Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
Articles 1 - 2 of 2
Full-Text Articles in Law
Equality And Difference - The Restrained State, Martha Albertson Fineman
Equality And Difference - The Restrained State, Martha Albertson Fineman
Faculty Articles
Contemporary American law, culture, and political theory restrain the concept of equality as a tool of social justice. Equality in conjunction with a strong emphasis on personal liberty operates as a mandate for curtailing state action, rather than an aspirational measure of the comparative wellbeing of individuals. As a check on state involvement, our cramped notion of equality limits the state's ability to affirmatively address economic, political, social, and structural inequalities.
As interpreted in modern Supreme Court jurisprudence, the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution actually works to restrict the remedial ability of the state. Equality is understood as …
Preventing Balkanization Or Facilitating Racial Domination: A Critique Of The New Equal Protection, Darren L. Hutchinson
Preventing Balkanization Or Facilitating Racial Domination: A Critique Of The New Equal Protection, Darren L. Hutchinson
Faculty Articles
The Supreme Court requires that equal protection plaintiffs prove defendants acted with discriminatory intent. The intent rule has insulated from judicial invalidation numerous policies that harmfully impact racial and ethnic minorities. Court doctrine also mandates that state actors generally remain colorblind. The colorblindness doctrine has led to the judicial invalidation of policies designed to ameliorate the conditions of racial inequality. Taken together, these two equality doctrines facilitate racial domination. The Court justifies this outcome on the ground that the Constitution does not protect "group rights. "
Constitutional law theorists have criticized these aspects of equal protection doctrine. Recently, however, some …