Opinion ID: 441645
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Winter Programs.

Text: 22 AFS alleges that it has two separate winter programs. One program comprises only single white females who are upperclasspersons (sophomores, juniors and seniors) in a four-year college or nursing school. The district court found this to be the preferred program. The other program comprises minorities, males and married persons attending college or vocational school; the district court found this to be the non-preferred program. 2 23 The applicants for the preferred winter credit program for single white females are treated as preferred sales targets, regardless of age, prior credit histories, or any other normal indicia of creditworthiness. Id. at 556 p 42. They receive immediate credit. Sales to this group are always made on an immediate shipment basis unless there is a specific request for a delay in shipment. Id. at 556 p 42 (emphasis added). 24 The non-preferred winter credit program comprises all minorities, males, married persons and freshmen in four-year colleges as well as students in junior colleges and vocational schools. This group receives their goods on a deferred shipment basis. Unlike the preferred winter credit program, the non-preferred credit program withholds the shipment of goods to its credit applicants until the applicant makes three successive monthly payments. If non-preferred applicants fail to make three consecutive monthly payments, AFS retains the payments made and retains the goods earmarked for shipment. 25 Both winter programs are designed to meet the special social need for credit shared by 18 to 21 year olds. The distinction between the two programs--based on race, sex and marital status--is not, however, a matter of differential social need. Rather, it stems from a marketing judgment made by AFS. AFS does not inform potential credit applicants that they are participants in an alleged special purpose credit program. As the district court noted, [a]ll applicants between 18-21 are carefully led to believe that they are being treated the same as all other applicants. Id. at 557 p 55. 26 Potential credit applicants who fall into the non-preferred category because of their race, sex or marital status are therefore unable to decline credit offered through an alleged special purpose credit program. Id. at 557 p 57. Moreover, these same non-preferred credit applicants are not told that they are being rejected for the credit terms extended to other persons identically situated, except for the characteristics of race, sex, marital status, or year in school. Id. at 558 p 58. 27 The district court also found that AFS attempts to justify its credit extension distinctions with sales and account currency statistics, generated by its predecessor company American Foresight, that purport to show that minority customers are, as a group, less creditworthy than their white counterparts. The district court credited the testimony of Dr. Bernard Siskin, a statistical expert for the Government, that the AFS data system and analyses are statistically biased and, therefore, statistically unreliable, because it was the AFS sales policy to discourage sales to the class of minority persons or other non-preferred groups between the ages of 18-21 while encouraging sales to the preferred market group. Id. at 559 p 76. Moreover, AFS's statistical analyses did not account for salespersons' intentional miscoding of sales to blacks as sales to whites so as to obtain better commissions. Id. at 558 p 67. 28 Based on these findings the district court held that AFS, FNAC and Satell are creditors who violated the anti-discrimination provisions of the ECOA. 29 Appellants do not appeal the district court's conclusion that AFS's summer program discriminated on the basis of race, sex and marital status in violation of the ECOA. Thus, we will restrict our review to the two winter credit programs that the district court also found to have violated the ECOA by discriminating on the basis of race, sex and marital status in the extension of credit.