| Beyond Race, Sex, and Sexual Orientation: Legal Equality Without Identity Contributor(s): Bedi, Sonu (Author) |
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ISBN: 1139087649 ISBN-13: 9781139087643 Publisher: Cambridge University Press OUR PRICE: $156.75 Product Type: Open Ebook - Other Formats Published: September 2013 |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - Law | Jurisprudence - Law | Constitutional |
| Dewey: 342.73 |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: 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. |
Contributor Bio(s): Bedi, Sonu: - Sonu Bedi is Associate Professor of Government at Dartmouth College. Bedi works in the intersection of law and political theory. His publications include Rejecting Rights (Cambridge, 2009), Political Contingency: Studying the Unexpected, the Accidental, and the Unforeseen (co-editor, 2007) and various articles on constitutional law and political philosophy. |