Richard Rothstein’s The Color of Law has made quite a splash. It’s been widely praised for its no-holds-barred look at American racism. Rothstein has toured the country lecturing about the book; he’s has been interviewed on National Public Radio and other outlets many times; and he’s been widely cited by mainstream liberals — and even some on the left. His thesis is simple. As he summarized it in an article for the libertarian magazine Reason, “Racial segregation in America was, to a large degree, engineered by policy makers in Washington” — above all, the policy makers of the New Deal.

Rothstein is right to attack the systematic racism that has plagued this country and to lay bare the way our cities have been racially segregated — and continue to be to this day. This is not exactly news, but it is an important truth that bears repeating for every generation. So, to the extent that it helps educate the young, and especially white Americans, about certain harsh realities, The Color of Law serves a good purpose. This country’s sorry record on race needs to be aired as an essential part of our urban history.

On the other hand, Rothstein is wrong in ways that mislead readers about the causes and course of racial segregation. His errors of theory and fact seriously undermine the value of the book as a work of historiography and are a disservice to progressive politics today. Indeed, Rothstein ends up bolstering conservative positions on several fronts, starting with the idea that racism is not a structural element of US civil society and that government is the problem not the solution. Whatever his good intentions, Rothstein’s dubious scholarship has some very bad, if unintended, consequences.