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Free At Last! Anti-Subordination And The Thirteenth Amendment, Rebecca Zietlow

Rebecca E Zietlow

Notwithstanding the powerful symbolism that liberty has in the American psyche, liberty is largely absent from our late Twentieth Century understanding of civil rights, which instead is based in the Equal Protection Clause and its promise of formal equality. People of color and women of every race have made significant advances under the Equal Protection model of equality, but they continue to lag behind whites and men under virtually every economic index. This paper argues for an alternative model of equality, an anti-subordination model, which allows decision-makers to focus on the material conditions that contribute to inequality in our society, …