Reclaiming Equality

Steven L. Winter, Wayne State University Law School

Abstract

Equality is again on the agenda. The Occupy movement, the Arab Spring, and related protests in India, Europe, and Chile all manifest the power of the equality ideal. Academic treatments of equality, however, have been harshly critical. This article examines the meaning of equality and its constitutive relation to democracy. It contrasts Robert Post’s and Peter Westen’s arguments critical equality with Charles Sumner’s arguments in Roberts v. City of Boston (1849) and the original, Athenian understanding of democracy on which it is based. It then considers the social and power dynamics of gender before, during, and after the January 25th uprising in Tahrir Square in Egypt. The critical lesson it draws from Roberts and Tahrir is that democracy is not possible without the constitution of “persons” and of “fellow citizens” that arises from relations of recognition in the public sphere that only emerge under conditions of equality.