My friend and colleague, and scholar extraordinaire,
Professor Zachary Kramer has just published a new book on civil rights,
Outsiders: Why Difference is the Future of Civil Rights. Knowing Professor Kramer's ability to relate a compelling narrative, I expect this book is a great read, and I can't wait to get my
hot little hands on it. Here is the description
from Oxford University Press.
Contemporary discrimination has changed in important ways from the forms
it took in the 1960s, the era in which our civil rights law system
originated. Previously, the primary targets of discrimination were
groups: African Americans, women, and Latinos, among others. The goal of
the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was to integrate marginalized groups into
civic life, shatter ceilings, and break down barriers. The law sought to
make us better people and America a more equal nation.
And it
has. Discrimination against groups still occurs, but affected groups can
marshal the rights regime to target and eliminate discriminatory
policies. The challenge today, however, is to protect the individual,
and our civil rights laws struggle with this. The people most likely to
face discrimination today are those who do not or cannot conform to the
whims of society. They are the freaks, geeks, weirdos, and oddballs
among us. They do and wear strange things, have strange opinions, and
need strange accommodations.
Outsiders is filled with
stories that demand attention, stories of people whose search for
identity has cast them to the margins. Their stories reveal that we have
entered a new phase of civil rights and need to refresh our vision.
Instead of dealing in protected traits, civil rights law should take its
cue from religious discrimination law and provide a right to
personality. Outsiders seeks to change the way we think about
identity, equality, and discrimination, positing that difference, not
sameness, is the feature of our age and arguing for a civil rights
movement for everyone.
Professor Kramer is associate dean of faculty, professor
of law, and Willard H. Pedrick Distinguished Research Scholar at the
Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law at Arizona State University.
