De jure segregation is separation required by law, such as Jim Crow rules for schools and buses. De facto segregation results from practices and policies that are not written as racial rules but have the same effect. Much Northern segregation was built by government action, including federal redlining maps in the 1930s, restrictive covenants and the placement of public housing and highways.
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 banned segregation in public accommodations, and the Fair Housing Act of 1968 banned housing discrimination. Courts ordered school desegregation after Brown v. Board of Education in 1954, but many of those orders have since been lifted.
Segregation persists. A 2022 Government Accountability Office report looked at the 2020-21 school year. It found that more than a third of US public school students attended a school where at least 75 percent of students were of one race or ethnicity. Segregated neighborhoods also shape access to jobs, healthy food, clean air and wealth.