equal rights for everyone essay

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Essay on Human Rights: Samples in 500 and 1500

Updated on
Jun 20, 2024

Essay writing is an integral part of the school curriculum and various academic and competitive exams like IELTS , TOEFL , SAT , UPSC , etc. It is designed to test your command of the English language and how well you can gather your thoughts and present them in a structure with a flow. To master your ability to write an essay, you must read as much as possible and practise on any given topic. This blog brings you a detailed guide on how to write an essay on Human Rights , with useful essay samples on Human rights.

This Blog Includes:

The basic human rights, 200 words essay on human rights, 500 words essay on human rights, 500+ words essay on human rights in india, 1500 words essay on human rights, importance of human rights, essay on human rights pdf, what are human rights.

Human rights mark everyone as free and equal, irrespective of age, gender, caste, creed, religion and nationality. The United Nations adopted human rights in light of the atrocities people faced during the Second World War. On the 10th of December 1948, the UN General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). Its adoption led to the recognition of human rights as the foundation for freedom, justice and peace for every individual. Although it’s not legally binding, most nations have incorporated these human rights into their constitutions and domestic legal frameworks. Human rights safeguard us from discrimination and guarantee that our most basic needs are protected.

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Why do equal rights matter?

People are not equal, but they are of equal value. They have equal rights and are equal before the law. These human rights are an important principle of any democratic society.

Human rights are also called fundamental rights. These are rights stipulate, for instance, that everyone has freedom of expression. That everyone may freely profess their religion or belief. That everyone has the right to privacy, the right to keep personal information private.

Why do these rights matter? Imagine that these rights did not apply to everyone. That in your country, a certain group of people would not be allowed to express themselves freely or to practise their religion freely. That a group of people, not suspected of any crime, would still be monitored by the government.

All this would make for a very unpleasant society. One in which one or more groups of people would repeatedly be slighted and discriminated against. An unliveable society. Would you want to live there?

Human rights are worth defending. And everyone can make a contribution!

Is unequal treatment always discrimination?

Where do we draw the line between freedom of expression and discrimination, is antisemitism a form of racism.

247 Equality Topics & Essay Examples

Looking for exciting equality topics to write about? The issue is hot, controversial, and definitely worth studying!

🔝 Top 10 Gender Equality Essay Topics

🏆 Best Essay Examples

🥇 Most Interesting Equality Topics to Write about

🎓 simple & easy equality essay titles.

📝 Interesting Titles
💡 Controversial Topics

❓ Equality Essay Questions

In your equality essay, you might want to focus on racial, social, or gender inequality in historical perspective or nowadays. Whether you will choose to write an argumentative or persuasive essay, this article will help you. We’ve gathered top race and gender equality title ideas and added excellent equality essay examples to inspire you even more.

Gender equality as a fundamental human right
History of women’s empowerment
Preventing violence against women and girls
Gender bias in medical sphere
Reproductive rights of women
Child marriage in developing countries
Gender equality in economy: is it possible?
Gender stereotypes in the workplace
Women representation in political institution
Gender quotas in parliaments: do they work?

🏆 Best Equality Essay Examples & Topic

Employment Relations: Effects of Unitarism on Inequality In view of this, management teams are evaluating employee loyalty on the basis of the extent to which they have internalized the firm’s corporate vision even if it is at the expense of their personal […]
Does Democracy Require Equality of Income or Wealth? While wealth equality as the presence of equivalent opportunities to exert political power appears to be the essential factor in establishing democracy, income equality as the opportunity to build wealth is also a factor.
Relation Between Justice and Inequality The structure of institutions needs to be changed in that everyone can relate hence creating a rift in the judgment delivered between the rich and the poor is unproductive.
Freedom and equality According to Liliuokalani of Hawaii, the conquest contravened the basic rights and freedoms of the natives and their constitution by undermining the power of their local leaders.
Gender and Sports: Men and Women Equality Sport is considered to be one of the most appealing but at the same time the most controversial institutions in the world.
Equality, Diversity and Inclusive Education The major goal of inclusive learning is to value the diversity of the human community and also ensure that there is equity in the provision of education to all groups of people, such that not […]
Sociological perspectives of Gender Inequality The events taking place in the modern world and the occurrence of the feminist movements during the past few decades can be used to offer a deeper understanding on the subject of gender inequality and […]
Gender Inequality in Workplace Gender is the main reason for inequalities in the workplace; this is because nowadays there is a steady increase in the number of women in workplaces in the world.
Nonhuman Animals in Moral Equality Theories The subject-of-a-life is the basis of human rights; however, according to Regan, animals have this property as well and as such deserve animal rights.
Marriage Equality: Same-Sex Marriage This is because it forms the basis of organization in any given society.”Marriage refers to an institution in which interpersonal relationships, usually intimate and sexual, are acknowledged in a variety of ways, depending on the […]
Inequality in Society: Conflict and Functionalism Theories Functionalism theory views inequality as unavoidable and important to the society while conflict theory considers inequality to result from conflict and coercion in the social system.
SDGs – Equality Education and Gender Equality The quality of education for girls can affect their employment and their ability to support themselves financially. With a good education, women have a larger range of jobs to choose from and the opportunity to […]
The Progress of Gender Equality The key achievements have been the removal of all forms of discrimination against women, the promotion of legal literacy, education, and the general protection of the rights of women.
Gender Equality in Higher Education: The Underrepresentation of Women in Educational Leadership A prime example of gender inequality is the underrepresentation of women in educational leadership, and this problem is going to be considered here in detail.
Deaf Culture and Sign Language: Social Equality in Society Most importantly, the ASL Level 1 course has facilitated an accurate understanding and respect of the Deaf culture as a means of enhancing social equality in diverse societies. Most importantly, ASL Level 1 has been […]
Missouri Compromise: Economic Equality Among American States These impacts include enhancing economic equality, political balance, unity of the northern and southern states of America, and controlling the spread of slavery in the country. Finally, the Missouri Compromise controlled the spread and prevalence […]
Absolute Gender Equality in a Marriage Despite the fact that the principles of gender equality in marriage will clearly affect not only the relationships between a husband and a wife but also the roles of the spouses considerably, it is bound […]
Title IX: Gender Equality in Education Education provides opportunities for developing the abilities of girls and boys, women and men to participate in the social, economic, and political life of the state and is the basis for the development of a […]
Gender-Sensitive Education and Equality This is because they are in the best position to determine the level of success that has been achieved, and what could be impeding the achievement of this equality.
Social Equality and Economic Growth Social equality provides individuals with equal opportunities to contribute to the growth of the economy. Equality also ensures that the potential of the society is fully exploited to enhance the development of the entire community.
Equality of Opportunity in Society Policies developed by the political class to pursue equality of opportunity distract society from addressing the issues that contribute to the inequalities, depriving people of good life regardless of their social class.
Gender Issues of Equality and Representation in the K-12 Education System This paper examines the gender issues of equality and representation in the K-12 education system and gives out the major findings based on the observed trends from the structured study of literature in the area.
J. S. Murray’s “On the Equality of the Sexes” It is possible to say that Murray’s ideas presented in On the Equality of the Sexes are ahead of her time.
Hobbes and Locke on the Issue of Equality The concept of equality is significant in the discussion of liberty, property, and the role of government in the lives of people.
Equity and Equality of Resources by R. Dworkin As a matter of fact, resolution for this problem should be measures adopted to promote and empower individuals in the society, who are the main beneficiaries of equality in resource sharing.
Fairness and Equality in the Modern Business World The reduction in the gender wage gap between men and women in the workplace indicates the progress that society has made in making the world a fairer and equal place.
Enhancing Equality in the Society Since equality is at the heart of human rights, the government should contribute to its growth by lawfully establishing the same rights for every person regardless of their SES, age, race, and other features.
Creating a Culture of Gender Equality in the Workplace This proposal will consider the existing gender inequality within the field of architecture and propose several changes an architecture firm should undertake to create a culture of gender equality.
Multinational Corporations Managing Diversity & Equality The supposed acceptances of diversity as a good contradict the well-established structural barrier to implementing greater openness to differences in the workplaces.
Gender Equality: Plan to Address the Issue The vice president of administration and finance should use a powerful plan to address the issues affecting the institution. To begin with, I will use a powerful plan to address the issues affecting different female […]
Were the Goals of Hampton/Tuskegee Consistent with the Democratic Ideals of self-Determination and Equality? Thus, considering the situation which took place in late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, it is possible to state that proclaiming democratic ideas in the education, the main goals of Hampton/Tuskegee idea were directed at […]
Chimamanda Adichie: The Issue of Equality and Tolerance After centuries of discrimination and alienation between the communities of different cultural and ethnic backgrounds, after hundreds of years of wars based on religion and nationality, modern society has slowly started coming to senses and […]
Gender Equality and Development Despite the progress of the last century on ensuring the equal rights for both genders, there are still issues that have to be addressed by the global society.
Inequality and Development The irritating consumerism of the rich and the shortage of basic needs in low income societies lead to the multiplication of conflicts between the rich and poor.
Equality of Transgender and LGBTQ+ Populations The principles of the struggle for the transgender and LGBTQ+ populations should include respect for the choice and self-identification of a person.
Aspects of Equality for Transgender Athletes The authors of the article claim that transgender athletes deserve equal representation and the right to participate in competitions in the divisions of the gender they identify themselves by referring to social structures and justice.
The Discussion of Concepts of Gender Equality In the article, the author presents such concepts as violence, harm, empowerment, freedom, and universal care from the point of view of capitalism, liberalism, and feminism to reach the point of gender equality.
How to Have Both Private Property and Equality in a State It is possible to have both private property and equality in a state by developing measurable notions through a qualitative analysis of freedom and equality in their relatable aspect.
Gender Equality in Children’s Perception Despite the variety of achievements made on the subject in different parts of the world, the general tendency leads society toward accepting the idea of equality between men and women.
Fairness and Equality in the Modern Labor World The establishment of an equal position between people is one of the most critical forces that will help the organic and stable development of society and the surrounding world.
Workplace Equality for Minorities Steps must be taken to ensure that labor is appropriately paid and that the current model, in which work performed predominantly by minorities is undervalued, is not perpetuated.
The Telus Company’s Equality and Diversity Practices In order to be a prominent representative in the framework of equality and inclusion, the corporation admits the importance of ensuring that its staff, at all levels, demonstrates the variety of customers and communities.
Racial Equality in the Brown v Board of Education Case The Brown v Board of Education of Topeka was one of the events that resulted in a step towards demolishing inequality, being preceded by an unfair ruling.
Income Equality and Social Policy Advocacy Lag The lag in income equality can be seen from statistical data: the income inequality ratio in the US is nine to one, which is worse than in Portugal, the UK, France, Canada, Germany, and some […]
The Philosophy of Equality and Inclusiveness: Key Principles For example, inclusiveness reinforces the understanding of a person with disabilities that one is entitled to the same services as the rest.
The Meaning of Equity: The Struggle for Equality However, there is a significant difference between equality and equity, and in my opinion, the latter approach is much fairer and provides more benefits. Therefore, for me, equity is the idea that both society and […]
Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s Address on Equality and Rights The same rights enable both a man and a woman to be part of enhancing the growth and development of a nation. The women would acquire their rights by using their penmanship, words, wealth, influence, […]
Equality of Victims in the Legal System One of the most problematic issues concerning the inefficiencies of the legal system is the relatively low investigation rate of specific murder cases.
Activists’ Role in African Americans’ Struggle for Equality The civil rights movement became one of the most notable phenomena in the history of the United States because it forever changed the political, legal, and social landscape of the country.
“The Struggle for Black Equality: 1954-1992” by Harvard Sitkoff The author discusses the belittling of black people and the preservation of white supremacy, describes how black citizens’ inability to vote escalated into them being assaulted and murdered, and explains how law facilitated racial barriers.
Women’s Equality Regarding Their Overall Wellness According to Poczatkova and Kribikova, the underrepresentation of women, particularly in the fields of science and research, is reproduced in the outcomes of the findings of studies and the subsequent applicability.
Gender Equality as Target of Social Work As far as health care is concerned, the primary issue of gender inequality addresses the issue of access to the services and the quality of care provided.
Cultural Diversity and Social Equality The power of equality is to allow one to express their cultural identity without the fear of being marginalized in society.
Nursing Regulations as to Patient Equality I did not know that he was the father of the senior director at the hospital, and the older man was waiting for him. The incident was the subject of discussion in the workplace, and […]
Martin Luther King Jr. as an Equality Activist At one time, Martin doubted which profession to give preference to medicine or law, everything was decided in favor of the ministry of the church, which influenced the education and literacy of the future leader.
Naomi Osaka’s Case of Gender Equality in Sports The recent case of retirement by Naomi Osaka is a prime example of how gender roles and racism in sports can affect even the best athletes making sports an important discussion in the context of […]
The Fighter for Equality: Nelson Mandela In 1941, he moved to Johannesburg, and, along with his work as a lawyer, he entered the University of the Witwatersrand at the Faculty of Law. He organized the Campaign of Disobedience to the Authorities, […]
Promoting Equality in the UK Primary School Education System What is the nature of the relationship between inequalities in the UK primary school education system and its administrative structures? The context of this research is the primary school education system in the UK.
Is Political and Racial Equality Possible in American Society? The study of this issue is important to modern American politics as it directly reflects the problems and opportunities of racial and ethnic minorities. It is also important to strive for justice and equality in […]
Populism Discourse and Social Equality Regarding the definition, in this paper, populism will be viewed as “an appeal to “the people” against both the established structure of power and the dominant ideas and values of the society”.
Impairment Pain Management and Disability Equality The purpose of the policy is to examine approaches to pain management to ensure disability equality. The first method is a formalized approach to pain management, assessment, and frequent reassessment/ monitoring of the patient’s state.
Gender Equality: Definition, Challenges Over the decades, society viewed the female gender as an inferior sect in the community hence the emergent issues of imbalance in the system.
Abolition vs. Equality in the American Civil War The Resolution was signed by Abraham Lincoln, the 16th President of the United States who believed the annihilation of slavery and preserving the Union to be the core targets of the war.
Workplace Relations and Equality Policymaking It is agreeable that many employees have expressed their concerns due to the increasing cases of inequality, discrimination, and abuse in the workplace. The problem of inequality and discrimination at the workplace continues to affect […]
Women in Islam: Some Rights, No Equality Notwithstanding the principles of equality of men and women in Islamic tradition, women’s low status should be attributed not to the ideals set in the Quran but to the cultural norms of the patriarchal society.
Female Criminality and Gender Equality The present paper considers this theory by exploring the differences in treatment of females in the United States and Nigeria and assessing their impact on female criminality in the two countries.
Diversity and Equality at Business Management Level The analysis was carried out in 2010 and revealed that 40% of all company directors in the UK were foreign. When compared to 2005, this represents a 14% increase in the number of overseas directors […]
Disability Equality of a Disabled Lone Parent Although the officials were initially reluctant owing to her physical condition and the nature of work she was to perform, they allowed her to try.
Media and ICT Industries Gender Equality Initiatives Therefore, the inability to use media and social networks to build a business is a serious obstacle to the development of women’s entrepreneurship in less developed countries.
Syrian Conflict and Women Rights: Way to Equality or Another Discrimination The main reason for a low percentage of women in the workforce is Syrian social norms, which stereotypically reflect the role of women in homes serving their husbands and in the private sector.
Financing Public Education: The Concept of Equality It is also critical to reach impartiality for everyone around the country to have equal opportunities to build their future with the help of education.
Empowering Gender Equality in the United Arab Emirates Workforce The objective of the paper is to track changes in gender equality policies, especially concerning the equal representation of all women in the country’s workforce.
Gender Equality in Finland and the U.S. Legal Situation: discuss the laws regarding general gender equality and the representation of women in positions of political power. Political Situation: analyze the current political landscape in the United States as well as Finland and […]
Negative Impact of Oil on Wealth Equality and Economy of United Arab Emirates Oil has created wealth inequality in UAE and a shift in world energy focus to green energy will negatively impact the economy of UAE.
The Women’s Movement and Gender Equality: ERA Opponents of the ERA argue that it is redundant due to the already existing Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
Gender Problems, Equality and Perspectives: “Glass Ceiling” Trend The word “ceiling” depicts a kind of barrier for the progress of women and the word “glass” is used as an adjective for ceiling because as glass in invisible, the barrier is also invisible. The […]
Private Clubs and Gender Equality In the clubs, members of the society get opportunity to pursue their goals and interests collectively and for the benefit of all.
Affirmative Action Advances Racial Equality by Glenn and Williams The opponents of affirmative action, on the other hand, argue that affirmative action penalizes innocent people simply because they are white, and in most cases, the result is that it leads to people who are […]
Black Women and the Struggle for Equality The rates in which the black females are incarcerated by males vary based on the level of education that the women have, and also the level of civilization that the Africa women are in.
Is FGM a Human Rights Issue in the Development of Humanism and Equality? Among the problems faced by developed states that receive migrants from third-world countries, the protection of women’s and girls’ rights in the field of reproductive health stands out.
Equality in the UN Operations: Chinese Perspective During the Cold, War China felt that the instrument of peacekeeping operations was exploited as a tool by the superpowers to further their interests and not the interests of the nations involved.
Order, Freedom, Equality, & Justice In order to include all the necessary points into the new constitution it is advisable that the already existing constitutions of the developed countries are consulted and the works of the reputable scholars in the […]
Welfare and Equality: Richard Titmuss’ Theories According to Titmuss, the realities of 20th century’s living in Western countries were defined by the fact that, unlike what it used to be the case, during course of earlier centuries, the amount of socially […]
Social Factors in the US History: Respect for Human Rights, Racial Equality, and Religious Freedom The very first years of the existence of the country were marked by the initiatives of people to provide as much freedom in all aspects of social life as possible.
Equality or Priority in the Ideal of Equality Before attempt to answer this question, it is necessary to discuss the definition of the doctrine of egalitarianism, prioritarianism and the purpose of this doctrine.
In Pursuit of Educational Equality Images of spaciousness and majesty, of endless plains and soaring mountains, fill our folklore and our music and the anthems that our children sing.”This land is your land,” they are told; and, in one of […]
Freedom, Equality & Solidarity by Lucy Parsons In the lecture and article ‘The Principles of Anarchism’ she outlines her vision of Anarchy as the answer to the labor question and how powerful governments and companies worked for hand in hand to stifle […]
Equality of Opportunity and Social Justice: Affirmative Action If this is the situation in advanced nations of the world, the plight in the newly emerging states in Africa, Asia, and Latin America can easily be imagined as to how difficult would it be […]
Women in Developing Countries: Globalization, Liberalization, and Gender Equality Owing to issues of gender, the voices of women in developing countries are never heard when it comes to the creation of trade agreements and policies or in their negotiations.
Gender Equality Question: “Hamlet” by William Shakespeare For the past few centuries, the rise of various movements have marked a certain change in the ideas and philosophies of man regarding the true nature of his existence, the pronounced inequalities of not only […]
Equality: The Use of TV to Develop Our Gender Roles In this sense, when it is the men who predominantly work outside of the home, they will usually see the home as a place of leisure and so use the TV as a source of […]
Feminism and Support of Gender Equality Nowadays, it involves advocacy and a set of activities aimed to protect the rights of a plethora of discriminated groups, including LGBT community members and racial minorities.
Gender Equality in Sweden and America The parental leave is extended to fathers, and the government strives to maintain a fair gender proportion in the top positions in public agencies.
Criminology. Female Incarceration and Equality The power dynamics between the two genders and the observable differences in male and female behavior shape their crime patterns, avenues into the justice system, and responses to incarceration.
Equality: Benefits of Showing Real Differences The purpose of this paper is to apply the concept of equality to explain why people should strive to reveal and show that there are real human differences instead of surmising that they exist.
The Enlightenment: Giving Start to Equality The ideas inherent to the philosophy of the Enlightenment changed the course of history and gave rise to the French Revolution and the start of the Constitution of the United States, human rights, and the […]
Appiah’s Ideas of Racism, Equality, and Justice The existence of visible differences in people’s appearances created the basis for the distribution of populations into groups depending on the color of their skin and some other features.
Empathy, Equality and Justice as Reflective Values Related to the principle of empathy is the notion of equality, which is extremely important as an addition to the ability to empathize.
Social and Gender Equality Ideals and Theories According to Friedrich, there is no need of elevating the selfish desires of the human race in the pretext of democracy or hot pursuit for gender equality. However, the equality of outcome tends to be […]
Gender Equality Issues in the Workplace Environment Hence, the gathering of information to validate the allegations is central to the resolution of the gender issue in the case study.
Chapters 1-2 of “Liberty, Equality, Power” by Murrin et al. The voyage resulted in Pope’s decree of the division of all non-Christian lands between Portugal and Spain, dying out of the local population of Carribean and Bahama Islands and replacing it with black slaves from […]
Chapter 3 of “Liberty, Equality, Power” by Murrin et al. In the subsequent part of the chapter, the author illustrates the events of Indians’ settlement. The author claims that mercantilism ideals became the prevention of ethnic diversity support.
Gender Equality in the Laing O’Rourke Company The construction industry in the UK has been in a steady decline for from 2011 to 2016, with its fall culminating in autumn, when Carillion, one of the largest construction company in the region, disintegrated.
Women’s Empowerment and Gender Equality Concepts According to Georgellis and Sankae, the Theory of Gender Role emerged out of the consistent work of different psychologists who were interested in explaining the differences between men and women from a socio-economic angle.
Male Nurses and Gender Equality in the Workplace The research will go further to examine how the concept of gender equality in the nursing working environment can address the problem of the nursing shortage.
Equality and Diversity in the United Arab Emirates The principles of equality and diversity are promoted in many modern organizations, and it is important to evaluate specific competing drivers that contribute to incorporating diversity into the strategy of the UAE-based company and discuss […]
Democracy and Oligarchy: the Meaning of Equality Aristotle’s meaning of equality is a form of government that is democratically rooted and not aligned to the issue of state and class.
Equality and Diversity in Business Ethics The leader will identify the skills and dexterities of the workers and design the best teams that can deliver the targeted goals.
Equality Struggle of American Minority Groups The Chinese, Hmong, and the Japanese came to the US to provide labor in places such as gold mines and rail construction among others while the rest of the Asian-Americans came as slaves.
Gender Equality and Its Development Another important indication of the progress is the creation of UN Women, which addressed the known shortcomings of the global women’s rights movements, such as barriers to funding and lack of centralized effort aimed at […]
Equality, Diversity and Human Rights in Healthcare Equity can be achieved in a health system that acknowledges the diversity of the population respecting the expectations and needs of the patients, the staff and the services as a whole.
The Question of Gender Equality: Scott vs. Terrall The paper also answers the question of gender equality, in terms of the standing of women in scientific society, and explains why the arguments of both authors are valid and provide a useful insight into […]
Educational Equality for All Students In spite of the gravity of multiculturalism in the American society, the teachers and students tend to misinterpret the concept of the intercultural environment by often regarding representatives of various ethnicities as “monocultural”.
UAE Employee Equality in Sick Leave Provision The actual laws and regulations concerning the provision of sick leaves to the employees in the UAE will be compared to the evidential data of the realities in the modern workplaces.
Gender and Racial Equality at the Workplace In this light, this paper seeks to identify the prevailing obstacles to the full attainment of racial and gender equality in the workplace setting.
LULAC: Efforts to Promote Racial Equality However, even after the official acceptance of Hispanic people as citizens with the full access to the civil rights and liberties, LULAC is still essential for the promotion of racial equality.
Equality and Diversity in Business Environment The employees will also present adequate competencies in order to improve the level of performance. Employees should use different approaches and ideas in order to promote the concept of diversity.
What Is the Point of Equality Theory? The antagonism that seems to crop up from the two interpretations gives rise to the concept of egalitarianism that seeks to diminish the differences that arise from the understanding of liberty and equality.
American Democracy and Equality Criticism However, the absence of even the smallest traces of ‘equality’ in America can be confirmed not only within the context of what accounts for the living standards, on the part of the country’s rich and […]
Developing a Culture of Gender Equality by Awadhi The author is one of the modern and educated women in the UAE, which provides evidence of her ability to develop an article describing the state of women in the country.

📝 Interesting Gender Equality Title Ideas

Rationalizing Equality in the USA The effects of power abuse still in the minds of the federalists and the antifederalists, both groups had a hard time to come into terms with the intended ratification and implementation of the United States […]
Abu Dhabi Health Services Co: Equality & Diversity This will be a sign that the firm appreciates the diversity that exists at the firm and that it is keen on protecting the interests of all its employees.
Media Influence on Gender and Equality In the recent past, the media have been condemned for compromising on the intention of realizing gender equality. With respect to the above case, the theory supports any decision or act that will result in […]
Toleration in T. Nagel’s “Equality and Partiality” He argues that the state has the right to enforce only those rules that are based on the values accepted by all of the citizens. Nagel shows that the government should show respect to all […]
US Education: Goals, Methods, and Equality Issues Despite the fact that nowadays, in the 21st century, honoring diversity has become an almost a common tradition, recognizing the need for diversity in education is still a controversial issue in the sphere of education.
Gender Equality: Women Leadership in Financial Sector The primary purpose of the study is to assess the effectiveness of various GE tools in the context of the financial sector in the US.
Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment by Gemechu Ogato The article “The Quest for Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment in the least Developed Countries” presents a macro work. The ideas presented in this article will guide more societies and governments to identify better policies […]
Men and Women Equality in the African Diaspora Although the historic and social events and changes in the USA typical for the period of the 1960s-1980s contribute to the stating the ideals of civil rights and gender and racial equality, black women in […]
Equality and Globalization: Changing Gender Expectations The 21st century has experienced globalization, which is the increase in the integration of nations. Globalization has changed the gender expectations that were traditionally held by members of society.
Gender Equality and Globalization’ Issues Since the world policies adopt a new progressive direction, the idea of gender equality enters the category of the ultimate Millennium development goals.
US Progress in Freedom, Equality and Power Since Civil War When it comes to the pursuit of freedom and ideals of democracy, progress since the Civil War can be seen in the establishment of a sufficiently capable Federal government, efficient judiciary and presidency systems with […]
Equality in the American System of Education According to Andrew Carnegie, the problem of our age is the proper administration of wealth in such a manner that would lead people to attach to each other as a family and live in harmony.
Social Equity and Equality Concept Comparison In his view, American society has never been equal; hence application of equality in the distribution of important resources is impossible, meaning public administrators must undertake the role of studying the society to comprehend the […]
Equality’ and Diversity Sociological Issues This plan ensures equity and equality in terms of access to healthcare for the American citizenry. Indeed, Daley and Feit confirm that healthcare professionals have the duty to offer services of equal quality to people, […]
The Struggle for Gender Equality Before going any further it is crucial to emphasize the pitfalls when it comes to asserting the rights of women when it comes to the need for similar treatment in comparison to men.
Gender Equality and Title IX The function of Title IX is to guarantee gender equality in college sports and it has supported the development of female sports.
Mary Wollstonecraft’s Achievements in Struggles for Gender Equality First wave feminists advocated for women to be granted the right to vote in the U.S. Their persistent pressure made the U.S.government to ratify the Nineteenth Amendment of 1920, which granted women the right to […]
The Equality Act 2010 and Individual Employment Rights Since this study focuses on the case of Ladele and McFarlane with reference to the principle of conscientious, religious objection to same-sex relationships, we shall only look at elements of the Act that deal with […]
Gender Equality: Male Dominance The simple reason is that gender inequality exists in affluent societies wherein women are free to do what they want, have access to education, and have the capacity to create wealth.
Inequality of Development of Saudi Arabia Given the significance of oil in the country’s economic growth, the government channels most of its funds towards the development of the oil industry.
Inequity Issue in the Workplace In this case the success or failure of an organization to reach the stated objectives lay in the hands of the people who are concerned and more importantly in the leader who spells the vision […]
How Can the Objective of Equality at Work be Promoted through Recruitment and Selection? To investigate the relationship that such equality has with Human Resource Management practices To given insights on the mechanisms through which the objective of equality at work could be promoted through recruitment and selection For […]
“Savage Inequality” a Book by Jonathan Kozol Kozol argues that, in spite of a century of lawful and governmental action, America upholds uneven and divided education system whereby the deprived that form the marginal children, debatably who warrant the most resources, obtain […]
“8 Is Not Hate: The Meaning of a Proposition” and “Prop 8 Hurt My Family—Ask Me How; Marriage Equality USA” The modern day and age offers rights and freedoms that people have not experienced some time before and the majority of official rulings have acknowledged that people have a right to marry whomever they want, […]
Equality to All? Karl Marx’s “The Communist Manifesto” In many western nations, the classical movement was driven by the quest to transform the economy and the political philosophy. The intention was to meet the needs and aspirations of the colonial powers.
American Socioeconomic Equality The researchers also state that such tax policy contributes to the increase of the wealth gap even though the productivity is on the rise.
Is It Possible for Managers to Reduce Inequality in Business Organizations? Organizational culture: it is the HRM to blame One of the greatest problems of the HRM personnel is the inability to embrace the needs and wants of every single member of the staff.
Gender inequality in Algeria The fact that women helped to build back the ruins of society and the heroism they showed in the war efforts, was forgotten by their husbands and the government.
Tunisia’s Gender Equality These people feel that the government should advance democracy in this country, and Muslims should be taught the importance of following the law of the country, for the good of all people.
How harness all the potentiality among the people to ensure there is equality According to Jackson, some of the benefits derived from promoting diversity are that the organization is able to harness various potentials.
The Impact of Higher Education Expansion on Income Inequality in China Trends in the access to higher education since the expansion of education reforms in 1989 signal a rise in inequality. Wu observes that during the expansion of education in China, the Gini Coefficient rose to […]
Color Blindness and Equality We should always endeavor to judge people by the content of their character, as opposed to the color of their skin.
Public Policy and Social Inequality From the studies that have been conducted, it has been identified that the inequality changes that have been experienced in the different states of the world are not monotonic; other factors play a critical role […]
Inequality in U.S Healthcare: The Americare Insurance System The other insurance is the Medicaid that covers the poor and the unemployed people. This means that the better option of insurance is a universal insurance plan that caters for everyone.
Building Workplace Equality Moreover, the Indian sales personnel will have the idea of the mentality of Indians and will have the tactics to convince them.
Affirmative Action: Achieving Race Equality in School Admissions Therefore, this paper is bent on showing the effectiveness of affirmative action towards achieving equality on the basis of race in school admissions to enhance educational diversity, and in the hiring process to promote racial […]
Ensure equality of representation The title of the article renders a reader to prepare for a critical examination of the subject being reviewed by the authors.
Income Inequality in Marxism, Structuralism, Neoliberalism, and Dependency Theory The peculiar features of every country’s development should be discussed from the point of the character of the economic relations within the country and from the point of the country’s position within the global economic […]
Religious Equality in America If the government were to ensure that there is religious equality, then the uniqueness of each religion will be lost. The task of this essay is to establish whether it is possible or not to […]
What Is ‘Liberal Representative Democracy’ and Does the Model Provide an Appropriate Combination of Freedom and Equality? Freedom and equality are guaranteed under this form of democracy because they are enshrined in the constitution which is always the supreme law of a given country.

💡 Controversial Gender Equality Essay Topics

Full Frontal Feminism – What is Still Preventing Women from Achieving Equality?
Greater equality: the hidden key to better health and higher scores
Media Patterns and Social Inequality
Discrimination and Fight for Equality
There Will Never Be Equality in the World; There Will Always Be Very Rich and Very Poor People
Equality of Opportunity and Condition Concepts
Gender inequality in Canada
Social Capital and Health Inequality
Managing Diversity and Equality
Dimensions to Political Thinking: Human Equality, Power, and Order
The Influence on Health of Economic Inequality
Scholars Comment on Gender Equality
The Problem of Social and Economic Inequality in Modern Society
Obtaining Objective Truth in Regards to Martin Luther King’s Role in the Fight for Equality in the United States
Capitalism and World Inequality
Education in Australia as a Tool of Promoting Equality of Opportunity
Inequality of Women in China
Coretta Scott King: Fighting and Advocating for Equality
The Problem of the Racial Inequality in US
Racial Inequality in America in 1998
Citizens’ Equality in the United States
The Race Equality Concept
Anti-same-sex Marriage Laws and Amendments Violate the Constitutional Guarantees of Equality for all Citizens of the United States
Free Exercise Clause: Freedom and Equality
American Africans Action in the Struggle for Equality
Chaucer and Sophocles Views on Gender Equality
Liberty, Equality and Power
The Fight for Equality in Martin Luther King’s Life and Writings
African American Women and the Struggle for Racial Equality
Gender Equality in the United States, China and Egypt
Equality of Men and Women
Are Women Important in Gulf Politics? What are the Main Barriers to Gender Equality?
Social, Cultural and Gender Inequality From a Global Perspective
Are Economic Liberalization and Equality Compatible?
Are Robots the Solution to Equality in the Job Interview Process?
Can Certified Tea Value Chains Deliver Gender Equality in Tanzania?
Can Guaranteed Tax Base Formulas Achieve Spending Equality?
Can Liberty and Equality Be Reconciled in Political Theory?
Can Recruitment and Selection Methods Be Chosen To Promote Equality at Work?
Does Equal Opportunity Bring Men and Women Closer to Wealth Equality?
Does the Media Hinder the Cause for Gender Equality?
Does School Tracking Affect Equality of Opportunity?
How Elvis Presley Brought Racial Equality?
How Gender Equality Has Been Bridged in Sports in American Colleges?
How Does Inclusive Practice Promotes Equality and Supports Diversity?
How Mirror and Window Books Can Teach Children Equality?
Why Is Gender Equality Ruining Everyone’s Happiness?
Why the Americans Understand the Equality of the Sexes?
Why Does Tocqueville Believes That Equality Leads to a Love of Centralized Authority?
Why Cultural Ideology Constraints Fairness and Equality?
What Has Limited the Impact of UK Disability Equality Law on Social Justice?
Why Didn’t the Reconstruction Bring Justice and Equality to Freed Blacks?
Why Embracing Gender Distinctions Can Create Equality?
Why Freedom and Equality Is an Artificial Creation?
Why Have Some Feminists Criticised the Idea of Gender Equality?
Why Organizations Are Struggling for Achieve Equality and Manage Diversity?
How To Transform Quatic Agricultural Systems Towards Gender Equality?
What Are the Two Political Ideals of Freedom and Equality Claimed by Long and Roosevelt?
Cultural Psychology Ideas
Human Behavior Research Topics
Equity Research Ideas
Freedom Topics
Integrity Questions
Social Democracy Essay Titles
Mindfulness Research Ideas
Virtue Ethics Questions
Chicago (A-D)
Chicago (N-B)

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Essay: Equal and Inalienable Rights

When most of us think of “rights,” we imagine things we are free to do, like speak our minds, or practice a religion, or sell something that we have made. We assume, when we imagine these actions, that there is nobody stopping us from doing them. When we study history, however, we realize that many people in the past lacked—and a great many around the world today still lack—the freedom to exercise many of the rights we take for granted.

The American Founders, however, argued that people have rights regardless of whether they are able to put them into practice. This is why they called these rights “natural.” They are part of what it means to be a person. They could be denied and violated, but only under carefully limited circumstances could they rightfully be taken away. Governments were legitimate to the extent that they protected rights. Those that arbitrarily took them away possessed no moral authority.

When the Founders wrote in the Declaration of Independence that “all men are created equal,” they were not ignoring the obvious differences that make people individuals—differences in appearance, personality, aptitude, skills, and character. All men are equal in the sense that, since we are all human, we are born with certain inherent, natural, and unalienable rights. Those rights include “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” This essential equality means that no one is born with a natural right to rule over others without their consent, and that governments are obligated to apply the law equally to everyone.

Of course, in order to protect the rights of peaceful people, it could sometimes be necessary to infringe the rights of aggressors. The Founders understood that criminals who are a threat to the safety and property of others, for example, need to be prevented from exercising the right to move about where they please.

George Washington is known as the “Father of His Country.” He served as the commander of the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War, he was president of the Constitutional Convention, and he was the first President of the United States.

When the Constitution’s Framers wrote, in the Fifth Amendment, that “no person shall be…deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law,” they were acknowledging that sometimes a person can be deprived of these rights, even though they are part of what it means to be a person.

In other words, a right is one thing, but the freedom to exercise it is something else. The Founders were well-read in history, so they understood that most people in the world could not easily exercise their rights to practice a religion, or keep the money they earn. They were proud of their heritage as Englishmen. In keeping with the theme of such British documents as the Magna Carta (1215), John Locke’s Second Treatise on Civil Government (1690), and the English Bill of Rights (1689), they approached the task of guaranteeing liberty by limiting government.

While the rights listed in the Declaration of Independence—life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness—were inalienable, the Founders understood that individuals are often stopped from exercising them. Indeed, this was the very purpose of the Declaration of Independence: to explain that King George III’s violations of the colonists’ inalienable rights justified the American Revolution. The Founders knew full well that while we are born with rights, we need some protection in order to have the freedom to exercise those rights. This principle helps explain the difference between “natural rights” and “legal rights.” While natural rights are innately part of being human, and exist prior to any culture or society, legal rights are those that are acknowledged and protected by a given government. So, in the Founders’ understanding, natural rights would include the right to life itself, the right to think for oneself, the right to self-defense, and the right to keep what one has worked honestly for, among others. Legal rights would include the right to vote, the specific methods by which fair trials are conducted, and copyrights and patents–all of which might be defined and protected in different ways in different countries or states, based on their particular customs and beliefs.

The Founders also recognized, from reading history as well as from their own experience, that governments are often the greatest enemy of individual rights. At the same time they knew that without a government to restrain them, people tend to form gangs or rely on their families and tribes to protect them. These groups war against one another, and make the exercise of individual rights just as unlikely as under a tyrannical king. Of course, representative governments—although most likely to protect individual rights—could also be the means through which the rights of individuals are trampled. In the 1830s, Alexis de Tocqueville helped to popularize the term “tyranny of the majority,” but John Adams had helped introduce it in 1788. It could not have been lost on the Founders when they asserted that the British intended to enslave them, that their own laws enslaved hundreds of thousands of African Americans. The way to secure inalienable rights, the Founders believed, was to consent to giving up a small amount of our freedom so that government has the authority and finances to protect our rights.

“Washington Crossing the Delaware,” painting by Emanuel Gottlieb Leutze

In other words, even though we are born with rights, they might be rendered useless without an effective means to protect them. Sometimes self-defense was not enough. This is why, the Founders thought, we needed a government.

But it must be a government faithful to sound principles. In order to achieve this, the Founders believed we needed leaders who were wise enough to avoid mindless wars and destructive economic restrictions, and strong enough to enforce law and order. While many rulers in history believed they deserved authority because they had been born to powerful families, the Founders believed that leaders should rise to the top by demonstrating their abilities and goodness. In other words, they didn’t think that just anyone is worthy to lead others. They held to the idea, as Thomas Jefferson explained in a letter to John Adams, of a “natural aristocracy,” in which people earned authority to lead in government based on “virtue and talents”(Thomas Jefferson to John Adams, October 28, 1813).

The Founders thought that a free society could only flourish if its leaders are virtuous—which means that its citizens must be able to recognize virtue when they see it. They understood that even virtuous leaders, however, can succumb to the temptation to abuse the rights of others, so they knew these leaders needed to be restrained from exercising their cleverness and strength in ways that undermine individual rights.

This is why they designed a federal government that would have limited power, and whose branches would check one another.

Ultimately, however, the Founders understood that freedom would depend on citizens remembering that government derives its authority from people who consent to give it that authority, and that it therefore must work to serve the common good, treating every citizen equally. Freedom depends on citizens who care enough about preserving it to really evaluate the people who run for office, and to elect those who demonstrate wisdom, restraint, and personal virtue. Most of all, freedom depends on citizens having the wisdom, courage, and sense of justice necessary to take action when they see government overstepping its bounds.

Equal and Inalienable Rights

All humans are born with equal inherent rights, but many governments do not protect people's freedom to exercise those rights. The way to secure inalienable rights, the Founders believed, was to consent to giving up a small amount of our freedom so that government has the authority to protect our rights. Freedom depends on citizens having the wisdom, courage, and sense of justice necessary to take action in choosing virtuous leaders, and in holding those leaders to their commitments.

An Introduction to Equality of Opportunity

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Freedom and equality are foundational values that we draw upon when envisioning a better society. Equality of opportunity is a social ideal that combines concern with freedom and equality, and this social ideal provides a vision of how we ought to live together.

At first glance, the value of equality can seem to demand uniformity that seems dystopian. For instance, if everyone were forced to wear the same clothes, pursue the same hobbies and have the same number of children, we would think this was intolerable. However, we should be careful not to reject equality entirely on this basis. Equality is still attractive if we limit its scope to some areas. For instance, equality before the law and equal rights to vote seem to be at the heart of our convictions about how we should live together. Inequality in these areas seems as intolerable as sameness in dress, family size or in our choice of recreational activities.

Freedom or opportunity may explain where and when equality seems most important. Our equal rights to a fair trial, to vote in elections, to association, speech and religion are each an equal right to a sphere of freedom. Part of what we value in this mixture is the protection from interference and having others dictate our lives to us and the other part of what we value is that we enjoy this protection on equal terms. In the sphere of religious worship, for example, individuals decide what religion they will worship. Unequal freedom, where some have freedom of religion and others do not, strikes us as wrong because it is unequal. Whereas Equal Unfreedom, where we are all slaves or lack basic rights, strikes us as wrong because it is unfree. A combination of freedom and equality, then, promises to describe a fitting social ideal for people who disagree about important, religious, moral and political questions, and yet want to live together in mutual respect.

Equality of Opportunity is one such combination and it has been a rich source of academic and political debate, a political slogan, and a widely held conviction about how human beings should live together. At its most basic, Equality of Opportunity requires that all human beings are equal in the sphere of opportunity. Equality of opportunity is usually opposed to slavery, hierarchy and caste society, where social positions, life prospects and individual freedoms are determined by membership of some group that you are born into, such as the aristocracy. Our acknowledgement of the importance of freedom and equality motivate the theory and practice of Equality of Opportunity. But before we go any further we should ask, “What is Equality of Opportunity?”

What is Equality of Opportunity?

When we ask what equality of opportunity is we could be asking two questions. First, we could be asking about the concept of equality of opportunity. If so, we are asking for the idea in its most general form. We are asking what kind of features must a statement have to count as a statement of equality of opportunity rather than a statement of something else. Second, we could be asking for the correct conception of equality of opportunity. The term 'conception' refers to a specific interpretation of a notion or idea. It is a particular way of understanding the kind of equality and the kinds of opportunities that are most valuable or more important. While there is only one concept of equality of opportunity, there are many different conceptions.

The concept of Equality of Opportunity has been examined by philosopher Peter Westen. Westen shows that an opportunity is a three-way relationship between a person, some obstacles, and a desired goal. However, a person only has an opportunity if she has a chance of achieving that goal. One cannot have an opportunity if one faces insurmountable obstacles that make it impossible to secure the goal. For instance, one cannot have an opportunity to become the president of the United States if one is not a natural born citizen. Many people, therefore, have no opportunity to become president of the United States. A person can have an opportunity even in the face of many, quite serious, obstacles. So, a natural born US citizen has the opportunity to become president, but she faces serious obstacles, such as accruing the relevant number and distribution of votes, as well as winning primaries. So, to have an opportunity means to face no insurmountable obstacles with respect to some important or desired goal, but what about having an equal opportunity?

In order for opportunities to be equal within a group, each member of that group must face the same relevant obstacles, none insurmountable, with respect to achieving the same desirable goal. In our example, all natural born citizens of the US have an equal opportunity when irrelevant goals, such as race, gender and religious affiliation are removed and when relevant obstacles, such as being democratically elected, remain.

Some critics have doubted the importance of mentioning equality when thinking about opportunities within a group. They argue that the only equality here is universalism, meaning that the opportunity is had by all. We can see why one might be drawn to the idea that equality plays little role in this ideal since we could say that everyone should have an opportunity to become president and this seems to do the job as well as saying that everyone should have an equal opportunity to become president. Equality appears to be doing no work, and this may lead us to question whether this expresses the value of equality.

However, this analysis misses something of significance, which is the fact that all people should have the same opportunity, and not merely an opportunity. While everyone could have an opportunity, and each face different irrelevant and relevant obstacles, equality of opportunity requires that no one face any irrelevant obstacles. If women were prohibited from becoming president, or if they had to win a greater proportion of the votes to be elected than men, then they would face an irrelevant obstacle that men do not. Thus, men and women would not enjoy equal opportunity with respect to the good of political representation in this society. This aspect of equality of opportunity is important for a social ideal because it expresses part of the moral value of equality.

At this point we do well to contrast equality of opportunity with equality of outcome. Equality of opportunity requires only that people be free from certain obstacles to pursue their own happiness and success. As such, Equality of Opportunity is not opposed to different outcomes of the conscientious, but fair pursuit of jobs, health, wealth, education and other goods that people value, so long as everyone faces the same obstacles. Sometimes this idea is known as the level-playing field because its main concern is that no one is unfairly advantaged before they even start out. It is in stark opposition to games that are rigged in favor of some over others. By contrast, Equality of Outcome insists that everyone do equally well with respect to some of the goods that individuals value, regardless of their effort, talents, and whether they wish to pursue it. This sort of equality can seem undesirable, but it can also be understood as one that is impossible to achieve because people are unequal in so many of the respects that affect outcomes, such as natural talent, health, their attitudes to hard work and in their interests and preferences. This can lead us to favor equal opportunities and to allow the inequality of outcomes. However, we should note that equal outcomes may still be very important indicators of inequality of opportunity, and that equal outcomes may be appropriate for children and others who lack responsible agency.

The bare concept of Equality of Opportunity as a relation between agents, obstacles and goals, leaves a lot to be filled out. There are many different ways in which we could all face the same obstacles with respect to the same goals. By varying the different goals and obstacles we vary the conception of Equality of Opportunity and different views will offer different guidance, and some will be more attractive than others. Different goals can make a difference in the following way. Opportunity for undesirable or irrelevant goals, such as opportunities to be mugged or to count grass, will not be included. Some goals may be trivial and it may not matter whether people have different opportunities with respect to those goals. For instance, opportunities to tie your shoe laces or grow a tree in your garden are less important than opportunities to find meaningful work or get a good education. We will have to think hard about exactly which ones do matter and which do not. In addition, we must think carefully about the kinds of obstacles that are morally relevant and the ones that are morally irrelevant with respect to the goal. For instance, we might think that race, religion and sexuality should not affect one’s opportunities to go to college, but that hard-work and ability to learn should. As such, ability to learn would be an obstacle that is relevant to the distribution of opportunity to go to college, but sexuality, religion and race would not. Which obstacles are morally relevant will depend on a more substantive account of what matters morally in each case. Different accounts of what are relevant and what goals matter are offered by rival conceptions of equality of opportunity.

Conceptions of Equality of Opportunity can be more or less demanding. The obstacles may be more or less difficult to overcome or the goals may be more or less difficult to achieve. For instance, if we think that obstacles such as social class, in addition to race, gender, sexuality and religious belief, are irrelevant to the goal that is desired, then we will have to try much harder to minimize differences in social class or minimize the effect social class has on the distribution of these goods. We could also specify the nature of the obstacle in different ways, such as formal or legal racial discrimination rather than explicit or implicit bias. The view can also be more or less demanding in terms of the goals we specify. So, for instance, we might think that everyone should have an equal opportunity to reach a basic standard of living or that everyone should have an equal opportunity to reach a high or equal standard of living. These views would support different policies and may require much more of our institutions, and greater individual effort, than others. They may also reflect the values of individual freedom and equal respect better or worse.

We will now briefly focus on two influential conceptions of Equality of Opportunity and show how they differ in their demandingness. We then go on to explain the special relationship that conceptions of Equality of Opportunity have with education and schooling.

Different Views of Equality of Opportunity

Formal Equality of Opportunity is arguably the least demanding conception of Equality of Opportunity. It focuses on the formal rules that stand in the way of achieving particular goals, such as employment and admission to schools. Different types of formal equality of opportunity can focus on many or few goals. What unites these views is a focus on formal discriminatory rules as an irrelevant obstacle to some role. Policies that are related to this conception include requirements that advertisements for jobs do not specify racial, religious or gender characteristics. They must be perfectly general such that anyone can apply without violating the formal rule. This vision of a free and equal society can be satisfied merely by ensuring that formal rules are properly general. So long as there are no formal rules that stand in the way of some individuals’ achievement of some goal those individuals have equal opportunity. The view is therefore compatible with private discrimination, implicit bias, and unequal distributions of resources.

On the other hand, Equality of Opportunity for Welfare is perhaps the most demanding conception of Equality of Opportunity. It focuses on welfare, or how well a person’s life actually goes, and not minimal welfare but equal welfare. Individual choice is the only relevant obstacle. So, the only thing that should stand in the way of an individual’s achievement of equal welfare should be their own voluntary choices. In other words, a person should be no worse off than others through no fault or choice of their own. If a person chooses to take risks or gambles, any resulting inequality would not be problematic, but if a person is a victim of bad luck, such as a natural disaster or disability, then any resulting inequality would need to be remedied for equality of opportunity to be fully realized.

This view is highly demanding and would require a radical redistribution of wealth to both those who are less naturally talented and to those who are otherwise disadvantaged through no fault of their own, for example, through upbringing, through natural bad luck as well as social class, racism, sexism and religious discrimination. Addressing these inequalities may require investing in schooling, sports facilities and social networks as well as healthcare and assistance for the disabled and heavily regulated jobs markets.

It should be noted that the more demanding the view the greater the encroachment on some putatively valuable forms of individual freedom. For instance, in order to ensure that wealth, social background and natural luck do not act as an obstacle for the poor it may be necessary to tax the earnings of the well-off. Some will claim that this violates the entitlements of the rich to their resources, and is therefore too high a price to pay. This may lead those people to accept a less demanding conception of Equality of Opportunity. Others will claim that taxing the wealthy is an acceptable price to pay to ensure that poor people have substantively equal opportunities to secure good jobs, adequate healthcare and education and to have means to support their families and live a decent life.

There are other conceptions of Equality of Opportunity that are only moderately demanding. The two extreme views above, however, help us to see and make sense of dominant ideologies on the left and the right, and therefore historical public political disagreements. We can characterize much of contemporary political argument as being about what the best conception of Equality of Opportunity is, which partly explains why it is such an important idea to understand.

Defenders of small government and individual responsibility on the right may be drawn to something resembling the conception of Formal Equality of Opportunity because going further requires interference with individual entitlements and a bigger state. They may go further than Formal Equality of Opportunity and instead favor the Meritocratic Conception of Equality of Opportunity, which requires redistribution to ensure that hard work and talent, and not discrimination and favoritism, determine hiring practices. Those who believe in meritocracy may consider some taxation to be a price worth paying for fairer hiring practices.

Defenders of more substantive equal chances, who care about equalizing school quality and school funding, as well as providing for health care, will be drawn to more demanding ideals that more closely approximate Equality of Opportunity for Welfare. They may be put off by the demandingness of the conception of Equality of Opportunity for Welfare, and instead favor the conception of Fair Equality of Opportunity, which condemns inequalities in social background as obstacles to achieving valuable goals in life. Such a view will require redistribution to ensure that hard-working and talented individuals from the working class have the same chance of success as similarly hard-working and talented individuals from the middle and upper-classes. This kind of view may advocate increased per pupil funding for the working-class. Evaluating the appropriateness of these ideals will be determined both by how well they express our commitment to freedom and equality, and whether they lead to sacrifice of other values that we view as more or less important than that commitment.

These different conceptions of Equality of Opportunity offer us very different guidance and assessment of our societies. The contemporary USA undoubtedly satisfies some conceptions more than others. In this way, we can see that which view is the best conception of Equality of Opportunity will determine how much work we have to do to make progress and in which direction we need to go, whether that is breaking down formal barriers, eradicating nepotism and informal discrimination, or something more demanding like mitigating wealth inequality and the inequalities that follow from social class distinctions and natural disadvantages.

Applying the Ideas to Education

The focus of this project is on the application of conceptions of Equality of Opportunity to education. Though the types of policies and reforms that will be favored depend on the conception of Equality of Opportunity that is most defensible, we can say that educational institutions will have a central role to play in better realizing equality of opportunity. This is because education is valuable for a wide range of goals that we think are important, such as employment, health, wealth, welfare and citizenship. Moreover, almost all contemporary societies compel school attendance for all young children and so education can be offered to all and across many of the irrelevant obstacles, such as race, sexuality, religious affiliation, social class and natural talent. Of course, it may be that the highest gains could be had by focusing on pre-K education, or that non-educational levers would be most effective if politically feasible, but, to some extent, we have to think about what is best given the current institutional arrangements. As such, educational institutions are one lever that we can use to try to redress imbalances and inequalities and to help members of disadvantaged groups overcome those obstacles. Education, and schooling in particular, may be a much more politically feasible lever than pure redistribution or cash transfers and other more controversial public policies such as minimum wage legislation, affirmative action and further intervention in markets. Focusing on reform of educational policy, therefore, may be the best thing to focus on today. Nevertheless, reforming society through education can be an extremely difficult undertaking and background inequality and poverty can restrict even its efficacy. We should bear in mind, however, that some conceptions of equality of opportunity may be particularly inappropriate when applied to children. For instance, Equality of Opportunity for Welfare focuses on individual choices, because it emphasizes responsibility, but we don’t usually hold children responsible for the choices they make because their capacities are so under-developed. Also, Meritocratic Equality of Opportunity may seem to be ill-suited to educational institutions because educational institutions are supposed to cultivate merit. In applying conceptions of Equality of Opportunity to education, we must show an awareness of these and other concerns.

To illustrate more clearly some of the benefits and concerns of using education as a lever for achieving equality of opportunity, I want to explore one particular conception of equality of opportunity. Let’s assume that we accept the conception of Fair Equality of Opportunity as determining an important part of how we should live together and hold that social class should not affect who gets jobs, but that the most meritorious candidate should get the job. Failure to address this issue would be a failure to take into account that social class should not affect job prospects.

There are broadly two types of strategy we could adopt, each of which has its own pitfalls and each of which uses educational institutions. The first strategy is to focus resources on trying to correct inequalities by providing extra schooling to those who are disadvantaged by social class. This aims to address the inequality of opportunity that is caused by institutions other than educational ones. The second strategy is to focus on attempting to correct inequalities in the social background, which may include inequality in educational opportunity and access to good schools, as well as unemployment and poverty in general.

We know that family background can greatly affect the development of capabilities and skills, and ambitions to go to college and get high-status jobs. Knowing this, and being committed to fair equality of opportunity, we could attempt to redress the issues around unequal childhoods by offering extra schooling to children who come from disadvantaged backgrounds. This could either be achieved by targeting additional resources, tutoring, and extra classes at those who are poorer within the school, or it could be achieved by providing greater resources to those schools that educate a greater proportion of poorer children.

However, operating at this level treats the symptoms rather than the cause and, in the society that allows private schooling and tolerates huge wealth inequalities, additional investment in the education of poorer children can become an arms race that the government cannot win. Put simply, the better-off could always invest more and more into the education of their children and will do so because they want their children to secure places at the elite colleges and in the top professions. If rich parents invest more and more in their children’s education, the government must attempt to keep up if it is going to succeed in equalizing opportunity. As the government spends more and more to narrow the gap, education budgets, and taxation must increase, but it is very difficult to sustain ever-increasing budgets and taxation consistent with winning democratic elections. This threatens the political feasibility of such measures, though significant improvements may be made in the process.

An alternative strategy, which treats the causes of social class as an obstacle to equality of opportunity, is available. Looking to education we may wish to ensure that all schools are equally well-resourced. As we saw above, one way of doing this is to devote increasing resources to poorer schools. An alternative is to limit the resources that can be spent on private education, or to abolish elite private schooling all together, as it threatens equality of opportunity. However, such measures will likely be insufficient, even if feasible and effective. This is because parent-child interactions as innocent as reading bedtime stories can enhance child development unequally. Interfering in the family is both politically difficult to justify and may be morally suspect as it compromises the values that the family embodies and promotes.

A radical alternative is available, but it requires the eradication of social class and anything other than minimal wealth inequalities. In such a society, no one would be so much better off than others that they have more free time, resources, better housing and health care so that their children develop to a greater extent or more quickly than others. This would be to address the causes of inequality of opportunity, but it would likely be highly unpopular with the electorate and some will argue that an economy where workers are paid roughly equally for different work, will be painfully inefficient. Whether this is true cannot be proved here, but each of these strategies may be rejected on the grounds of being ineffective, infeasible or of compromising more important values, such as the value of the family or economic efficiency. Nevertheless, the first strategy appears to be the most promising and our commitment to equality of opportunity of some sort suggests that where we fall short of respecting freedom and equality in our society today, the educational institutions will be our first and most promising levers.

In addition, we need to think about the goal that we are trying to achieve within education, not only the goal that we care about for Equality of Opportunity in general, i.e. the conception that we think is correct. Disagreement about this concerns whether we should be concerned with equality of educational outcomes, equality of opportunities, or merely adequacy, and is partly motivated by the problems with meritocracy and responsibility noted above.

Different standards of education might be appropriate for different types of equality of opportunity goals. For instance, with respect to jobs, we might be very concerned that equally hard-working and naturally talented students achieve equal outcomes on standardized tests, since being the most qualified candidate usually gets you the job. However, being a good citizen perhaps is independent of how well informed you are relative to others, so long as you are well-informed about various candidates and about how to spot a bad argument. Moreover, with respect to young children, we might think that outcomes, not opportunities are best in some areas, such as basic reading skills. What we want, with respect to literacy, is not that children have equal opportunities to read, but that they actually learn to read, even if this comes at great cost. We should note that achieving equal outcomes will be differently costly for different individuals due to ranges of ability and the quickness with which children pick up certain skills. At the most extreme end of this spectrum are severe cognitive disabilities, which may render it very difficult or impossible to achieve equal outcomes. As such, a desirable view of equality of opportunity may have to answer special sorts of questions around the appropriate education for those who have severe disabilities. Whatever the correct answers, we can only make progress on these questions by thinking seriously about the issues many of which are presented here in a way that is widely accessible.

Our focus is on the application of conceptions of Equality of Opportunity to education, but there are many other goods that people value and should have equal opportunity to pursue. For instance, most people value healthcare as it is important no matter what their ambitions and life plans are. Access to good doctors and basic medical treatment could be evaluated in terms of equality of opportunity. So, if some people face greater obstacles than others in getting to see a good doctor. If basic healthcare is expensive, then poorer people will face greater obstacles than the rich. If few doctors are willing to work in rural areas, then those in rural areas will face greater obstacles than those in urban areas. These unequal obstacles may be condemnable, depending on the conception of Equality of Opportunity that is most desirable. Moreover, rather than focusing on particular goods, such as education and health, we may prefer to focus on happiness itself, since it seems to be the fundamental value that people care about. Such a focus would enable us to condemn obstacles that stand in the way of health or education only insofar as those goods affect the happiness of those individuals. This makes an important difference if people wish to pursue health or education to different extents. One person’s happiness may hinge on her access to education far more than another’s persons. We can say the same about health.

The intention of this brief introduction to equality of opportunity and education was to introduce beginners to the ideal of equality of opportunity, its place within contemporary political debates and its history. At this stage we might ask: why should anyone care about equality of opportunity? This takes us back to the start of the introduction. If you believe that all of us are equal in some important ways and if you think that freedom to pursue one’s plans without interference from others is important, then equality of opportunity is very important indeed.

Arguing about equality of opportunity is really an argument about how best to understand the kind of society we should be striving for, one where free and equal persons live together. Although other ideals may also be worth striving for, equality of opportunity offers important guidance and a standpoint for criticism of contemporary societies, their politicians and our own personal conduct. It enables us to judge some change as progress or backsliding. Educational institutions, in particular, are well situated to make those changes and failure to utilize them for this end can be judged to have been a further opportunity missed.

What can be found on this website is a summary of different academic debates about equality of opportunity and education and an annotated bibliography of some of the key books and articles on the topic. I start with a beginners reading list below, and go on to explain the crux of some key debates. The debates are divided into the following sections. The first section addresses the concept of equality of opportunity and equality of outcome. The second section considers different conceptions of equality of opportunity and debates about their relative merits. The third section covers debates about education and educational policy, including: school choice and the family, higher education, and whether adequacy or equality should be the principle for distributing educational resources and the aim of schooling.

Arneson, Richard. “Equality Of Opportunity”. Edited by Edward N Zalta. Stanford Encyclopedia Of Philosophy. Stanford Encyclopedia Of Philosophy, 2002. http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2008/entries/equal-opportunity/ . Google Scholar

Brighouse, Harry, and Kenneth Howe. Educational Equality. Continuum, 2010. Google Scholar

Gutmann, Amy. Democratic Education. Princeton University Press, 1998. Google Scholar

Jencks, Christopher. “Whom Must We Treat Equally For Educational Opportunity To Be Equal?”. Ethics, Ethics, 1988, 518-533. Google Scholar

Kittay, Eva Feder. “At The Margins Of Moral Personhood”. Ethics, Ethics, 116, no. 1 (2005): 100-131. Google Scholar

Kymlicka, Will. In Contemporary Political Philosophy: An Introduction. Contemporary Political Philosophy: An Introduction. Oxford University Press, 2002. Google Scholar

McKinnon, Catriona. Issues In Political Theory. Oxford University Press, 2012. Google Scholar

Parfit, Derek. “Equality And Priority”. Ratio, Ratio, 10, no. 3 (1997): 202-221. Google Scholar

Swift, Adam. Political Philosophy: A Beginners' Guide For Students And Politicians. Polity, 2013. Google Scholar

Williams, Bernard. “The Idea Of Equality”. In Philosophy, Politics, And Society, 110-131. Philosophy, Politics, And Society. London: Basil Blackwell, 1962. Google Scholar

Section 1: Equality of Opportunity and Alternatives »

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The Equal Rights Amendment Explained

Thirty-eight states have finally ratified the ERA, but whether its protections for women’s rights are actually added to the Constitution remains an open question.

Equal Rights Amendment

On January 15, Virginia became the latest state to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), a proposed amendment to the Constitution that guarantees equal rights for women. The measure emerged as a top legislative priority after Democrats took control of both houses of the Virginia General Assembly for the first time in two decades, leading to the election of the first female speaker of the state’s House of Delegates. It received bipartisan support in both chambers. This historic vote follows recent ratifications by Nevada in 2017 and Illinois in 2018 after four decades of inactivity.

The Constitution provides that amendments take effect when three-quarters of the states ratify them, putting the current threshold at 38 states. Virginia was the 38th state to ratify the ERA since Congress proposed it in 1972, technically pushing the ERA across that threshold. And yet, there are still hurdles in the ERA’s path. The ratification deadlines that Congress set after it approved the amendment have lapsed, and five states have acted to rescind their prior approval. These raise important questions, and now it is up to Congress, the courts, and the American people to resolve them.

What is the Equal Rights Amendment?

The Equal Rights Amendment was first drafted in 1923 by two leaders of the women’s suffrage movement, Alice Paul and Crystal Eastman. For women’s rights advocates, the ERA was the next logical step following the successful campaign to win access to the ballot through the adoption of the 19th Amendment. They believed that enshrining the principle of gender equality in our founding charter would help overcome many of the obstacles that kept women as second-class citizens.

While the text of the amendment has changed over the years, the gist of it has remained the same. The version approved by Congress in 1972 and sent to the states reads:

“Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex. The Congress shall have the power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.”

Beginning in 1923, lawmakers introduced the ERA in every session of Congress, but it made little progress until the 1970s. It didn’t help that for most of the twentieth century, Congress was comprised almost entirely of men. In the nearly five-decade span between 1922 and 1970, only 10 women served in the Senate, with no more than 2 serving at the same time. The picture was only slightly better in the House.

In 1970, a new class of women lawmakers — including Reps. Martha Griffiths (D-MO) and Shirley Chisholm (D-NY) — pressed to make the ERA a top legislative priority. They had to overcome the resistance of Rep. Emanuel Celler (D-NY), the powerful chairman of the House Judiciary Committee who had refused to hold a hearing on the ERA for over 30 years. Faced with increased pressure, Celler finally relented. In March 1972, the amendment passed both chambers of Congress with bipartisan support far exceeding the two-thirds majorities required by the Constitution. Congress promptly sent the proposed amendment to the states for ratification with a seven-year deadline.

Why wasn’t the ERA ratified by its original deadline?

Within a year, 30 of the necessary 38 states acted to ratify the ERA. But then momentum slowed as conservative activists allied with the emerging religious right launched a campaign to stop the amendment in its tracks. Phyllis Schlafly, a conservative lawyer and activist from Illinois who led the STOP ERA campaign, argued that the measure would lead to gender-neutral bathrooms, same-sex marriage, and women in military combat, among other things.

The opposition campaign was remarkably successful. Support for the ERA eroded, particularly among Republicans. Though the GOP was the first party to endorse the ERA back in 1940, GOP lawmakers cooled to the amendment, leading to a stalemate in the states.

By 1977, only 35 states had ratified the ERA. Though Congress voted to extend the ratification deadline by an additional three years, no new states signed on. Complicating matters further, lawmakers in five states — Nebraska, Tennessee, Idaho, Kentucky, and South Dakota — voted to rescind their earlier support.

In 1982, following the expiration of the extended deadline, most activists and lawmakers accepted the ERA’s defeat. But in the four decades since Congress first proposed the ERA, courts and legislatures have realized much of what the amendment was designed to accomplish. A significant portion of the credit goes to Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who as the founding director of the ACLU Women’s Rights Project found success in arguing for a jurisprudence of gender equality under the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause.

And yet, despite these dramatic and important gains for women’s rights, pervasive gender discrimination persists in the form of wage disparities, sexual harassment and violence, and unequal representation in the institutions of American democracy.

Why is there revived interest in the ERA today?

In recent years there has been a resurgence of women’s activism, from the Women’s March on Washington to the #MeToo Movement to the record number of women elected to Congress and state legislatures in 2018. Amid this renewed focus on issues of gender equality, lawmakers and advocacy organizations like the ERA Coalition have put the amendment back on the nation’s agenda.

The renewed push to adopt the ERA captured public attention in 2017, when Nevada became the first state to ratify the measure since 1977. A key ERA champion, State Sen. Pat Spearman, explained, “This is the right thing to do, it’s the right time to do it, and so we just ought to do it.”

In 2018, the Illinois legislature followed suit. “This is our generation’s chance to correct a long standing wrong,” argued Illinois State Rep. Steven Andersson, a Republican who helped shepherd the measure. With each new ratification, there has been increased GOP support for the ERA.

Proponents argue that adoption of the ERA can advance the cause of equality in the twenty-first century, but key questions remain. Julie Suk, a sociologist and legal scholar at the CUNY Graduate Center, has asked , “If ratified in the coming year, how should we construe the meaning of a constitutional amendment introduced almost a century ago and adopted half a century before full ratification?”

Over the last year, Brennan Center experts were among those to weigh in on the debate.

Jennifer Weiss-Wolf, the Brennan Center’s Women and Democracy Fellow, noted that the ERA would empower Congress “to enforce gender equity through legislation and, more generally, the creation of a social framework to formally acknowledge systemic biases that permeate and often limit women’s daily experiences.” And it would create consistency to address the patchwork ways gender and economic inequity are often addressed in our current laws. Among the “lingering legal and policy inequities the ERA would help rectify,” she identified the emerging issue of menstrual equity as a legal and policy issue “the ERA could further refine and bolster.”

Brennan Center Fellow Wilfred Codrington (also co-author of this piece) considered whether the ERA, framed as “an explicit, permanent constitutional provision outlawing gender discrimination,” is sufficient to meet the challenge of inequality today. “Lawmakers are justified in adopting the ERA,” Codrington argued, “even if it’s uncertain that the amendment would fully achieve its advocates’ desired ends.” But courts should also draw on their constitutional authority based in equity — defined as “recourse to principle of justice to correct or supplement the law” — which can reinforce their legal equality analysis and equip them to address “a broader spectrum of anti-discrimination cases … with greater nuance.”

John Kowal, the Brennan Center’s Vice President for Programs, explored the legal and procedural questions for Congress, the courts, and the American people arising out of the ERA’s surprising revival after a long period of dormancy. Should the push to ratify the 1972 version of the ERA fail on procedural grounds, Kowal also considered the advantages of starting the amendment process anew given the amendment’s strong base of public support. “When a powerful social movement with deep popular support takes up the goal of constitutional change,” he said, “history shows that this is a battle that can be won.”

What are the key legal challenges today?

Does Virginia’s vote to ratify the ERA mean it will be adopted as the 28th Amendment to the Constitution? The answer hinges on two procedural questions with no settled answer.

First, can Congress act now, nearly 48 years after first proposing the ERA, to waive the lapsed deadline? ERA supporters have long argued that just as Congress had the power to set a deadline, they have the power to lift one. Senate Joint Resolution 6 , a bipartisan measure sponsored by Sens. Ben Cardin (D-MD) and Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) which is currently pending in Congress, seeks to do just that. But while the ERA’s deadline was extended prior to the deadline, there is no precedent for waiving the deadline after its expiration.

Second, can states act to rescind their support of a constitutional amendment before it is finally ratified? Congress confronted this question twice, during the ratification of 14th and 15th Amendments in the years immediately following the Civil War. In each instance, Congress adopted resolutions declaring the amendments ratified, ignoring the purported state rescissions. But in 1980, a federal district court in Idaho ruled that the state’s rescission of the ERA was valid.

Who will decide these questions? Under a 1984 law, the Archivist of the United States is charged with issuing a formal certification after three-quarters of the states have ratified an amendment. When there has been doubt over the validity of an amendment, Congress has acted to declare it valid. This occurred most recently in 1992 when the states ratified the 27th Amendment , 203 years after Congress proposed it.

On January 8, the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) issued an opinion arguing that the deadline set by Congress is binding and that the ERA “is no longer pending before the States.” Notably, the opinion rejects the conclusion of the 1977 OLC opinion, which approved of the earlier extension of the ERA’s ratification deadline. In response, the National Archives and Records Administration has said that the archivist of the United States, Daniel Ferriero, will not certify Virginia’s ratification or add the ERA to the Constitution until a federal court issues an order. (Ferriero had previously accepted the ratifications from both Nevada and Illinois.)

But would the courts have a say in this controversy? In a 1939 case, the Supreme Court ruled that the question of whether an amendment has been ratified in a reasonable period of time is a “political question” best left in the hands of Congress, not the courts. If Congress acts to waive the deadline, would the courts continue to honor that precedent? How much weight would they give to the view of the American people, who strongly support the ERA according to recent polls ?

In sum, Virginia’s vote to ratify the ERA has spurred an important legal and policy debate. However the disputes over the amendment’s validity are resolved, it is clear is that the conversation around the ERA, an amendment that is already nearly a century in the making, is not likely to end in 2020.

Related Resources

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After a long period of dormancy, the campaign to ratify the ERA has sprung back to life. Are we just one state away from ratifying the Twenty-Eighth Amendment?

State-Level Equal Rights Amendments

Expert brief, the benefits of equity in the constitutional quest for equality, the era campaign and menstrual equity, equal rights amendment symposium 2018, informed citizens are democracy’s best defense.

Every human being should be treated equally according to their human rights

Humans rights is the belief that everybody should be treated equally and with dignity no matter what their circumstances; which means nobody should be tortured or treated in an inhuman or degrading way.

What is special about human is our humanity. As humans we can think and articulate thoughts, we also have a sense of right and wrong which means our conscience. Nobody has the right to own another person or to force them to work under threat or punishment.

Equal does not mean that we are all the same. Each of us is different in our own special way but we also have the common qualities that make us all humans. So each of us should be treated with respect and dignity and treat others in the same way. No persons should be discriminated against in their sexual and reproductive lives. Everybody has the right to protection from all forms of violence caused by reason of their race, colour, language, sex, religion, political, national or social origin, property, birth or another status.

We born free so all the people have an equal right to freedom but freedom does not mean we can do anything nor can freedom for some mean limiting the freedom of others. Though we are born free we live in a community that functions because there is an understanding among its members.

View the discussion thread.

Guarding Our Communities: The Imperative of Immunization

Justice—A Core Value Everyone Should Have

Words for my fellow human beings

A tribute to equality

Essay on Everyone Should Be Treated Equally

Students are often asked to write an essay on Everyone Should Be Treated Equally in their schools and colleges. And if you’re also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 250-word, and 500-word essays on the topic.

Let’s take a look…

100 Words Essay on Everyone Should Be Treated Equally

Equality for all.

Imagine a world where every person is given the same respect and chances. This idea is called equality. It means no one is treated better or worse because of their looks, where they come from, or what they believe.

Respect and Kindness

Treating everyone equally means showing respect and kindness to all. No matter who someone is, they deserve to be listened to and treated well. This builds a friendly world for us all.

Learning from Others

When we treat everyone the same, we can learn from people who are different from us. This helps us understand new things and grow smarter and kinder. It’s like opening a book full of different stories.

Equality Helps Everyone

250 words essay on everyone should be treated equally.

Imagine a world where every person is treated the same, no matter how they look or where they come from. This idea is called equality, and it means giving everyone the same chances and respect. Treating everyone equally is important because it makes life fair and kind for all.

In school, all students should follow the same rules. If one student can run in the halls, then everyone should be able to. But that’s not safe, so no one should run in the halls. This is a simple example of how the same rules help everyone stay safe and happy.

Fair Chances

When everyone has the same chance to try out for a sports team or to be in a play, it’s fair. It doesn’t matter if someone is tall or short, or what their skin color is. What matters is if they can play the sport well or act well. Giving everyone a fair chance helps find the best people for each activity.

Respect for All

Treating everyone with respect is a big part of equality. This means listening to others, being kind with words, and caring about their feelings. When people feel respected, they are happier and can do their best at whatever they try.

In conclusion, treating everyone equally is about being fair, giving the same chances, and respecting each other. It makes the world a better place when we all have the same opportunities to succeed and be happy. Remember, everyone deserves to be treated with kindness and fairness.

500 Words Essay on Everyone Should Be Treated Equally

Why equality matters.

Equality is important because it makes sure that no one is left out or treated unfairly. When everyone is treated the same, people feel valued and important. This can make them happier and more willing to help others. Think of a team where each player gets a turn to play; the team works better together.

Equality in Daily Life

In our daily lives, treating everyone equally can be seen in how we talk to others, share things, and make decisions. For example, in school, teachers should listen to all students’ ideas. At home, parents should love and take care of all their children the same way. When friends play together, they should make sure everyone has fun.

Challenges to Equality

Learning about equality, equality in action.

Putting equality into action means standing up for fairness. If we see someone being treated badly, we should speak up. It also means giving everyone the same chances, like letting everyone try out for a sports team or a part in a play. We can also share our things and include everyone in our games.

If you’re looking for more, here are essays on other interesting topics:

Apart from these, you can look at all the essays by clicking here .

Gender equality, the ‘unfinished human rights struggle of this century’: UN chief

A woman in Brazil signals her desire for a more equal world.

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Achieving equal rights for women is “the unfinished human rights struggle of this century”, UN Secretary-General António Guterres said in remarks to the Generation Equality Forum which began online from Mexico City on Monday.

Although acknowledging significant victories achieved over recent decades, the UN chief stressed progress has been slow. Meanwhile, regressive laws have resurfaced, violence targeting women and girls has increased, and the “seismic shocks” of the COVID-19 pandemic have decimated many gains.

António Guterres, UN Secretary-General March 29, 2021

“It is time to regroup and re-energize our quest to create a more equal, more just, more sustainable world in which all people can realize their human rights without discrimination and without fear”, said Mr. Guterres, speaking in Spanish.

Generating change

The Generation Equality Forum brings together governments, international organizations, the private sector and young people, in efforts to advance global commitments on gender equality. Elvira Pablo of the Generation Equality Youth Task Force put it bluntly: "We youth are tired of hearing words and commitments without immediate action. This is the time to act ."

The forum was convened by the UN’s gender entity, UN Women , and is co-hosted by the Governments of Mexico and France. The initial three-day meeting is now underway in the Mexican capital, and the culmination will take place in Paris in June.

“By the time we get to Paris in June, we want to see bold commitments and investments on the table, and a strong multi-stakeholder movement for gender equality”, the Secretary-General said. “The realization of the equal rights of half our population is the unfinished human rights struggle of this century. “

For Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, the UN Women Executive Director, the forum represents a chance to effect real change in the world.

“We want to look to the future beyond the crisis, rather than doubling down on the mistakes of the past”, she said. “We want an opportunity to build a new, feminist economic model that works for women, and a world that is safe for women. Such economic models prioritize both care for people, and care for our planet.”

Make way for youth

The UN Secretary-General outlined five areas for action as countries recover from the pandemic, starting with protecting women’s equal rights and repealing discriminatory laws.

He called for special measures and quotas to ensure equal representation, and highlighted the need for equal pay as well as job protection and social protection policies.

Mr. Guterres urged governments to immediately enact emergency response plans to address the rise in violence against women and girls that has emerged alongside the pandemic, while his final point underscored hope for the future.

 “Give space to the intergenerational transition that is underway and to the young people who are advocating for a more just and equal world”, he said.

GENDER EQUALITY

Your Right to Equality in Education

Getting an education isn't just about books and grades - we're also learning how to participate fully in the life of this nation. (We're tomorrow's leaders after all!)

But in order to really participate, we need to know our rights - otherwise we may lose them. The highest law in our land is the U.S. Constitution, which has some amendments, known as the Bill of Rights. The Bill of Rights guarantees that the government can never deprive people in the U.S. of certain fundamental rights including the right to freedom of religion and to free speech and the due process of law. Many federal and state laws give us additional rights, too.

The Bill of Rights applies to young people as well as adults. And what I'm going to do right here is tell you about EQUAL TREATMENT .

DO ALL KIDS HAVE THE RIGHT TO AN EQUAL EDUCATION?

Yes! All kids living in the United States have the right to a free public education. And the Constitution requires that all kids be given equal educational opportunity no matter what their race, ethnic background, religion, or sex, or whether they are rich or poor, citizen or non-citizen. Even if you are in this country illegally, you have the right to go to public school. The ACLU is fighting hard to make sure this right isn't taken away.

In addition to this constitutional guarantee of an equal education, many federal, state and local laws also protect students against discrimination in education based on sexual orientation or disability, including pregnancy and HIV status.

In fact, even though some kids may complain about having to go to school, the right to an equal educational opportunity is one of the most valuable rights you have. The Supreme Court said this in the landmark Brown v. Board of Education case when it struck down race segregation in the public schools.

If you believe you or someone you know is being discriminated against in school, speak up! Talk to a teacher, the principal, the head of a community organization or a lawyer so they can investigate the situation and help you take legal action if necessary.

ARE TRACKING SYSTEMS LEGAL?

Yes, as long as they really do separate students on the basis of learning ability and as long as they give students the same basic education.

Many studies show, however, that the standards and tests school officials use in deciding on track placements are often based on racial and class prejudices and stereotypes instead of on real ability and learning potential. That means it's often the white, middle-class kids who end up in the college prep classes, while poor and non-white students, and kids whose first language isn't English, end up on "slow" tracks and in vocational-training classes. And often, the lower the track you're on, the less you're expected to learn - and the less you're taught.

Even if you have low grades or nobody in your family ever went to college, if you want to go to college, you should demand the type of education you need to realize your dreams. And your guidance counselor should help you get it! Your local ACLU can tell you the details of how to go about challenging your track placement.

CAN STUDENTS BE TREATED DIFFERENTLY IN PUBLIC SCHOOL BASED ON THEIR SEX?

Almost never. Public schools may not have academic courses that are just for boys - like shop - or just for girls - like home economics. Both the Constitution and federal law require that boys and girls also be provided with equal athletic opportunities. Many courts have held, however, that separate teams for boys and girls are allowed as long as the school provides students of both sexes the chance to participate in the particular sport. Some courts have also held that boys and girls may always be separated in contact sports. The law is different in different states; you can call your local ACLU affiliate for information.

CAN GIRLS BE KICKED OUT OF SCHOOL IF THEY GET PREGNANT?

No. Federal law prohibits schools from discriminating against pregnant students or students who are married or have children. So, if you are pregnant, school officials can't keep you from attending classes, graduation ceremonies, extracurricular activities or any other school activity except maybe a strenuous sport. Some schools have special classes for pregnant girls, but they cannot make you attend these if you would prefer to be in your regular classes.

CAN SCHOOLS DISCRIMINATE AGAINST GAY STUDENTS?

School officials shouldn't be able to violate your rights just because they don't like your sexual orientation. However, even though a few states and cities have passed laws against sexual orientation discrimination, public high schools have been slow to establish their own anti-bias codes - and they're slow to respond to incidents of harassment and discrimination. So while in theory, you can take a same-sex date to the prom, join or help form a gay group at school or write an article about lesbian/gay issues for the school paper, in practice gay students often have to fight hard to have their rights respected.

WHAT ABOUT STUDENTS WITH DISABILITIES?

Although students with disabilities may not be capable of having exactly the same educational experiences as other students, federal law requires that they be provided with an education that is appropriate for them. What is an appropriate education must be worked out individually for each student. For example, a deaf student might be entitled to be provided with a sign language interpreter.

In addition to requiring that schools identify students with disabilities so that they can receive the special education they need in order to learn, federal law also provides procedures to make sure that students are not placed in special education classes when they are not disabled. If you believe you're not receiving an appropriate education, either because you are not in special classes when you need to be, or because you are in special classes when you don't need to be, call the ACLU!

And thanks to the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), students who are HIV positive have the same rights as every other student. People with HIV are protected against discrimination , not only in school but in many other public places such as stores, museums and hotels.

People with HIV aren't a threat to anyone else's health, because the AIDS virus can't be spread through casual contact. That's just a medical fact. Your local ACLU can provide information on how to fight discrimination against people with HIV.

CAN I GO TO PUBLIC SCHOOL IF I DON'T SPEAK ENGLISH?

Yes. It is the job of the public schools to teach you to speak English and to provide you with a good education in other subjects while you are learning. Students who do not speak English have the right to require the school district to provide them with bilingual education or English language instruction or both.

"No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance." --Title IX, Education Amendments of 1972

We spend a big part of our life in school, and our voices count. Join the student government! Attend school meetings! Petition your school administration! Talk about your rights with your friends! Let's make a difference!

Produced by the ACLU Department of Public Education. 125 Broad Street, NY NY 10004. For more copies of this or any other Sybil Liberty paper, or to order the ACLU handbook The Rights of Students or other student-related publications, call 800-775-ACLU or visit us on the internet at https://www.aclu.org .

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America Has Too Many Laws

An excess of restrictions has taken a very real toll on the lives of everyday Americans. Their stories must be told.

Illustration showing legal hammer and Supreme Court building

Our country has always been a nation of laws, but something has changed dramatically in recent decades. Contrary to the narrative that Congress is racked by an inability to pass bills, the number of laws in our country has simply exploded. Less than 100 years ago, all of the federal government’s statutes fit into a single volume. By 2018, the U.S. Code encompassed 54 volumes and approximately 60,000 pages. Over the past decade, Congress has adopted an average of 344 new pieces of legislation each session. That amounts to 2 million to 3 million words of new federal law each year. Even the length of bills has grown—from an average of about two pages in the 1950s to 18 today.

And that’s just the average. Nowadays, it’s not unusual for new laws to span hundreds of pages. The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 ran more than 600 pages, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 almost 1,000 pages, and the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2021—which included a COVID-19 relief package—more than 5,000 pages. About the last one, the chair of the House Rules Committee quipped that “if we provide[d] everyone a paper copy we would have to destroy an entire forest.” Buried in the bill were provisions for horse racing, approvals for two new Smithsonian museums, and a section on foreign policy regarding Tibet. By comparison, the landmark protections afforded by the Civil Rights Act of 1964 took just 28 pages to describe.

These figures from Congress only begin to tell the story. Federal agencies have been busy too. They write new rules and regulations implementing or interpreting Congress’s laws. Many bear the force of law. Thanks in part to Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis, agencies now publish their proposals and final rules in the Federal Register; their final regulations can also be found in the Code of Federal Regulations. When the Federal Register started in 1936, it was 16 pages long. In recent years, that publication has grown by an average of more than 70,000 pages annually.

From the July 1979 issue: Too much law, too little justice

Meanwhile, by 2021 the Code of Federal Regulations spanned about 200 volumes and more than 188,000 pages. How long would it take a person to read all those federal regulations? According to researchers at George Mason University’s Mercatus Center, “over three years … And that is just the reading component. Not comprehension … not analysis.”

Even these numbers do not come close to capturing all of the federal government’s activity. Today, agencies don’t just promulgate rules and regulations. They also issue informal “guidance documents” that ostensibly clarify existing regulations but in practice often “carry the implicit threat of enforcement action if the regulated public does not comply.” In a recent 10-year span, federal agencies issued about 13,000 guidance documents. Some of these documents appear in the Federal Register; some don’t. Some are hard to find anywhere. Echoing Justice Brandeis’s efforts, a few years ago the Office of Management and Budget asked agencies to make their guidance available in searchable online databases. But some agencies resisted. Why? By some accounts, they simply had no idea where to find all of their own guidance. Ultimately, officials abandoned the idea.

Judicial decisions contain vital information about how our laws and rules operate. Today, most of these decisions can be found in searchable electronic databases, but some come with high subscription fees. If you can’t afford those, you may have to consult a library. Good luck finding what you need there: Reported federal decisions now fill more than 5,000 volumes. Each volume clocks in at about 1,000 pages, for a total of more than 5 million pages. Back in 1997, Thomas Baker, a law professor, found that “the cumulative output of all the lower federal courts … amounts to a small, but respectable library that, when stacked end-to-end, runs for one-and-one-half football fields.” One can only wonder how many football fields we’re up to now.

As you might imagine, much in this growing mountain of law isn’t exactly intuitive. Did you know that it’s a federal crime to enter a post office while intoxicated? Or to sell a mattress without a warning label? And if you’re a budding pasta entrepreneur, take note: By federal decree, macaroni must have a diameter between 0.11 and 0.27 inches, while vermicelli must not be more than 0.06 inches in diameter. Both may contain egg whites—but those egg whites cannot constitute more than 2 percent of the weight of the finished product.

If officials in the federal government have been busy, it’s not as if their counterparts at the state and local levels have been idle. Virginia prohibits hunting a bear with the assistance of dogs on Sundays. In Massachusetts, be careful not to sing or render “The Star-Spangled Banner” as “a part of a medley of any kind”—that can invite a fine. The New York City Administrative Code spans more than 30 titles and the Rules of the City of New York more than 50. In 2010, The New York Times reported on the regulatory hurdles associated with opening a new restaurant in the city. It found that an individual “may have to contend with as many as 11 city agencies, often with conflicting requirements; secure 30 permits, registrations, licenses and certificates; and pass 23 inspections.” And that’s not even counting what it takes to secure a liquor license.

To appreciate the growth of our law at all levels, count the lawyers. In recent years, the legal profession has proved a booming business. From 1900 to 2021, the number of lawyers in the United States grew by 1,060 percent, while the population grew by about a third that rate. Since 1950, the number of law schools approved by the American Bar Association has nearly doubled.

Our legal institutions have become so complicated and so numerous that even federal agencies cannot agree on how many federal agencies exist. A few years ago, an opinion writer in Forbes pointed out that the Administrative Conference of the United States lists 115 agencies in the appendix of its Sourcebook of United States Executive Agencies . But the Sourcebook also cautions that there is “no authoritative list of government agencies.” Moreover, the United States Government Manual and USA.gov maintain different and competing lists. And both of these lists differ in turn from the list kept by the Federal Register. That last publication appears to peg the number of federal agencies at 436.

Reflecting on these developments sometimes reminds us of Parkinson’s Law. In 1955, a noted historian, C. Northcote Parkinson, posited that the number of employees in a bureaucracy rises by about 5 percent a year “irrespective of any variation in the amount of work (if any) to be done.” He based his amusing theory on the example of the British Royal Navy, where the number of administrative officers on land grew by 78 percent from 1914 to 1928, during which time the number of navy ships fell by 67 percent and the number of navy officers and seamen dropped by 31 percent. It seemed to Parkinson that in the decades after World War I, Britain had created a “magnificent Navy on land.” (He also quipped that the number of officials would have “multiplied at the same rate had there been no actual seamen at all.”)

Does Parkinson’s Law reflect our own nation’s experience? In the 1930s, the Empire State Building—the tallest in the world at the time—took a little more than 13 months to build. A decade later, the Pentagon took 16 months. In the span of eight years during the Great Depression, President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Works Progress Administration built some 4,000 schools, 130 hospitals, 29,000 bridges, and 150 airfields; laid 9,000 miles of storm drains and sewer lines; paved or repaired 280,000 miles of roads; and planted 24 million trees.

Compare those feats to more recent ones. In 2022, an op-ed in The Washington Post observed that it had taken Georgia almost $1 billion and 21 years—14 of which were spent overcoming “regulatory hurdles”—to deepen a channel in the Savannah River for container ships. No great engineering challenge was involved; the five-foot deepening project “essentially … required moving muck.” Raising the roadway on a New Jersey bridge took five years, 20,000 pages of paperwork, and 47 permits from 19 agencies—even though the project used existing foundations. The Post reported that in recent years, Congress has required more than 4,000 annual reports from 466 federal agencies and nonprofits. According to the lawyer and author Philip K. Howard, one report on the printing operations of the Social Security Administration took 95 employees more than four months to complete. Among other things, it dutifully informed Congress of the age and serial number of a forklift.

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Not only have our laws grown rapidly in recent years; so have the punishments they carry. You might think that federal criminal laws are reserved for the worst of the worst—individuals who have committed acts so egregious that they merit the attention not just of state authorities but of federal authorities, and not just civil fines but potential prison time. But if that’s your intuition, ask yourself this question: How many federal crimes do you think we have these days?

It turns out no one knows. Yes, every few years some enterprising academic or government official sets out to count them. They devote considerable resources and time (often years) to the task. But in the end, they come up short.

In 1982, the Department of Justice undertook what stands as maybe the most comprehensive count to date. A lawyer spent more than two years reading the U.S. Code—at that time, some 23,000 pages. The best the lawyer could say was that there were about 3,000 federal crimes.

Today, the U.S. Code is roughly twice the length it was in 1982, and contemporary guesses put the number of federal crimes north of 5,000. As the American Bar Association has said, “Whatever the exact number of crimes that comprise today’s ‘federal criminal law,’ it is clear that the amount of individual citizen behavior now potentially subject to federal criminal control has increased in astonishing proportions in the last few decades.”

Part of the reason no one can easily count the number of federal crimes is that our federal criminal code was “not planned; it just grew,” as Ronald Gainer, a retired Justice Department official, puts it. We do not have any single place to which people can turn to discern what our criminal laws prohibit. Sure, there’s Title 18 of the U.S. Code, “Crimes and Criminal Procedure.” But in truth, criminal laws are scattered here and there throughout various federal statutory titles and sections, the product of different pieces of legislation and different Congresses. Really, our federal criminal law is, Gainer writes, “a loose assemblage of … components that were built hastily to respond to perceptions of need and to perceptions of the popular will.”

That’s not the only confounding factor, though. Many federal criminal statutes overlap entirely, are duplicative in part, or, when juxtaposed, raise perplexing questions about what they mean. Take fraud. We have a federal mail-fraud law. We have a federal wire-fraud law. We have federal bribery and illegal-gratuities laws. We also have a federal law forbidding the deprivation of “honest services,” though no one is exactly sure what it does (or does not) add to all those other laws about fraud. On top of all this, more new laws criminalizing fraud are proposed during just about every session of Congress.

Once more, Congress’s output represents just the tip of the iceberg. Our administrative agencies don’t just turn out rules with civil penalties attached to them; every year, they generate more and more rules carrying criminal sanctions as well. How many? Here again, no one seems sure. But estimates suggest that at least 300,000 federal-agency regulations carry criminal sanctions today.

If you were to sit down and read through all of our criminal laws and regulations—or at least flip through them—you would find plenty of surprises. You would learn, for example, that it’s a federal crime to damage a government-owned lamp in Washington, D.C.; consult with a known pirate; or advertise wine by suggesting its intoxicating qualities.

The truth is, we now have so many federal criminal laws covering so many things that the legal scholar John Baker suggests that “there is no one in the United States over the age of 18 who cannot be indicted for some federal crime.”

Numbers tell part of the story, but only a part. Today, the law touches our lives in very different ways than it once did.

In the past, the rules that governed what happened in our homes, families, houses of worship, and schools were found less in law than in custom or were left to private agreement and individual judgment. Even in the areas of life where law has long played a larger role, its character has changed. Once, most of our law came from local and state authorities; now federal law often dominates.

Consider just a few examples here. In the past, a seventh grader who traded burps for laughs in class might have been sent to the principal’s office; these days, law-enforcement officers may make an arrest . A 24-year-old who downloads academic articles that don’t belong to him isn’t just reprimanded; now we threaten him with decades in federal prison . On a more systemic scale, consider that for most of our history, responsibility for educating the young and setting public-school policy rested almost completely in the hands of parents and local and state officials. Until 1979, the federal government didn’t even have a Cabinet-level Department of Education. Now that federal agency employs more than 4,000 people and has an annual budget of almost $70 billion. Although it shares much of that money with states and local schools, often it does so on the condition that they comply with an ever-growing list of federal mandates.

What’s responsible for the changing character of our law? No doubt it’s a complicated story, and we live in a complex world. But just consider what America looked like when Alexis de Tocqueville traveled the country in the 1830s. As the historian Niall Ferguson has observed, Tocqueville “marveled” at the way early Americans “preferred voluntary association to government regulation.” As Tocqueville himself recorded, “not only do they have commercial and industrial associations … they also have a thousand other kinds: religious, moral, grave, futile, very general and very particular, immense and very small; Americans use associations to give fetes, to found seminaries, to build inns, to raise churches, to distribute books … [and] create hospitals, prisons, schools.” In short, Tocqueville concluded, “everywhere that, at the head of a new undertaking, you see the government in France and a great lord in England, count on it that you will perceive an association in the United States.”

These days, many of those old civic bonds are fraying. In his book Bowling Alone , Robert Putnam reports that “both civic engagement and organizational involvement experienced marked declines during the second half of the twentieth century.” In recent years, those declines have “continued uninterrupted.” A few decades ago, more than 70 percent of Americans were members of a church, synagogue, or mosque; today fewer than half are. According to the Elks, a fraternal order that includes six presidents among its past members, the organization has “struggled” in recent years “with [a] massive decline in membership.” The Freemasons have shed 3 million from their ranks since the 1950s—a 75 percent drop.

Accompanying this decline in civic association, we have experienced a profound decline in trust in one another. We are less inclined to respect or even tolerate different ideas about how to live, raise children, and pray. Studies show that we consider those who disagree with our own political views to be “immoral” or “unintelligent.” In one recent survey by the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia, roughly half of voters expressed the view that individuals who support “the other party” pose “threats to the American way of life”; about 40 percent said the use of violence may be warranted to “prevent” those who hold competing views “from achieving their goals.” Rather than trust individuals to judge what is best for our own happiness, health, and safety, we have become comfortable doing what the “experts” tell us—and comfortable with forcing others to do the same.

It’s hard not to wonder whether the explosion in our laws owes at least something to these developments. After all, when trust in individual judgment, civic institutions, and social norms fades, where else is there to look for answers but the law? Perhaps, too, the law does more, and does more at the national level, because it can. Communication across the continent has become a simple thing; so has the capacity to store and search large amounts of information and monitor the movement of individuals—all of which allows authorities to direct and track compliance with their rules in ways that were unthinkable even a generation ago.

Whatever the combination of causes, one thing seems clear: If in this country law has always been king, its empire has never been so expansive. More than ever, we turn to the law to address any problem we perceive. More than ever, we are inclined to use national authorities to dictate a single answer for the whole country. More than ever, we are willing to criminalize conduct with which we disagree. And more than ever, if elected officials seem slow to act, we look to other sources of authority to fill the void.

The explosion of law has taken a very real toll on the lives of everyday Americans. Their stories must be told.

Early one morning in 2010, Sandra Yates was doing laundry when she noticed something alarming: Seven agents in bulletproof vests, hands primed on holstered guns, were approaching her bungalow on Anna Maria Island, Florida.

It turned out they were looking for her husband.

“He’s out crabbing,” she told them, mystified by what they could want with John, a 58-year-old commercial fisherman who had worked his way up from deckhand to captain of his own small crew. Sandra and John had met as teenagers 36 years earlier in Ohio. John’s father owned a bait shop, and together father and son spent many weekends fishing on Lake Erie. As Sandra put it, John “more or less grew up on the water.” The couple married, had a child, and moved to Florida to follow family and stake out a new life. John got a job doing what he loved most—fishing—while Sandra worked as a paralegal. By the time the agents showed up, the couple had lived in Florida for more than 28 years.

When Sandra called John to let him know that officers were looking for him, he was just as confused as she was. After all, he had a nearly blemish-free record as a fisherman, and he couldn’t remember having done anything that might interest the authorities. John remained just as confused when he returned to shore and agents handcuffed and transported him two hours away to Fort Myers for booking.

There, John finally learned the charges against him. Among other things, he stood accused of violating the federal Sarbanes-Oxley Act and faced a potential term of 20 years in prison.

Now, you might be wondering: Sarbanes-Oxley? Isn’t that some sort of law about financial crimes? If you poke around the internet (as Sandra did late into the night after her husband’s arrest), you will find the law described as being designed “to help protect investors from fraudulent financial reporting by corporations.” You will also learn that Congress adopted the law after a financial scandal brought down the accounting firm Arthur Andersen. Some say the firm engaged in a document-shredding frenzy after being tipped off about an impending federal investigation into work it had performed for its client Enron.

All of that might lead you to ask: What does any of this have to do with a small-time fisherman?

The story starts back in 2007. One day, while John was fishing in the Gulf of Mexico on his boat, The Miss Katie, a state wildlife agent (cross-deputized by federal authorities) came alongside. As John tells it, the agent boarded the boat for a “safety inspection” and then asked John to open up the fish hold. The agent said he wanted to measure the fish—all 2,000 pounds of them.

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After spending hours rummaging through the pile, the agent declared his verdict. According to his measurements (which John disputed), 72 red grouper were under the 20-inch harvesting minimum set by then-current federal regulations. True, even by the agent’s count only three fish were under 19 inches, and each was at least 18.75 inches. But all the same, 72 undersize fish it was. The agent ordered John to store the undersize fish in separate crates, issued a citation, and left.

After John returned to dock a few days later, the agent measured the fish again. This time, though, the agent found 69 undersize fish, not 72. What’s more, the agent’s individual measurements didn’t quite match those he had taken days earlier while on board. From that and other evidence, the agent grew suspicious that the fish at the dock were not the same fish he had measured at sea. Still, nothing seemed to come of it. John didn’t hear anything more from authorities for almost three years—that is, until the day armed agents showed up at his front door.

At this point, you still might be wondering what any of this has to do with the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. As John learned after his arrest, that law was written in broad terms. The act doesn’t just make it unlawful to destroy financial records or documents “with the intent to impede, obstruct, or influence” a federal investigation. It also prohibits the destruction of any other “tangible object” for the same purpose.

And, according to the government, John had done just that. The government’s theory ran this way: John or a member of his crew must have thrown overboard the undersize fish the agent had identified while out on the water. Before returning to port, the crew must have then replaced those fish with new (and still undersize?) substitutes from the remaining catch. On the basis of this theory, the government argued, John had destroyed “tangible objects”—fish—with the intent of impeding a federal investigation.

John saw things differently. By his account, it was hardly surprising that the agent’s two sets of measurements didn’t quite align. Fish expand and contract when they are moved into and out of cool storage and onto hot decks or docks. According to John, the agent wasn’t exactly a fish-measuring expert, either; among other things, he didn’t properly account for the lengthy lower jaws of red grouper. To this day, John considers the government’s theory that he threw undersize fish overboard only to replace them with new, still undersize substitutes “about the … stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.”

Stupid or not, it turned John and Sandra’s life upside down. In addition to facing prison time, John lost his job—no one would hire a potential felon. He was “contaminated,” as Sandra put it. The couple lost their principal source of income and, soon, their house. They stopped taking family vacations with the grandchildren they were raising and tried to make ends meet by opening a used-furniture store. John refurbished furniture and Sandra painted it. To prepare for trial, Sandra stayed up late into the night researching the law and corresponding with attorneys and agency officials.

It was tough going. The family’s ordeal was not made any easier by the knowledge that federal officials had recently revised their regulations. When the agent boarded John’s boat in 2007, the minimum harvesting size for red grouper was 20 inches. But by the time John was arrested three years later, that had changed. The new rule? Eighteen inches. According to the agent’s measurements, not a single one of John’s fish was that small.

Still, the government pressed ahead with its case. In time, prosecutors offered a plea deal that would allow John to plead guilty to an offense involving the forcible opposition of a federal officer. But John saw no basis for that charge. He wanted to clear his name and insisted on standing trial.

It did not go well. More than a year after his arrest and four years after the agent boarded his boat, a jury found John guilty of the Sarbanes-Oxley offense. At sentencing, the court imposed a term of 30 days behind bars (prosecutors had asked for closer to two years). The court also sentenced John to three years of supervised release, ordered him to submit a DNA sample, and subjected him to other restrictions. The prosecution team issued a press release touting its victory.

By now, it was nearing Christmas 2011. John sought permission to report to prison after the holiday so he could spend time with his grandchildren, 8 and 12 years old at the time. The request was denied. So John sat in prison over Christmas. What’s more, at age 59 he was required to wear an ankle bracelet marking him as an escape risk.

After serving his sentence, John was ready to move on. The case had consumed his family for too long. But Sandra was determined to appeal. She didn’t want government officials to “do to someone else what they did to us.” Even when their appeal failed, Sandra wouldn’t give up. She persuaded John and his attorney (today, a federal judge) to petition the Supreme Court to review John’s Sarbanes-Oxley conviction. It was the longest of long shots—the Supreme Court agrees to hear only about 1 percent of the thousands of petitions it receives every year.

But seven years after that agent boarded The Miss Katie, John and Sandra finally felt a sliver of hope: In 2014, the Court announced that it would hear the case.

Nearly a year later, John was working in the couple’s furniture shop when he learned of the Supreme Court’s decision. By the margin of just a single vote, the Court had ruled in his favor. As the majority saw it, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act may prohibit the destruction of logbooks, spreadsheets, financial records, and other objects designed “to record or preserve information.” But for all its expansiveness, the law does not reach red grouper thrown overboard.

In a sense, it was a huge victory for the Yates family. The highest court in the land had overturned John’s Sarbanes-Oxley conviction. He and Sandra had won all the vindication our legal system can afford.

Still, you might forgive them for seeing things differently. The family’s ordeal had lasted eight years. They had endured proceedings before three courts and 13 different judges. “I feel good,” John said after the Court’s decision. “But you’ve got to look at it from my situation. I’ve already done the time. I’ve already paid the price. I lost a lot of wages because of this”—at least $600,000, he estimates. Really, as Sandra said, “we lost everything we had.” John hasn’t been back on a commercial fishing boat since his conviction. The couple now lives in a triple-wide trailer and depends on Social Security income and the extra jobs Sandra manages to get. Sandra estimates that taxpayers spent as much as $11 million on the prosecution of the case.

What happened to the federal officials who pursued John for all those years? After complaints emerged of “heavy-handed and unfair enforcement” against other fishermen like John, the inspector general of the Department of Commerce launched an internal investigation. His final report dryly concluded that the agency’s enforcement officials had created a “highly-charged regulatory climate and dysfunctional relationship between [the agency] and the fishing industry.” But, he added, the investigation hadn’t been easy. It seems that a key enforcement official had destroyed many of his files during it. (An anonymous whistleblower described a “shredding party.”) We can find no public record of criminal charges being brought against anyone for the destruction of those tangible objects. But when announcing the department’s findings to Congress, the inspector general said the quiet part out loud: How do you think enforcement officials would have reacted “if a fishing company they were investigating had done the same thing”?

In 2012, while John was appealing his case, Sandra pleaded her family’s cause to the government this way:

We are raising two grandchildren. We are simple people. The actions of these agents were damaging. These children have been affected also. Monies that would have been for them are gone. They have not even been afforded even family vacations any more … Our lives are forever changed by this, and I don’t believe these officers give a hoot who they hurt or why. [John] is a sixty-year-old man that has been beat up by these rogue agents. Jobs are tough enough to get when you are in your prime. He has been reduced to odd jobs. I am the primary provider for the family and I am old and tired, but I will not lie down or give up. We are meager people and don’t want much, but fair and professional treatment should be mandatory for all.

Sandra’s words are powerful, maybe even more so when you consider the fact that there was nothing particularly unusual about John’s case, at least from one point of view. Federal-agency officials had adopted a regulation setting the minimum harvesting size at 20 inches, only later changing it to 18 inches. Another agency official concluded that John had 72 undersize fish on board and 69 at the dock. Meanwhile, Congress had adopted a broad law forbidding the intentional destruction of any “tangible object” in the face of a federal investigation. Without a doubt, a good argument could be made that John’s alleged conduct violated this mix of statutory and regulatory rules.

From another perspective, though, Sandra and John’s experience invites us to consider how well we are doing as a nation in our aspiration to live under the rule of law where ordinary people have room to grow, plan, and make their own way. Yes, our Founders desperately wanted a nation of written laws. But from their study of history, they also appreciated the dangers that follow when lawmaking becomes too easy, when it is a task too far removed from the people, and when laws become too hard to find and too difficult to understand. The Roman emperor Caligula used to post his new laws on columns so tall and in a hand so small that the people could not read them. The whole point was to ensure that people lived in fear—the most powerful of a tyrant’s weapons. Our Founders wanted no part of that for us. As much as they revered written laws, they also knew that when we turn to law to solve every problem and answer humanity’s age-old debates about how we should live, raise our children, and pray, we invite a Leviathan into our lives.

This essay was adapted from Over Ruled: The Human Toll of Too Much Law .

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About the Authors

7 Reasons Why Gender Equality Is Good For Everyone

Research shows that the world has a long way to go to achieve gender equality . Despite decades of progress, millions of women and girls still deal with violence and discrimination. Steps like closing the gender pay gap and promoting girls’ education make a huge difference. While most believe that gender equality is a worthy goal, why is it good for everyone? Why should it be such a high priority?

Gender equality gives everyone equal opportunities

Education is the key to equal opportunities. In today’s world, more boys than girls are educated. According to UNICEF , around 1 in 4 girls between 15-19 years old don’t have a job and are not getting an education or training. For boys, that ratio is 1 in 10. Right from the beginning, this gives boys better opportunities than girls. Without many options, girls are often forced into marriages or human trafficking . It is also much harder to leave dangerous relationships and situations without education to fall back on. When gender equality starts with education, everyone has the opportunity to improve their lives.

Gender equality is good for children

Reproductive rights are a key part of gender equality. When women make their own reproductive choices, their lives improve. They are then able to better care for the children they do choose to have. Having equal pay with men, women can provide better healthcare, better food, and better opportunities for their kids. Even if a mother chooses to stay at home with her children, the effects of gender equality (like equal pay and education) provide a safety net in case she does need to go to work. Studies also show that infant mortality rates decrease as a woman’s education level increases. In a world with gender equality, children are set up for success and happiness.

Gender equality is good for marginalized racial groups

Gender-based discrimination has a close relationship with racial discrimination. In most places, women belonging to marginalized racial groups are treated less equal than other women. The gender pay gap is a prime example. In the United States, Asian and Caucasian women earn more than Hispanic, black, and native women. White women are also more likely to get better healthcare and better job opportunities. That’s why gender equality must be intersectional. This requires an acknowledgment of different experiences, identities, and the unique discriminations women face. Striving for intersectional gender equality can help reduce racial discrimination and inequality wherever it’s found.

Gender equality is good for men

Gender equality doesn’t only benefit girls and women; it benefits men, as well. There are a few key reasons. A man who is perceived as “feminine” is not a “real man” when gender inequality exists. This leads to toxic masculinity, which is destructive and harmful to everyone. When there’s gender equality, men have more freedom about how they express themselves. This extends into the career field , as well, since no job is considered “for women only.” Men receive parental leave and family time without discrimination. Increased freedom of expression and flexible work choices leads to happiness. With gender equality, men don’t face as much pressure to fit a stereotype.

Gender equality is good for business and the economy

When girls and women get equal education and job opportunities with men, all of society benefits. Studies reveal that a diverse workplace is a more productive workplace . That diversity includes gender diversity. There’s research that shows specifically that businesses that put some women in the top leadership roles do better than businesses with only men in leadership. That success translates into the economy as a whole. Closing up gender pay gaps saves a country money. Equal education and jobs also significantly reduce poverty rates, lifting an entire nation and improving its GDP.

Gender equality fosters peace

Violence disrupts society at every level. Gender inequality is the source of a lot of violence including human trafficking and a lack of legal protections for abused women. Improving equality for girls and women can reduce the amount of violence and provide security for those who are vulnerable . Research also shows that gender equality is a better indicator of a country’s likelihood to deploy military force than its GDP. As gender equality improves, a country’s peace improves. In turn, this is important for gender equality because war disproportionately affects women.

Gender equality: it’s good for everyone

Children, women, and men benefit from gender equality. It also addresses racial discrimination and improves business and the economy. While it will be some time before gender equality is a reality around the world, we’ve made enough progress to see its benefits in action. The goal now is to keep promoting gender equality while replacing old systems based on discrimination and outdated mindsets.

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About the author, emmaline soken-huberty.

Emmaline Soken-Huberty is a freelance writer based in Portland, Oregon. She started to become interested in human rights while attending college, eventually getting a concentration in human rights and humanitarianism. LGBTQ+ rights, women’s rights, and climate change are of special concern to her. In her spare time, she can be found reading or enjoying Oregon’s natural beauty with her husband and dog.

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M. V. Alfimov & V. G. Plotnikov

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Original Russian Text © M.V. Alfimov, V.G. Plotnikov, V.A. Smirnov, 2013, published in Doklady Akademii Nauk, 2013, Vol. 450, No. 4, pp. 420–422.

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Alfimov, M.V., Plotnikov, V.G. & Smirnov, V.A. Exciplex formation in highly excited triplet states. Dokl Phys Chem 450 , 127–129 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1134/S0012501613060018

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Received : 26 December 2012

Published : 05 July 2013

Issue Date : June 2013

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1134/S0012501613060018

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Exciplex formation in highly excited triplet states
Authors and Affiliations. Photochemistry Center, Russian Academy of Sciences, ul. Novatorov 7a, Moscow, 119421, Russia. M. V. Alfimov & V. G. Plotnikov