Stigma
(Malik Speaking)

 
 
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Let me give you just one example of how we might change our approach to things if we are concerned about stigma or the construction of inferiority.

Charles Lawrence III has suggested that courts might test laws passed by legislatures in order to determine whether they are based on racial attitudes. The court would determine whether a significant portion of the population thinks of the law in racial terms. If so, it would assume that conscious or unconscious racial attitudes were involved in passing the law. It would then apply a higher level of scrutiny to determine whether the law is constitutional.

Reference: See Lawrence's article "The Ego, the Id, and Equal Protection," 39 Stanford Law Review (1987).
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