Prejudicial Appearances: The Logic of American Antidiscrimination Law PDF
Preview Prejudicial Appearances: The Logic of American Antidiscrimination Law
PrejudicialAppearances Prejudicial Appearances TheLogicofAmericanAntidiscriminationLaw RobertC.Post,withK.AnthonyAppiah, JudithButler,ThomasC.Grey,andRevaB.Siegel DukeUniversityPress DurhamandLondon2001 ©2001DukeUniversityPress Alloftheessaysinthisbookoriginallyappearedin volume88oftheCaliforniaLawReview(January2000), andare©CaliforniaLawReview,Inc. Allrightsreserved PrintedintheUnitedStatesofAmericaonacid-freepaper(cid:5) TypesetinAdobeMinionbyTsengInformationSystems,Inc. LibraryofCongressCataloging-in-PublicationData appearonthelastprintedpageofthisbook. Contents RobertC.Post PrejudicialAppearances: TheLogicofAmericanAntidiscriminationLaw 1 K.AnthonyAppiah StereotypesandtheShapingofIdentity 55 JudithButler ‘‘AppearancesAside’’ 73 ThomasC.Grey CoverBlindness 85 RevaB.Siegel DiscriminationintheEyesofthe Law:How‘‘ColorBlindness’’DiscourseDisrupts andRationalizesSocialStratification 99 RobertC.Post ResponsetoCommentators 153 Contributors 165 Index 167 PrejudicialAppearances RobertC.Post PrejudicialAppearances: TheLogicofAmericanAntidiscriminationLaw There is a logic to the structure of American antidiscrimination law. Thislogicisapparentintheofficialopinionsofjudgesandadministra- tiveagencies,intheexpertcommentaryofscholars,andinthevisions of the popular imagination.The influence of this logic extends from the drafting of the most modest cityordinances to the interpretation ofthefederalConstitutionitself.Itisalogicthatexpressestheessen- tialprinciplesofpost–WorldWarIIAmericanliberalism,whichstress boththeinherentdignityofeachindividualandtheneedforarational andefficienteconomy. Tochallengethislogicistoconfrontthepervasiveandunconscious powerofcommonsense.ButitisneverthelessachallengethatIshall pursueinthisessay.Ishallarguethattheswayofthislogichascaused courts seriously to misapprehend the actual operation of American antidiscriminationlaw.Ithasledjudgestocraftlegalrulesasthough antidiscriminationlawcouldliberateindividualsfromthethrallofso- cial ‘‘stereotypes,’’ when in fact that law can intervene instead only to reshape the nature and content of social stereotypes. It has led judgestoequateinstrumentallyrationalemploymentruleswithnon- discriminatory employment rules, when in fact rationally functional
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