Date of Award
Fall 2023
Document Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Department
Law
First Advisor
Ackerman, Bruce
Abstract
This dissertation is a series of three articles exploring (and critiquing) the ways in which the law sustains and legitimates social exclusion, despite a purported commitment to equal opportunity and non-discrimination. The first article, Socioeconomic Status Discrimination, begins by describing how discrimination based on socioeconomic status (SES) is prevalent and widely accepted under the law. I argue that lawmakers should prohibit SES-based discrimination for the same reasons they prohibit discrimination based on race, gender, and other protected traits. I argue that discrimination based on SES is illegitimate, and importantly, because SES-based discrimination is inextricably intertwined with racial discrimination, by accepting SES-based discrimination, lawmakers tacitly tolerate race discrimination. I show that the justifications for prohibiting discrimination based on race, sex, religion, disability, etc., also apply to prohibiting discrimination based on SES. I elaborate on how laws prohibiting SES-based discrimination could be practically administered. I respond to philosophical and pragmatic objections. The second article, Carceral Socialization as Voter Suppression, argues that courts and lawmakers should understand “carceral socialization”—experiences with the carceral system that shape peoples’ civic identities—as a form of political suppression. This piece draws from social science research on how encounters with the carceral system undermine peoples’ sense of full citizenship, and lead people to withdraw from civic participation. Encounters with the carceral system have this suppressive effect even if they do not result in a felony conviction that triggers legal disenfranchisement. Considering this, I argue that all routine encounters with the carceral system are inherently anti-democratic. They threaten the constitutional values underlying voting rights law regardless of whether they trigger legal disenfranchisement. Thus, courts and lawmakers should be skeptical of carceral interventions for the same reasons they should be skeptical of restrictions on voting. The third article, The Violence of Ostracism, argues that social ostracism (exclusion, rejection, or neglect) is a form of violence that the state has a duty to protect people from. In making this argument, I draw from a large body of social science literature establishing that belonging is a fundamental need, like food or water. In recent decades, hundreds of studies have shown that ostracism inflicts severe pain and suffering. It threatens basic needs, triggers the same neurocognitive processing system as physical pain, and impairs functioning. The state has a well-recognized duty to protect people from physical violence because it hampers a person’s security, wellbeing, functioning, freedom, and opportunity. The same goes for ostracism. While the law is purportedly committed to the values of equal opportunity and non-discrimination, policies governing core areas of social participation—housing, education, employment, and the carceral system—all allow and employ ostracism as a means of social control, regulation, or to enforce status-based distinctions. This ostracism tends to create self-reinforcing cycles of deviant labeling and exclusion. If we understand that ostracism is violence, and that exclusion from basic social institutions (decent housing, education, and employment) is ostracism, it follows that protecting people from violence requires making these institutions inclusive and welcoming to all. I explore the policy reforms that would follow from this understanding.
Recommended Citation
Evans, Danieli, "Belonging, Equality, and the Law" (2023). Yale Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Dissertations. 1192.
https://elischolar.library.yale.edu/gsas_dissertations/1192
