Laissez-faire racism (from laissez-faire economics) is closely related to color blindness and covert racism, and is theorised to encompass an ideology that blames minorities for their poorer economic situations, viewing it as the result of cultural inferiority. The term is used largely by scholars of whiteness studies, who argue that laissez-faire racism has tangible consequences even though few would openly claim to be, or even believe they are, laissez-faire racists. Dr. Lawrence D. Bobo, Professor of the Social Sciences at Harvard University, and Ryan Smith use this term to argue that the racial outlooks of white Americans have shifted from the more overtly racist Jim Crow attitudes — which endorsed school segregation, advocated for governmentally imposed discrimination, and embraced the idea that minorities were biologically inferior to whites — to a more subtle form of racism that continues to rationalize the ongoing problem of racial oppression in the United States. Laissez-faire racists claim to support equality while maintaining negative, stereotypical beliefs about minorities. The term 'laissez-faire' is borrowed from the French language, where it translates literally to 'to leave to do' or substantively to 'do nothing'. The term therefore underscores the fact that laizzez-faire racists can--and wish to--do nothing at all to actively end racism or racial inequality and this alone is enough to maintain the racially inegalitarian status quo. Katherine Tarca writes that laissez-faire racism is the belief, stated or implied through actions, that one can end racial inequality and discrimination by refusing to acknowledge that race and racial discrimination exists. Laissez-faire racism has two main ideas: first, the belief in the melting pot and America’s assertion of ideas of equal opportunity, regardless of race. Second, laissez-faire racism encompasses the ideology of how individual deficiencies explain the problems of entire social groups. Tarca explains that whites tend to view laissez-faire racism as being beneficial to people of color, while many minorities believe that these ideologies contrast and ignore the realities facing many minorities in America. Eduardo Bonilla-Silva, who is a professor of sociology at Duke University, suggests that all groups of people in power construct these ideologies in order to justify social inequalities. For example, most racial ideologies today are more inclined to omit unfashionable racist language, which protects racial privilege by employing certain philosophies of liberalism in a more conceptual and decontextualized approach. These ideologies help to reinforce the existing condition of affairs by concentrating on cultural distinctions as the cause of the inferior accomplishments of minorities in education and employment. These ideas are primarily focused on the darker-skinned minorities, such as African-Americans and Latinos. Ideologies like these refuse to acknowledge the systematic oppression, such as the continuing school segregation or persistent negative racial stereotypes that continue to surface in American society. Many theorists continue to assert the idea that race is a social construct based on a person’s physical appearance, which is not a matter of any actual biological differences between people, and is not a definable, meaningful or useful concept when applied to human beings because there is only one human race. Others respond that although this viewpoint may be biologically accurate, it leads nowhere in our understanding of race issues. According to Katherine Tarca, contemporary racism, with laissez-faire racism being one of its components, has largely evolved from interrelated economic and political dynamics. Racism in the United States progressed from slavery-era evolutionary racism, to the Jim-Crow era of legal racial oppression. Jim Crow racism declined during the twentieth century, in part due to the Civil Rights Movement that challenged the notions of the biological inferiority of blacks. Tarca suggests that the end of Jim Crow laws did not end racism altogether, but led to another form of racism. Laissez-faire racism of the post-civil rights era was formed through the successes of that movement, including the rejection of outright racist discourse. These advances, however, were moderated by the political and economic factors of the time. Political sentiment toward the Civil Rights Movement, predominantly the Civil Rights Act of 1964, relied on a particular interpretation of liberal theory. Liberalism in America since the Civil Rights Movement reaffirmed the belief in the impartial universal treatment of individuals, which led to the emphasis on individual merit and accomplishments. Opponents of laissez-faire racism claim that those who refuse to accept social explanations for inequality also oppose attempts to prevent it. According to Bobo, the slow progression from Jim Crow to laissez-faire racism can be measured in the trends for questions on racial principles. These polls can help to provide the most descriptive evidence in the changes in racial sentiment in the United States. Surveys and polls conducted in 1942 show a continuing increase among whites who support racial integration and equal rights. In 1942, 68 percent of white Americans approved of school segregation, while only 7 percent approved this same position in 1985. Additionally, 55 percent of whites surveyed in 1944 thought whites should receive preference over blacks in access to jobs, compared with only 3 percent of whites in 1972. These same progressive attitudes in whites were extended to areas of interracial marriage, equal housing rights, and access to political office — although racial ideals tended to vary greatly amongst whites depending on geographical location, educational levels, age, and other factors. These surveys sustain the idea that most white Americans support integration and racial equality. However, there tends to be pointed differences in the ideas between support for equality and the actual implementation of governmental policies that maintain these ideas. Bobo explains that in 1964, 64 percent of whites nationwide endorsed and supported the idea of integrated schools; however, only 38 percent felt that it was the responsibility of the federal government to implement these changes. By 1986, 93 percent of whites endorsed the principle, but only 26 percent endorsed government efforts to enforce school integration. Comparable examples can be seen in surveys with regard to equal access to employment and housing. In 1972, support for the equal access to jobs stood at 97 percent. However, support for federal programs to prevent employment discrimination reached 39 percent. Similarly, in 1976, 88 percent of whites supported the ideas that blacks should have the right to live wherever they pleased; but only 35 percent said they would vote for laws requiring homeowners to sell without regards to race. Extreme housing and school segregation continues to exist in America today.