GOOD: Carson at HUD spells trouble for Obama’s diversity rule.

Ben Carson’s appointment to head the Department of Housing and Urban Development likely would mean trouble for President Obama’s new housing diversity rule and would put a noted skeptic of many government anti-poverty programs in control of many of them.

The famed neurosurgeon and former presidential candidate will spend Thanksgiving thinking about the possibility of serving as President-elect Trump’s HUD secretary, a spokesman said Wednesday.

If he takes over the agency, many housing advocates will be left to wonder what his agenda is, given that he has no record on housing-related issues. . . .

But Carson has made his feelings clear on one politically sensitive topic, the Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing rule finalized by Obama HUD Secretary Julian Castro.

The rule, meant to implement the 1968 Fair Housing Act, is intended to promote diversity across municipalities and counties by comparing levels of inclusion and diversity.

In a 2015 Washington Times op-ed, however, Carson described the rule as an example of “government-engineered attempts to legislate racial equality” bound to fail and compared it to unsuccessful busing efforts in the 1970s and 1980s.

I’m happy to see HUD enter a post-Castro era.