ABSTRACT
The equality right is typically expressed as a right to equal treatment and equal protection of law. The United States thus adopted a potentially radical open-text equality right under which any state classification can theoretically be challenged in federal courts. The equality provisions in other constitutional systems are also organized around identities, but have more specifically structured equality provisions than the open-ended approach found in the Fourteenth Amendment. A vulnerability approach imagines societal institutions as constructs of the state, brought into existence and maintained under the legitimating authority of law and the regulatory machinery of the state. The long list of prohibited forms of discrimination represented in federal, state, and local laws and the possibility of reverse discrimination actions means that virtually everyone can fashion a discrimination claim. The appropriate legal response in such instances is an improved and strengthened antidiscrimination system, perhaps complemented by affirmative action and social welfare processes to make up for past discrimination.
