Leah Rothstein joins the Exchange again to discuss the ongoing problem of racial discrimination in housing and steps we can take to address it.
In 2023, Leah Rothstein teamed with her father, Richard Rothstein, up to write, "." We featured Leah on the show previously for this book in October 2023. We invited her back during Black History Month 2025 to further explore this topic and how ordinary people can take action in their communities to desegregate housing.
Leah's latest book with her father is a sequel to the 2017 popular book, "." In it, Richard provides detailed insights into how the federal government, along with state and local governments and private sector co-conspirators, intentionally promoted and enforced racial segregation.
Leah Rothstein's bio:
Leah Rothstein鈥檚 expertise in the full range of housing policy stems from more than two decades as a community and union organizer and a consultant to housing developers, cities and counties, redevelopment agencies, and private firms. She specializes in community development and affordable housing policy, practice, and finance.
Leah has worked on public policy and community change, from the grassroots to the halls of government. She led research on reforming community corrections policy and practice to be focused on rehabilitation, not punishment. She has been a consultant on community development and affordable housing policy, practice, and finance. Her policy work is informed by her years as a community and labor organizer.
Leah received a Bachelor Degree, with honors, in American Studies from the University of California, Santa Cruz and a Master of Public Policy from the Goldman School of Public Policy at the University of California, Berkeley.
Leah lives in Oakland, California with her partner, Skye. To resist the isolation of single-family housing, they have created a co-housing compound with friends.
Richard Rothstein's bio:
Richard Rothstein is a research associate of the Economic Policy Institute, where his recent work has documented the history of state-sponsored residential segregation. In addition, he is a Senior Fellow at the Haas Institute at the University of California, Berkeley and the author of "Grading Education: Getting Accountability Right" (2008), "Class and Schools: Using Social, Economic and Educational Reform to Close the Black-White Achievement Gap" (2004), and "The Way We Were? Myths and Realities of America鈥檚 Student Achievement" (1998). He is co-author of "The Charter School Dust-Up: Examining the Evidence on Enrollment and Achievement" (2005); and "All Else Equal: Are Public and Private Schools Different?" (2003).
From 1999 to 2002, Richard Rothstein was the national education columnist for the New York Times. Mr. Rothstein lectures widely about issues of equity, race, and education. His many articles on these topics, as well as videos and audios of many of his lectures, can be found .
