family. sonme, i am fighting for my to have a mom as much as i am fighting for myself and for other women and their families. amy: that's activist, mother and writer zahara heckscher, who died from breast cancer at the age of 53 on saturday. to see our full interviews with her, go to democracy now.org. and those are some of the headlines. this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman. juan: and i'm juan gonzalez. welcome to all of our listeners and viewers from around the country and around the world. a stunning new investigation by reveal and the center for investigative reporting has uncovered evidence that african-americans and latinos continue to be routinely denied conventional mortgage loans at rates far higher than their white counterparts across the country. according to the piece, the homeownership gap between whites and african americans is now wider than it was during the jim crow era reveal based its report on a review of 31 million mortgage records filed with the federal government in 2015 and 2016. the investigation found the redlining occurring across the country, including in washington, d.c., atlanta, detroit, philadelphia, st. louis, san antonio, texas. amy: since its publication earlier this month, the report has sparked national outrage and, in some states, unusually swift political action. pennsylvania's attorney general and state treasurer have both launched investigations into redlining in philadelphia. this is democratic state senator vincent hughes of pennsylvania questioning pennsylvania attorney general josh shapiro during a recent senate budget hearing. >> are you aware of the study that was just published by the senate for investigative reporting that looks at discriminatory lending practices? f "keptdy titles itself out." are you knowledgeable about what has been going on in this area? >> i am, and frankly, i'm disgusted by it. i read the articles. we were aware of this -- some of this before the articles even came out. in terms ofly wrong what is happening to that individual who is being denied a mortgage based on this reporting, but to your point, it holds the city back. it holds neighborhoods back. it holds people back from achieving what they are capable of achieving. obviously, i have been very careful today about saying too much about investigations. i will take the somewhat unusual step of announcing here today that we have launched an .nvestigation we are chasing this down post up we take this seriously. juan: meanwhile, the philadelphia city council has passed a motion for oversight hearings and community groups in redlined neighborhoods have begun organizing to pressure culpable banks to end their racially discriminatory practices. all this comes as a bipartisan group of lawmakers on capitol hill is moving to gut provisions of the dodd-frank financial reform bill enacted after the 2008 financial crisis. the bill forces banks and credit unions to disclose to the government detailed information about who they lend to. the ranking democrat on of -- the ranking democrat on the senate banking committee, senator sherrod brown of ohio, has cited reveal's reporting as a reason for congress to put the breaks on this effort. amy: well, for more, we're joined now by two guests. in san francisco, california , we are joined by aaron glantz, senior reporter at reveal from the center for investigative reporting. his new investigation is headlined, "kept out: how banks block people of color from homeownership." and joining us from the capital of pennsylvania, from harrisburg, democratic state senator vincent hughes of pennsylvania, who serves as the democratic chairman of the senate appropriations committee. thank you both for joining us. aaron, if you would start out by laying out what your investigation found and what exactly redlining is. >> we wanted to know why it was, as you mention in your intro, that even though segregation in housing discrimination has been a legal for 50 years that the homeownership gap between blacks and whites in america is now greater than it was during the jim crow era. 31 millionzed mortgage records. my colleague went through virtually every mortgage application that was made in the united states in 2015 and 2016 using data available under the home mortgage disclosure act. and we control for how much money a person made in the neighborhood they wanted to buy in and the size alone they wanted to take on. an six other factors that might play into whether a person might get a mortgage, whether person would be able to buy a home. and we found that in 61 cities across the country, including philadelphia, st. louis, orlando,san antonio, gainesville, washington, d.c., and in all of these cities around the country, people of color were more likely to be denied a conventional home purchase loan even when they made the same amount of money as their white counterpart, even when they wanted to buy in the same neighborhood as their white counterparts, and even when they wanted to take on the same size alone as their white counterparts. juan: i would like to ask senators use, the starting line in this piece is the homeownership gap between whites and african-americans is now wider than it was during the jim crow era. did that come as a surprise to you, and your reaction to the series overall? think what we have to do is look at this directly from the great reporting that reveal did, and understand a ripple effect that comes when you have this kind of discrimination going on. for example, philadelphia has the largest poverty rate of any major city in the nation, 26%. the largest of any city in the nation. the ripple effect on housing, 15,000 vacant houses. the ripple effect on wealth. effect onple education funding. because now because of this oblem, we don't have the capacity to provide local dollars to a state that is not doing what it is supposed to do in terms of funding basic education in pennsylvania. we're talking about specifically around the discrimination fees, but then we have broaden the lens to see how this plays itself out across the board on a never of other public policy manners, and it is extremely, a very serious problem. , you mention it has been 50 years since redlining was outlawed. most americans are familiar with the term "redlining," but they're not really family are with how this discriminatory lending policies occurred. i want you to talk a little bit about that. gotham,"k "reclaiming i mention some of the people who were the forerunners of this, a trio of individuals who were irritations of housing value in the united states and ended up running the fha, but they all had racially biased views. the fha being the agency that ensured many of the home mortgages in the 30's, 40's, even today. cap cops said things like, there's one difference in people, namely race, that can result in rapid decline of property value. so they were basically the gradingho created this system by ethnic and racial groups of who was best suited to obtain a federally insured mortgage. and this has become, as you mentioned, until 1968, the basis for most lending in the united states. but how has it continued even after it was outlawed? >> that is what we wanted to know, right? back in the 1930's, there were employees of the federal government and the home owners loan corporation went out into cities. a true lines on maps. they said certain neighborhoods were hazardous to lending. that was their word. the cousin they were threatened by negroes were infiltrated by roes or foreigners, and that is why they told banks to stay when the 1930's. in the 1960's, all of that and we illegal, yet here we are are seeing some of the same results. i should add, we look at those old redlining maps in philadelphia and other cities. we found there were some neighborhoods that were redlined back in the day that still could not get loans, but then we found something else i found frankly even more disturbing. that there were neighborhoods that were redlined back in the day that now were getting loans, but only to white, gentrifying newcomers. then there were other neighborhoods in philadelphia that were middle-class african-american neighborhoods where people made good money working union or other middle-class jobs and just wanted to get a nice home improvement loan or refinance their debt so they could have a comfortable retirement, and the banks were saying no as well. and those were neighborhoods, some of them, that back in the 1930's, were colored blue or green. they were deemed best or desirable for the home owners loan corporation. back then there were not -- they were white neighborhoods. we found if a neighborhood had gone from predominantly white to now being a majority people of color neighborhood, that those neighborhoods as well now faced denial today. amy: let into the segment with president lyndon johnson 50 years ago, april 1968 in assigning the fair housing act. >> the voice of justice speaks again. it proclaims that fair housing beings whol human live in this country is now a part of the american way of life. amy: that was lyndon b johnson 50 years ago in 1968. we will continue with aaron glantz and vincent hughes in a moment. ♪ [music break] amy: "my hometown," by bruce springsteen. this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman with juan gonzalez. our guests are aaron glantz with this remarkable piece called "kept out" looking at millions of cases around the country of redlining. he is senior reporter of reveal. vincent hughes, democratic state senator of pennsylvania. wouldsenator hughes, i ask you about what can be done, especially with some of these lending institutions. some of the ones mentioned in .he series are pnd what can local legislatures in the face of apparently not that much interest at the federal ,evel can deal with this issue what can you do at the state and municipal level to make these lending institutions more accountable? >> once we became aware of the information -- you're right, it is an incredible amount of andarch done by aaron emanuel. once we became aware of this, as you sign your clips, we asked the attorney general to initiate an investigation. we asked the state treasurer. we specifically asked the state treasurer, where is the state depositing its money, what banks is the state using? quite frankly, if there's a bank that is participating in this discriminatory behavior, they don't need to be in the business of holding state tax dollars. so he is pulling together research on that level. we are working directly with counseling kenyatta johnson to initiate the local hearings in philadelphia. and because of the federal government walking away from its oversight responsibilities, it really is going to require cities, local communities, states to initiate their own action to try to address this racist, discriminatory behavior. and that is what we're urging folks to do, not just in pennsylvania, but all across the country. acrossu have small towns in states across the country that don't have the size of the city of philadelphia who depend upon homeownership to keep their communities going, but local neighborhoods cannot get a loan, they cannot get a mortgage, they cannot create the wealth in their families, in their communities, as i said before, it has a tremendous ripple effect across the board in every other aspect of a person's reality and a community's reality. amy: let's go to a clip from a pbs newshour video accompanying the investigation. >> adrian stokes has owned her home for decades. she lives there with her pitbull. there's a lot of new investments in the area and property values have skyrocketed. but normal wear and tear has taken a toll on her house. bank, went to a local first trust, the only one with a branch in the neighborhood. >> i went to get a home equity loan because i wanted to fix up my home. >> she was looking for $30,000. because of rising property values, had $200,000 of equity in her house. she was current on her mortgage and she has a steady income. >> i just wanted a home equity loan to fix up my house, and i could not believe they denied me. >> she was told her credit score was not good enough. without the loan, she's afraid the condition of her house will only get worse. amy: aaron glantz, tell us more about adrian stokes and people like her, what is being done, what was done during the obama years, the number of lawsuits brought -- has any been brought under the trump administration when you're talking about this pervasive problem? >> i mean, i think when we hear , story like adrian stokes's the reason we wanted to bring her story to a national audience is because she lives in this neighborhood in philadelphia called point breeze, which is a historically african-american neighborhood which is sing a tremendous influx of wealthy white newcomers. so gentrification. i wanted to know, why is it that when communities gentrify, when new money comes in, when blighted and vacant properties are occupied, that the existing residence there do not feel lifted up? that they don't feel personally improved? that instead they feel pushed out? in this case, adrian stokes house was suddenly worth a lot more and she said, now i want to fix it up. now i want to fix that broken pump. i want to fix my circuit breaker. i want to fix my windows. she goes to her local bank, the holy one in the neighborhood. they say no. her local bank, first trust, which is a local pennsylvania institution, helped more than 500 people in philadelphia buy homes over the last five years, and only a small fraction of them, less than two dozen, were african-american. we see that with many institutions. and many institutions, nearly all of them, 99%, under president obama, got a satisfactory or outstanding grade under the community reinvestment act, which is a landmark law signed in 1977 by jimmy carter to try to get banks to lend in low income communities. and what we found was these institutions were exploiting a loophole in the law, that they did not anticipate a gentrification. so nearly every one of them was getting a passing grade. -- all of forward that data, all of those inspections come all of the mortgage records we reviewed all related to the obama administration. now we have, to your question, president trump in office. the person who has the position now as comptroller of the currency, basically, the nation's top bank cop, who is charged with enforcing the community reinvestment act, he ran a bank called onewest with steve mnuchin, who is now trust treasury secretary. and for the five years he was in charge of onewest, which is one of the largest banks headquartered in southern california am a they helped exactly three african-americans to purchase homes in just 11 latinos. he is now in charge of enforcing these laws designed to get banks to serve low income people across the country. juan: one of the rebuttals of some of the banks to your series is that you are -- you're crunching of the numbers leaves out certain factors like credit oftories or credit scores the applicants. could you talk about that rebuttal and why even issue a credit scores is suspect in terms of racial bias? >> we looked at all of the data that is publicly available under the home mortgage disclosure act , which included how much money people made, the neighborhood the wanted to buy in, and amount of house, the amount of debt they wanted to take on. we included a lot of other factors like the demographics of the neighborhood and the regulating agency over the financial institution where they are trying to the loan, and everything we could. there were some things we could not include because the banks have been fighting to keep them secret. and one of them was credit score , another really important metric that we could not use was debt to income ratio like the amount of debt total that a person has, including their car payments, etc., in addition to the loan they're trying to take on in relationship to their income. and the reason we could not include that information that we wanted to include was because the banks, since the. frank act was passed in 2010, has been fighting to keep that information secret. so global economy crash because of bad loans, congress and president obama said banks, yet to start giving the public and the government information about bar or credit scores them a role debt burden, and other factors and the banks have been kicking and screaming for seven years now and we still don't have it. so here we come at center for investigative reporting and we go through all of the records that are publicly available. the banks say our analysis that shows people of color cannot get a loan even when they make the same amount of money as whites is no good because we don't include the very information that they are trying to keep secret and that they have successfully cap secret up until this point. amy: i want to go back to someone we spoke to a few weeks ago on democracy now!, rachelle faroul, who manages a million-dollar grant at her job at the university of pennsylvania. two lenders turned her down when she tried to buy a home. rachelle describes what happened next. >> it really wasn't until my partner, who identifies as asian and not half white, stepped in and offered to be my co-borrower that it was pretty much smooth sailing to the extent that our application was approved, but as soon as she came on, i was largely ignored and really all that matter was my money. that is, unfortunately, not the experience of a large number of black people who try to buy homes in america. denied us are routinely our applications are rejected, and we are forced to continue to rent from people who don't care about us, don't care about our well-being, and don't really consider gerdau you the ways in which we held -- amy: you only got it when hanako fran sign on with you? >> yes. it is something we laugh about. her application was approved at a time when her score was in the that is what mattered most. first, for whatever reason, what did not matter at all was the was workingnako part-time at a grocery store. her most recent pay stub was like $115. i was helping her pay her health insurance because she has such little cash. amy: their broker who turned down rachelle faroul's first location said race played no role in the rejection. philadelphia mortgage advisors' chief operating officer, jill quinn, sent a statement to reveal that read in part -- "we treat every applicant equally and promote homeownership throughout our entire lending area." meanwhile, rachelle's loan officer at santander, dennis mcnichol, referred reveal to his company's public affairs department. the bank issued a statement that read in part -- "while we are sympathetic with her situation, we are confident that the loan application was managed fairly." if you, state senator vincent hughes, can talk about what you are calling for now will remedy a situation like this? and also, address the issue of the trump administration weakening the standards banks must meet to pass the reinvestment act and what you as a state senator can do around the issue of racial discrimination in lending practices. back as iwant to go answer that, i want to go back to somethingaaron was speaking to about access and credit score information and what have you and what makes the practices of the banks really says that. most of us do a lot of our banking online now. able to move around online to do our banking. but it is interesting if that is a reality, that three quarters of all of the bank branches that still are in existence in the city of philadelphia are in majority white neighborhoods, even though most folks are doing their banking online now. so they are discriminating and the mortgages they are proving and discriminating where their locating their local branches, and not placing google branches is -- not placing branches in majority african american and latino neighborhoods. that is one thing that causes the banks behavior to be really suspect here. in terms of what we can do at the state level, we have to figure out what power that we have that we can put on the federal desperately charged institutions. most of the banks were talking about our federally charged. for example, the city of philadelphia has filed a lawsuit against wells fargo for steering wells fargo -- for steering folks, minority communities, african-american and latino communities and individuals come to higher interest, higher risk mortgages. understanding that wells fargo, while dilling with his lawsuit, has put aside maybe 3.2 billion dollars, $3.25 million, anticipating what potentially could happen if the courts rule against them. -- if we'rears successful on the legal front, if we are successful in terms of public pressure, if we're successful in saying, you know what? state tax dollars should not good at things that are racially discriminating, they should go to banks that are supporting and and gauged in a diverse community, african-american and latino communities. state dollars into those institutions and maybe we can drive more activity, more mortgage lending, mortgage lending into african-american and latino communities and the banks of got to pay. again, the ripple effect of this kind of behavior is far-reaching . 90% of the homes the city of thandelphia are older 1978. and that is important because 1978 was the year that lead paint was outlawed, was ruled you cannot use lead paint in terms of -- because of the lead content. well, we have communities, especially lack and brown communities, african-american and latino communities, who are living in lead field homes. in toxic household. if you cannot get a mortgage or you can get a second on your home to make home improvements to get rid of that lead, then you are living in -- living in a house of hell because the toxicity rate is so high. folks need to be criminally gone after. we need to move our money out of those in the jewish and and institutions that are more favorable to these communities who are not involved discriminatory and racist behavior. and they need to be sent a message. we cannot depend upon washington, d.c., the federal level, we have to take this within our own hands. legislators around the country need to go after this. local counsel people and mayors around the country need to go after this and demand that justice these communities deserve. it is right morally, but also good investment for these local communities. about awant to ask you service that you have with your story where people can find out about what is going on in their particular neighborhood. could you talk about that and how they might access that kind of information? -- we wanted to make sure that all of this government information, which is currently available to computer geeks, is available to the general public. what we did was created a data out. you can go onto our website at edlining and you can type in your address and find in your neighborhood, whether you live in wichita, kansas, or san francisco, california, or philadelphia, pennsylvania, which racial groups are getting loans in your neighborhood, your mother's never had come your fathers never had, your cousin's neighborhood, and who aren't. your mother's neighborhood, your father's neighborhood, your cousin's never would, and who aren't. you can look in your city and find out what the racial breakdown of their lending is in your city. in state senator mentioned philadelphia, wells fargo is far more likely to deny african-americans than whites, 27% to know rate for african-americans in philadelphia from wells fargo, 9% from whites. you can type in any bank in any city and get a result like that for your metro. amy: were you surprised by the response, aaron, to your peace? we ran the first part of it a few weeks ago and the investigations that have opened and what we should know about all over the country, not only in pennsylvania? a key to the success of this investigation is taking something out of the abstract and bringing it home to particular communities. letting people know that it is neighborhood,heir in their city. it is no question that we focused our report on philadelphia where african-americans are nearly three times as likely to be turned down even when they make the same amount of money as their white counterparts. and we focused our energies there and had the greatest impact there so far. we also worked with the associated press and our partners at the public radio exchange and there have been stories on the covers of newspapers all around the country, in gainesville, florida, told the, obama, st. louis, detroit, etc., were local media have been turning the lens and the community's. i think that is the way it has to go during this euro when so many people feel that washington is fundamentally broken. but they still care about their neighbors and they still want justice in the community. amy: i want to end with kenyatta johnson speaking at a hearing last week. >> this week i have seen sickening and un-american injustice. when we talk about segregation, we're usually talking about the jim crow year a, separate schools, several churches, several water fountains, and we sometimes give into the myth the civil rights movement is relegated racial segregation to the darkened days of american history. but here we are on the 50th anniversary of the fair housing act and deed segregation is alive and kicking. it is a legacy of federally sanctioned redlining policies that designated black neighborhoods as credit risk for home loans. home ownership, which is commonly considered the cornerstone of the american dream, is to some, and a mecca nightmare. lear this week we got purple proof of modern-day redlining. the senate for investigative reporting released an in-depth report that took a year of intensive research, including review of 31 million documents, found that banks were denying home purchase loans, home improvement loans, home refinancing to applicants of at farhat rates than their caucasian applicants. home applicants were 2.7 times more likely to be denied than their caucasian applicants. amy: the lid of his city councilman kenyatta johnson. we want to thank our guest today, aaron glantz, senior reporter at reveal, and vincent hughes, democratic state senator of pennsylvania who serves as the democratic chairman of the senate appropriations committee. and that does it for this segment. you can go to democracynow.org or we will link to all of the pieces and investigations at reveal in the center for investigative journalism has done. when we come back, we will talk supreme court. stay with us. ♪ [music break] amy: "power in union" by utah phillips. this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman with juan gonzalez. juan: on monday, the u.s. supreme court heard arguments in a key case that could deal a massive blow to public unions nationwide. the case, janus vs. american federation of state, county and municipal employees, deals with whether workers whhave benefited by union-negotiated contracts are required to pay a portion union dues if they opt to not become members of the union. the lead plaintiff, mark janus, is an illinois child-support specialist who argues that the state law allowing the union to charge a fee for collective-bargaining activities violates his first amendment rights. numerous right-wing groups have trumpeted his claim in their latest attempt to weaken the political power of public unions. the groups include the koch brothers' americans for prosperity, state policy network, alec -- american legislative exchange council and the bradley foundation. amy: over the weekend, union members gathered in cities across the country for a "working people's day of action" to speak out against the case. this is afscme president lee saunders speaking saturday at a rally in new york city. >> they are not making a legal argument a front of the supreme court, they are making a political attack on all of you. that is what this is about. it is a political attack. they don't care about the first amendment. they don't care about making they care about making more money and more wealth at the expense of all of you. and they're not just going after unions, they're coming for everyone who threatens the power, who threatens the privilege. make its who want to fair, they're coming after you. amy: janus vs. afscme follows a similar case the supreme court heard in 2016, friedrichs vs. the california teachers association. the court deadlocked four-to-four in the case after conservative justice antonin scalia died suddenly. it's now expected that trump appointee justice neil gorsuch will break the tie. for more, we are joined by amanda shanor, staff attorney at the american civil liberties union, which filed an amicus brief in janus vs. afscme in support of afscme. she also is completing her ph.d. at yale law school. her recent piece in the nation is headlined "public-sector union fees don't violate the first amendment." why don't we start there. talk about the basics of the case, who is janus, and take it from there. >> i am excited to be here. janus is a public sector worker in illinois and he has brought a first amendment claim against an illinois law that authorizes unions to collect dues not only from members, but from people who are nonmembers, but employees the union was legally provide services to cost of for instance, if a nonunion employee has a grievance, the union still has to represent that person and grievance procedures. with illinois law does is permit the union to charge those fees to the nonmember workers, but a lower fee called an agency fee or fair share fee. is climbingas and first amendment rights that he does not have to provide payment for the services that union is legally required to provide him. juan: is he arguing that he would not have to benefit from wage increases or from union support of members who are fired unjustly? >> no. what he's looking for is essentially to get under the first amendment to get something for nothing. he would like to have a first amendment right to benefit from the union, but pay for the cost that -- of the functions the unit performs on his behalf and behalf of all of the other workers. this is a case that falls onto a series of different cases in the supreme court that have been pushing and antiunion agenda. under the first amendment right, the idea of the case is whether the supreme court is when to stick with decades of precedent in which it reached a really vital copper mines that -- not just of mark janus, but also individuals who do choose to associate in the union of the government vital interest in deciding how it once to run its own workplaces and remote work pace -- workplace peace. if their rights will prevail or whether the court is going to stick with some kind of compromise that also reflects and embraces and respects the first amendment rights of union members and the governments key interest, i think him and managing its workplace as it sees fit. juan: amanda, and the supreme court hearing for justice neil gorsuch was silent, but justice kennedy, and was also considered key in this case, was not. could you talk about some of his questions and your sense of how justice kennedy is leaning? >> it is interesting. in a case in the early 1990's, justice kennedy and justice scalia embraced midline coppermine's position that would limit the types of activities that a union could charge under fair share fees, but -- so i think a lot of speculators thought justice kennedy would seek to go that direction here. i think there is a lot of hope for that. his questions suggest he is more skeptical of unions and more embracing of rotted first amendment rights that i think some court watchers have potentially anticipated. we will see -- justice corsets did not say anything so we don't know where he is in this case. one of the big questions here is how much room the state and local government actors will have, how much discretion they will have to decide how to manage their workforces. this is not just a case about unions, but the broader architecture of the first amendment and how much it will hamstring government in their ability to do what they see fit. uchis possible justice gors will see that this case has much broader implications. amy: amanda shanor, the koch brothers involvement with trying to bust unions and pushing antiunion legislation? >> it is interesting. this case is part of a much broader both push by various social civil society groups, but also more broadly by the business community to push for more libertarian first amendment use the first amendment to challenge what we might understand otherwise as the economic regulation in areas not just for unions, but the government's ability to act on climate change or public health or a range of different activities. so this is really just one, though i think a very pragmatic one, of the first immigrants turn into a really robust deregulatory tool and the root question before the court is, what is the limiting principle on that? at what point were -- look court say, no, it is important that courts have the ability to do things like manage their own workforces. >> in this case, janus is our brewing -- arguing for his free speech. the aclu filing an amicus brief is usually on the side of free speech rights. could you talk about your interpretation of why this case is so important, why the aclu has stepped in? >> sure. the aclu is second to none in defending robustly first amendment rights of free speech, association, innocently. both people's rights to associate and to not associate as they see fit. under decades of supreme court precedent, doesn't violate anyone's first amendment rights to be required to pay fair share fees in cases like this. that is because under decades of precedent, the court has recognized that an public workplaces, it is not just the rights of individuals who don't want to associate, but also the rest of people who do. there are multiple first at stake.interests the state historically astride a balance those along with the government interest in promoting labor peace by respecting -- respected one union. in doing that, the court is balancing multiple first amendment interest. individuals like mark janus who don't want to assemble with the union don't have the right to not pay fair share fees. as the aclu, we very much -- we felt an amicus brief in this the properocate for resolution. amy: amanda, we're going to leave it there and say thank you so much for helping us understand this case. amanda shanor, staff attorney at the american civil liberties union. that does it for ourselves. today we want to celebrate our 22nd anniversary. it is actually this month. it was last week, but there was too much news to do it then. you see our cake. 22 years covering. a big thank you to everyone who has made democracy now! possible. don't forget, you can keep up with us on facebook, instagram, twitter, youtube roku. thank you to everyone for supporting news with a heart, for helping us go for the silences. democracy now! is looking for feedback from people who appreciate the closed all on today's show. announcer: "julie 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