Controversies in Equal Protection Cases in America: Race, Gender and Sexual Orientation(Controversies in American Constitutional Law)

This collection engages with current issues on equal protection in the USA, as seen from the perspectives of leading academics in this area. Contributors with a range of perspectives interrogate the legal, theoretical and factual assumptions which shape case law and consider the extent to which they satisfactorily address contemporary concerns with social hierarchies and norms. Divided into five parts, the study focusses on the connections between equal protection jurisprudence, discrimination in its contemporary manifestations, the implications of identity politics and the moral and political conceptualizations of equality that represent the parameters of debate. Drawing on historical analysis and disciplinary insights of the social sciences, the book bridges the gap between theory and practice. The themes presented and analyses developed are among some of the most contentious currently in America, and will be of interest not just to lawyers and legal academics, but also to inter-disciplinary social science researchers, including sociologists, economists and political scientists.

Table of Contents:
Chapter 1 Introduction, Anne Richardson Oakes; Part I Equality and the Dead End of Equal Protection; Chapter 2 Original Sins, Continuing Wrongs, Francisco Valdes; Chapter 3 Equal Protection’s Dead End, or the Slave’s Undying Claim, Sora Han; Part II The Formulae for Stasis; Chapter 4 Equal Protection as Intentional Blindness, Ian F. Haney López; Chapter 5 Judging Opportunity Lost, Mario L. Barnes, Angela Onwuachi-Willig, Erwin Chemerinsky; Chapter 6 The Troubled Adolescence of City of Boerne v. Flores, William D. Araiza; Part III Racial Justice in Education; Chapter 7 Racial Liberalism and School Desegregation Jurisprudence, Michael Paris; Chapter 8 Supreme Court Opinions on Equal Protection in Education and Their Use of Social Science Research, Janet W. Schofield, Pat K. Chew; Chapter 9 The State’s Compelling Interest in Substantive Equality, Jennifer S. Hendricks; Part IV The Possibilities of Equal Protection; Chapter 10 Ball of Con(stitutional)Fusion, John G. Culhane; Chapter 11 Unequal Protection for Sex and Gender Nonconformists, Julie A. Greenberg; Chapter 12 Bringing Equal Protection Out of the Tax Closet, Anthony C. Infanti; Part V Pushing the Boundaries; Chapter 13 Equal Protection and the Immigrant, Laura A. Hernández; Chapter 14 Applying an Equal Protection Methodology to Speech and Religion Cases, Patrick M. Garry; Chapter 15 Equal Protection and Environmental Justice, Haydn Davies; Part VI Afterword; Afterword, Martha Albertson Fineman;

About the Author :
Anne Richardson Oakes is Reader in American Legal Studies in the School of Law Birmingham City University. She holds a BA (Hons) degree in History and Politics and a PhD awarded for her research into the desegregation of the Boston public schools. She is qualified as a solicitor and has a professional legal background and extensive teaching experience in the fields of property law and public law. Her current teaching is U.S. Constitutional Law which she teaches on the LLB program. Her specialist areas of interest include the Equal Protection jurisprudence of US Supreme Court with particular reference to desegregation (special interest: the Boston public schools), the recent affirmative action cases and interdisciplinary perspectives. She also has an interest in judicial ethics. She is Editor-in-Chief of the British Journal of American Legal Studies and a member of the Society of Legal Scholars and the Law Society.

Review :

"Contributors to Oakes’s volume pursue an empirical and theoretical examination of equal protection in the United States, focusing on the connections between equal protection jurisprudence; discrimination in its contemporary manifestations; the implications of identity politics; and the moral and political conceptualizations of equality."
Law and Social Inquiry Journal