Controversies In Equal Protection Cases In America: Jurisprudence & Philosophy of 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.

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.