Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book foregrounds in different ways the connections between equal protection jurisprudence, discrimination in its contemporary manifestations. It examines the implications of identity politics, and the moral and political conceptualizations of equality that represent the parameters of debate. The book begins with a critical history of equal protection and race under judicial review. It also brings together contributors with a range of perspectives to interrogate the legal, theoretical, and factual assumptions which shape case law in these areas and to consider the extent to which they satisfactorily address contemporary concerns social hierarchies and norms. The book reveals the extent to which the Court's equal protection judgments adequately respond to perceptions of structural disadvantage and unjustified discrimination is very much a contemporary concern.