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It is difficult to define the content of any politically important kind of equality. A phrase like "equality before the law" can have many plausible meanings. We are especially concerned that the law treat groups such as whites and blacks or men and women equally. But what does that mean? Here are some possibilities:
  1. The government treats everyone the same. This definition is either wrong or it begs the question. In one sense, no one wants the government to treat murderers the same way as innocent people. There may be another sense in which we do want government to treat everyone the same, but that sense is still unclear.

  2. The government enforces everyone's legal rights with equal care, but everyone does not necessarily have the same basic rights. This definition leaves open the possibility that two groups, A and B, may have very different basic rights. A southern segregationist might have agreed to this definition of legal equality. In fact, this concept of legal equality was noted in the famous Supreme Court decision Plessy v. Ferguson in 1896.

  3. The government applies the same rules to everyone. This definition would allow us to treat murderers and innocent people differently. But one of the rules might say "Men can vote and women cannot." By applying the same rule to everyone, we would still not have equal treatment of men and women as most people think of it.

  4. The government applies the same rules to everyone and the rules do not refer to groups A and B. This eliminates the problem in the last definition. For example, using this definition, rules would not refer to men or women or blacks or whites. But it would allow a rule such as "You can vote if your grandfather was free; but you cannot vote if your grandfather was a slave." This leads to the problem of "disparate impact" on various groups that are not explicitly referred to in the rule. Given the statistical correlation between various personal or group traits, a rule that does not refer to A or B might still have a disparate impact on A or B.

  5. The government applies the same rules to everyone, the rules do not refer to groups A and B (etc.), and the rules do not refer to variables that correlate closely with group membership in A or B. This helps to reduce the problem of disparate impact.

These are only some of the plausible definitions of the phrase "equality before the law." Many others might be devised. In real life, different definitions are chosen based on how they cohere with one's overall political philosophy.