Equality (Fred Speaking)
						MAIN PATH: Dee
		Ann					Dee

I'm not sure what you are arguing. You seem to be saying that the Fourteenth Amendment guarantees a broad range of social equality. Vera has repeatedly referred to equality rights, but without saying much about what sort of equality is at issue. Talk about equality is empty unless we say what sort of equality is at issue.

The thing I like about Sunstein's argument is that he does seem to fill in the gap here. It looks as though he believes that the Fourteenth Amendment embodies an anticaste principle that targets inequality of income, education, health care, and so on.

But is there any reason to believe that this is a correct interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment? It was adopted in 1868 in order to guarantee the rights of recently freed slaves. Some of the states had passed laws that limited the rights of former slaves to make contracts, testify in court, travel, preach, assemble, and do other things normally though of as within the rights of citizens. The amendment guaranteed that the freedmen were citizens and that they were guaranteed the "equal protection of the laws."

I don't think that anyone in 1868 thought that this amendment was intended to guarantee the kind of social equality that you or Sunstein are talking about. It doesn't mention "caste" and it says nothing about income or education or health care or any other tangible benefits.

I think you are radically reinterpreting the amendment in order to get the social outcomes you desire. I don't blame you for wanting those outcomes. Some of them may be quite good. What I object to is the claim that the Constitution guarantees them for anyone.

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