The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is being gutted from the inside out. Created in 2010 after the Great Recession, during which the typical American household lost one-third of its wealth, the bureau was established to put the financial well-being of families ahead of the interests of lobbyists and Wall Street.

On Wednesday, the bureau’s new leadership effectively fired its Consumer Advisory Board, a volunteer body mandated by law that is supposed to advise the bureau, without ever having held a substantive meeting with its members. This sudden move and other recent changes at the bureau, including efforts to loosen rules intended to protect families and businesses, raise the worrisome prospect that the country will once again end up on a path to foreclosed homes, market failures and taxpayer bailouts.

I have been the chairwoman of the advisory board since last October. Its 25 members are a diverse group of people from businesses, nonprofit organizations and universities who are committed to fairness in financial services. In my four years on the advisory board, we have offered feedback on consumer education materials, coordinated public comments on the bureau’s payday and auto title lending rule proposal, and brought insights that spurred internal research about new harmful practices in the mortgage market.

My passion for standing up for American families stems from my personal history. I am the daughter of immigrants. My parents served in the United States Army, and my father is a decorated Vietnam veteran. I have often heard my mother speak of her difficulties as a young mother with two small children and a husband off at war, and my father told me of his struggles as a returning veteran. Like me, my fellow board members are committed to protecting American consumers.