ABSTRACT
This chapter shows that every objective status represents some set of elements comprised of at least two subsets. A discrimination dispute concerns the treatment of one subset as compared with another. Arguments about objective status are arguments about the needs, merits, interests or abilities of members of a class as such, without any individualized attention to a particular member. In Belgian Linguistic, the State's assessment of the interests of French-speaking pupils is based not on any particular pupil's circumstances, but on the status or interests of francophone pupils in general. The sets and subsets relevant to the identification of an objective status can be characterized in countless ways. The claimant's factual position in Dothard —as in Dutch Pensioner, Moreno and Pittsburgh Coal—asserts that there is unequal treatment in fact despite objective equality. In Belgian Linguistic, the claimants assert both objective inequality and objective equality, depending on the formal expression of the corresponding treatment.
