Areas of expertise
Education • Race and ethnicity
Biography
Richard Rothstein is a Distinguished Fellow of the Economic Policy Institute and a Senior Fellow (emeritus) at the Thurgood Marshall Institute of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. He is the author of The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America, which recovers a forgotten history of how federal, state, and local policy explicitly segregated metropolitan areas nationwide, creating racially homogenous neighborhoods in patterns that violate the Constitution and require remediation. He is also the author of many other articles and books on race and education, which can be found on his web page at the Economic Policy Institute: http://www.epi.org/people/richard-rothstein/. Previous influential books include Class and Schools: Using Social, Economic and Educational Reform to Close the Black–White Achievement Gap and Grading Education: Getting Accountability Right. He welcomes questions and comments at riroth@epi.org.
Highlighted media
Richard Rothstein discusses The Color of Law on Fresh Air
Richard Rothstein in conversation with Ta-Nehisi Coates
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The soft bigotry of high expectations: To combat the Black-white school achievement gap, remedy persistent segregation, don’t hope for miracle teachers
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Don’t let businesses off the hook: The government’s role in creating segregation does not exonerate the private sector
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Powerful government policy segregated us; the same can desegregate us, says Color of Law author Richard Rothstein
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Reconstruction 2020: Valuing Black Lives and Economic Opportunities for All
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The coronavirus will explode achievement gaps in education
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The Trump administration’s new housing rules will worsen segregation
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The road not taken: Housing and criminal justice 50 years after the Kerner Commission report
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Revived debate over school busing highlights deepening racial segregation
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The federal government’s housing policies deepened segregation: A response to a critique of The Color of Law
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Toxic stress and children’s outcomes: African American children growing up poor are at greater risk of disrupted physiological functioning and depressed academic achievement
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Many of the policy recommendations from the Kerner Commission remain relevant 50 years later
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Is poverty a mindset?
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American Constitution Society panel on race and housing featuring Richard Rothstein
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The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America
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Brown v. Board is 63 years old. Was the Supreme Court’s school desegregation ruling a failure?
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How does our discriminatory criminal justice system affect children?: Black children are six times as likely as white children to have a parent who’s been incarcerated
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Criminal justice policy is education policy
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Mass incarceration and children’s outcomes: Criminal justice policy is education policy
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We can’t meaningfully integrate schools without desegregating neighborhoods
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What Ben Carson should learn about housing segregation
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Race tax harms African Americans
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GAO report on segregation misses the bigger picture
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Housing segregation undergirds the nation’s racial inequities
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On renaming the Woodrow Wilson School: The standards of his time, and ours
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Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx On The Legacy Of The U.S. Highway System
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Housing Discrimination, Racial Segregation And Poverty In America
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Fisher II—Could a Surprise be in Store?
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2015 National Fair Housing Conference, Residential Segregation
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Rothstein Featured on NBC’s “Today”