evidence: The Biden administration’s American Jobs infrastructure plan includes $20 billion for a new program to address the racism inherent in highway projects in the past. Transportation veterans say this is necessary, despite criticism from conservative groups. "There is racism physically built into some of our highways," U.S. Dept. of Transportation (USDOT) Secretary Pete Buttigieg told theGrio’s April Ryan in an interview last week. Addressing social justice in infrastructure is one of the administration’s key goals, along with addressing climate change, safety and job creation. While some conservative critics scoff at the idea, veterans of transportation policy say the issue isn’t new. [...] Responding to skeptics who ask what a highway has to do with racism, Proll described the creation of the interstate highway system in the 1950s. It was set against the backdrop of civil rights litigation, specifically the US Supreme Court’s 1954 Brown v. Board of Ed decision, which declared school segregation unconstitutional. Highway routes, which federal officials set up with local and state input, were sometimes used to split Black and white communities, providing a physical barrier to integrated schools when legal barriers could no longer be used.