The Color of Law

Your Weekly Constitutional

Do you know the difference between de facto and de jure? They’re Latin terms, the first of which means “in effect,” and the second of which means “according to the law.” The distinction is important, since, generally, there is no constitutional remedy for wrongs that are de facto, only for those that are de jure.
Richard Rothstein of the Economic Policy Institute has written a new book, The Color of Law, which exposes the myth that segregated housing patterns in the United States are simply the de facto results of millions of private decisions; he shows that they are very much de jure results of American law.