Racial segregation characterizes every metropolitan area in the United States and is responsible for some of our most serious social and economic problems: It corrupts our criminal justice system, exacerbates economic inequality, and produces large academic gaps between white and African American schoolchildren.

In his 2017 book The Color of Law, Richard Rothstein, a research associate at the Economic Policy Institute, argues that racial segregation in America is the byproduct of explicit government policies at the local, state and federal levels.

On Tuesday, Oct. 15, Rothstein will present “The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America,” this year’s Andrew K. Prinz Lecture for Political Awareness at Elmhurst College.

Rothstein has spent years documenting evidence that government not only ignored discriminatory housing practices, but promoted them, with devastating results for generations of African Americans and the country as a whole. Acclaimed Harvard sociologist William Julius Wilson, author of The Truly Disadvantaged, wrote this about The Color of Law: “Based on careful analyses of multiple historical documents, Rothstein has presented what I consider to be the most forceful argument ever published on how federal, state and local governments gave rise to and reinforced neighborhood segregation.”

The lecture will begin at 4:00 p.m. on Tuesday, Oct. 15, in the Frick Center, Founders Lounge. A book signing will follow the lecture, and copies of his book will be available for purchase. Admission is free and all are welcome. For more information, call (630) 617-5186.