# Richard Rothstein **Richard Rothstein** is an American policy researcher best known for ***[[The Color of Law]]*** (2017), which argues that residential segregation in the United States was created on purpose by government at every level, not by private prejudice alone. He is affiliated with the [[Economic Policy Institute]] and is a senior fellow emeritus of the Thurgood Marshall Institute at the [[NAACP Legal Defense Fund]]. ## Why he matters Before *The Color of Law*, the usual story was that American neighborhoods were segregated "de facto," by individual choices, income and private discrimination that government did not cause and therefore had no special duty to undo. Rothstein assembled the evidence that the segregation was "de jure," imposed by explicit public policy, and drew the conclusion that the government is constitutionally obligated to remedy it. That argument now sits underneath most public discussion of redlining and housing policy, and it is the strongest case for tools like [[Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing]] that the federal government has recently abandoned. ## Career Rothstein spent most of his career on education policy. He wrote the national education column for the [[New York Times]] from 1999 to 2002, and his books include *Class and Schools* (2004) and *Grading Education* (2008). After *The Color of Law*, he and his daughter Leah Rothstein wrote *Just Action: How to Challenge Segregation Enacted Under the Color of Law* (2023), a practical guide for local organizing against segregation. ## Connections - [[The Color of Law]] - [[Redlining and Housing Discrimination]] - [[White Flight and Suburbanization]] - [[Fair Housing Act of 1968]]