A Right to Discriminate?: How the Case of Boy Scouts of America V. James Dale Warped the Law of Free Association

Andrew Koppelman · Tobias Barrington Wolff

Jul 2009 · Yale University Press

About this ebook

Should the Boy Scouts of America and other noncommercial associations have a right to discriminate when selecting their members?Does the state have a legitimate interest in regulating the membership practices of private associations? These questions-- raised by Boy Scouts of America v. Dale, in which the Supreme Court ruled that the Scouts had a right to expel gay members-- are at the core of this provocative book, an in-depth exploration of the tension between freedom of association and antidiscrimination law. The book demonstrates that the right to discriminate has a long and unpleasant history. Andrew Koppelman and Tobias Wolff bring together legal history, constitutional theory, and political philosophy to analyze how the law ought to deal with discriminatory private organizations.

About the author

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