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Full-Text Articles in Jurisprudence
The Canon Of Rational Basis Review, Katie R. Eyer
The Canon Of Rational Basis Review, Katie R. Eyer
Notre Dame Law Review
The modern constitutional law canon fundamentally misdescribes rational basis review. Through a series of errors—of omission, simplification, and recharacterization—we have largely erased a robust history of the use of rational basis review by social movements to generate constitutional change. Instead, the story the canon tells is one of dismal prospects for challengers of government action—in which rational basis review is an empty, almost meaningless form of review.
This Article suggests that far from the weak and ineffectual mechanism that most contemporary accounts suggest, rational basis review has, in the modern era, served as one of the primary equal protection entry …