In Remedies this week we were discussing structured injunctions-injunctions used to address a systemic violation of constitutional rights, such as segregation in schools, or discriminatory hiring practices by the state.
The conversation got away from us a bit, and after class it continued down an alternate path. The upshot was discovery that at least some seem to espouse the 'bootstrap' mentality. The disadvantaged, such as minorities or women, need only to pull themselves up by their virtual bootstraps and make something of themselves. Those who follow this line of thinking are quick to offer examples (sometimes themselves) who have done so, as proof positive of the rightness of this way of thinking. I came away from the conversation disturbed and disappointed.
But all was not in vain, because after a brief email exchange with my son about something entirely different, I found myself looking at John Rawl's Justice as Fairness essay. All that I could not articulate properly, the ideas percolating in my brain, my own innate sense of the fair way to approach societal, economic and educational issues-all this finds a friend in Rawls.
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