The official term for this pattern — a neutral-seeming rule causing very non-neutral outcomes — is “disparate impact.” In late July, the department announced it was rescinding the disparate impact provisions of its Title VI enforcement. The fact that the federal government itself used disparate impact gave the concept an added weight. She reiterated the Trump administration’s view that disparate impact had been weaponized to impose a “radical idea of ‘equity’” on schools. There are explicit state-level rules about disparate impact, as well.