Preface

• Pages: 5-5
• Author: George Rutherglen

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PREFACE

This book is intended as an introduction to the field of

employment discrimination law, both at the abstract level of theory

and at the concrete of level of doctrine. It is an introduction as much

for experienced lawyers and scholars who come to this field for the

first time, as for law students who have just begun their careers. My

hope is that it will convey to everyone within this broad audience the

basic structure of this field, and more importantly, the fundamental

questions that animate it. These are questions, I believe, that go to

the heart of our nation’s commitment to civil rights and the struggle

over competing visions of equality in American life. This introductory

text cannot attempt to answer these questions. Its aim, instead, is to

reveal the influence that they have exercised over both the form and

content of employment discrimination law. Technical legal rules, as

much as grand statements of principle, have been shaped by the

different perspectives that can be taken on fundamental questions of

equality.

In the years since the original edition of this book, employment

discrimination law has gone in two different directions, broader and

more general on the one hand, and narrower and more specific on the

other. Prohibitions against discrimination have expanded to

recognition of the rights of LGBTQ individuals, as the Supreme

Court made clear in a landmark decision interpreting Title VII. In

another direction, the case law has become more refined and nuanced

on a wide range of issues, from claims of retaliation, to proof of

intentional age discrimination, to certification of class actions. All of

these developments need to be accounted for and brought within a

comprehensible structure. This need has only increased as the law

has expanded in scope and become more complicated.

In attempting to demonstrate the influence of abstract

propositions over concrete cases and doctrines, I have drawn on

assistance from many sources. All of these are connected in one way

or another to my colleagues and students at the University of

Virginia School of Law. For their continuing challenges, criticisms,

and inspiration, I am very grateful.

GEORGE RUTHERGLEN

August 2020