Beyond race, sex, and sexual orientation : legal equality without identity /
Beyond Race, Sex, & Sexual Orientation
Sonu Bedi, Dartmouth College.
- 1 online resource (x, 281 pages) : digital, PDF file(s).
Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 05 Oct 2015).
Suspect class and the dilemma of identity -- A powers review -- How constitutional law rationalizes racism -- Why racial profiling is based on animus -- The puzzle of intermediate scrutiny -- Same-sex marriage and the disestablishment of marriage.
The conventional interpretation of equality under the law singles out certain groups or classes for constitutional protection: women, racial minorities, and gays and lesbians. The United States Supreme Court calls these groups 'suspect classes'. Laws that discriminate against them are generally unconstitutional. While this is a familiar account of equal protection jurisprudence, this book argues that this approach suffers from hitherto unnoticed normative and political problems. The book elucidates a competing, extant interpretation of equal protection jurisprudence that avoids these problems. The interpretation is not concerned with suspect classes but rather with the kinds of reasons that are already inadmissible as a matter of constitutional law. This alternative approach treats the equal protection clause like any other limit on governmental power, thus allowing the Court to invalidate equality-infringing laws and policies by focusing on their justification rather than the identity group they discriminate against.
9781139087643 (ebook)
Equality before the law--United States. Discrimination--Law and legislation--United States.