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Full-Text Articles in Law and Gender
Tax Protest, A Homosexual, And Frivolity: A Deconstructionist Meditation, Anthony C. Infanti
Tax Protest, A Homosexual, And Frivolity: A Deconstructionist Meditation, Anthony C. Infanti
Articles
In this contribution to a symposium entitled Out of the Closet and Into the Light: The Legal Issues of Sexual Orientation, I recount and then ponder the story of Robert Mueller. Mueller, a gay man, spent more than a decade protesting the discriminatory treatment of gays and lesbians under the Internal Revenue Code. As a result of his tax protest, Mueller was jailed for more than a year, and then was twice pursued by the IRS for taxes and penalties. In pondering Mueller's story, I consider it both as a telling example of the forcible closeting of gay and lesbian …
When Equality Leaves Everyone Worse Off: The Problem Of Leveling Down In Equality Law, Deborah Brake
When Equality Leaves Everyone Worse Off: The Problem Of Leveling Down In Equality Law, Deborah Brake
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This Article addresses the problem of leveling down as a response to discrimination. Existing case law and legal scholarship generally assume that inequality may be remedied in one of two ways: improving the lot of the disfavored group to match that of the most favored group, or worsening the treatment of the favored group until they fare as badly as everyone else. The term "leveling down" refers to the latter response. This Article contends that courts and commentators have overstated the flexibility of equality rights in accepting leveling down as a response to inequality, and proposes a new framework that …