One of the appraisers responded to the journalist and defended his methods in the article.
Without accusing the appraisers of racism, I doubt that the majority of petty racists are aware of their racism. If you take exception with a specific behavior (again without accusing or condemning) it isn't uncommon for someone to reflexively reply, "I'm not a racist!". Very few people are consciously racist, yet discrimination happens.
If race did play a role in the appraisal value, it could have been subconscious.
I think we can forget about trying to determine whether it is subconscious or not. That's silly. Instead, what needs to be identified is what kind of behavior it really is.
Discrimination Type Ia: Judging people as individuals regardless of what group a person is in based on empirical evidence. (Ideal. Can be cost-prohibitive to gather the information.)
Discrimination Type Ib: Judging individuals based on empirical evidence on the group they are part of. (Less than ideal, but often less costly than Type Ia.)
Discrimination Type II: Judging individuals with no basis in empirical evidence but solely based on personal bias or aversion to members of certain groups. (Racism and prejudice.)
Each of these behaviors has different qualities, different causes, and in the case of the difference between Ib and II different responses needed from society.
If it is Ib, the problem is one of information. If it is II, the problem lies with the individual.
I have to say, this feels an awful lot like Type II in this particular case. The article doesn't make a good case for "systemic racism," though. The overall practice may be poor economic incentives leading to Type Ib discrimination. That can be fixed with easier to digest data.
This is because the costs, in the case of getting appraisals wrong across the board, actually can and do hit the lenders' bottom lines. But if they don't know that, they won't correct.
Classifications are not mine, they are Thomas Sowell's from Discrimination and Dispariites.
Without accusing the appraisers of racism, I doubt that the majority of petty racists are aware of their racism. If you take exception with a specific behavior (again without accusing or condemning) it isn't uncommon for someone to reflexively reply, "I'm not a racist!". Very few people are consciously racist, yet discrimination happens.
If race did play a role in the appraisal value, it could have been subconscious.