Racial segregation in the United States

===Scientific racism===
{{main|Scientific racism}}

The intellectual roots of ''[[Plessy v. Ferguson]]'', the landmark United States Supreme Court decision which upheld the constitutionality of racial segregation, under the doctrine of "separate but equal", were partially tied to the [[scientific racism]] of the era. The popular support of the decision was likely a result of the racist beliefs which were held by most whites at the time.<ref name="rlac">{{cite book |title=Race, Law, and Culture: Reflections on Brown V. Board of Education |url=https://archive.org/details/racelawculturere00sara |url-access=limited |first=Austin |last=Sarat |pages=[https://archive.org/details/racelawculturere00sara/page/n65 55] and 59 |year=1997 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0195106220 }}</ref> Later, the court decision ''[[Brown v. Board of Education]]'' rejected the ideas of scientific racists about the need for segregation, especially in schools. Following that decision both scholarly and popular ideas of scientific racism played an important role in the attack and backlash that followed the court decision.<ref name="rlac"/>

The ''[[Mankind Quarterly]]'' is a journal that has published scientific racism. It was founded in 1960, partly in response to the 1954 United States Supreme Court decision ''Brown v. Board of Education'', which ordered the desegregation of US schools.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Schaffer |first=Gavin |title='"Scientific" Racism Again?': Reginald Gates, the Mankind Quarterly and the Question of 'Race' in Science after the Second World War |journal=Journal of American Studies |year=2007 |volume=41 |issue=2 |pages=253–278 |doi=10.1017/S0021875807003477 |s2cid=145322934 }}</ref><ref name="jackson">{{cite book |title=Science for Segregation: Race, Law, and the Case Against Brown V. Board of Education |url=https://archive.org/details/scienceforsegreg00jack |url-access=limited |first=John P. |last=Jackson |isbn=978-0814742716 |page=[https://archive.org/details/scienceforsegreg00jack/page/n160 148] |date=August 2005 |publisher=NYU Press }}</ref>  Many of the publication's contributors, publishers, and board of directors espouse academic [[hereditarianism]]. The publication is widely criticized for its extremist politics, anti-semitic bent and its support for scientific racism.<ref>e.g., {{cite book |last=Arvidsson |first=Stefan |year=2006 |title=Aryan Idols: Indo-European Mythology as Ideology and Science |others=translated by Sonia Wichmann |location=Chicago and London |publisher=University of Chicago Press |isbn=978-0226028606 }}</ref>