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Review
"[The logic of American antidiscrimination law] has led judges to craft legal rules as though antidiscrimination law could liberate individuals from the thrall of social 'stereotypes,' when in fact that law can intervene instead only to reshape the nature and content of social stereotypes."
Robert C. Post, professor of law at the University of California at Berkeley, mounts a lucid and persuasive argument against the logic that guides U.S. lawmakers' decisions regarding antidiscrimination laws. He contends that, while antidiscrimination laws have sought to protect the transcendental dignity of individuals, they have instead perpetuated and sustained oppressive categories like race and gender. Post examines how the approach to antidiscrimination laws can be altered to better respond to the social and historical contexts of discrimination. These laws, constructed in the manner suggested by Post, would have a greater potential to effect real change in social practices. Post's incisive analysis is a powerful challenge to the accepted logic of antidiscrimination policies in the United States and forces us to look at the issue of discrimination with a fresh set of eyes. He also examines how antidiscrimination laws have stressed the need for a rational and efficient economy, sustained a deep insensitivity to entrenched social inequalities, and underwritten an unfortunate demonization of affirmative action. This volume also includes responses to Post's essay: K. Anthony Appiah addresses the philosophical logic of stereotyping and equality; Judith Butler questions whether the law should endorse social practices that define a person and addresses the tension between postmodern and sociological approaches to antidiscrimination law. There are also essays from Thomas Grey on Post's proposal in relation to the rule of law, and Reva Siegel on whether antidiscrimination law's reshaping of race and gender should be best understood in terms of practices of subordination and stratification. Henry Louis Gates Jr. writes, "Robert Post has established himself as among the most original thinkers in American constitutional law. Restoring social context to legal formalism, he makes an astute, humane, and compelling case for the central role of the law in shaping the meanings of race and gender." For other recent titles in related subjects: |
