Even the children of strangers

In this book Donald Jackson unravels the complex meanings of equal protection doctrine and its various interpretations over the last 134 years. He explores the conceptual basis for a variety of "pecking orders" (or discriminations) - most notably race and sex, but also wealth, occupation, and education - that have been used to justify special privilege, status, or rewards. He also examines the tensions between equal protection and American individualism, offering possible ways to resolve apparently intractable conflicts between individualism and affirmative action policies. Jackson argues that an assumption of human equality is always appropriate and that the burden of proof should be on those who want to justify treating people differently, for whatever reason. Our long-standing difficulty, he contends, has not been with the principle of equality but with the inferior reasons we have accepted for deviating from that principle. Deliberately cast for the general reader, this study should widen the public understanding of equality and raise the level of the debates that surround it.