Realtors and fair-lending advocates are outraged over reports that Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson has ordered the removal of language ensuring “inclusiveness and discrimination-free communities” from the department’s mission statement. A spokesperson for HUD denied the report, blaming it on faulty reporting by the Huffington Post on March 6. Carson later followed up with his own denial in an open letter to HUD employees, which the department made public. The initial press report cited a March 5 memo written by Amy Thompson, assistant secretary for public affairs, and addressed to HUD political staff. In the memo, Thompson talked about ongoing efforts to update the mission statement to align HUD’s mission with the Trump administration’s priorities. She added that Carson helped in the development of the new statement as well as urged senior staff to ...