Equal Dignity and Unequal Protection: A Framework for Analyzing Disparate Impact Claims

The Supreme Court has long endorsed the theory of the “colorblind” Equal Protection Clause, viewing it as a mandate of only facial equality. Due to rigid doctrine that limits true protection to only a short, stagnant list of fundamental rights and suspect classifications and that requires proof of discriminatory intent, only the most blatant, purposeful inequality is within constitutional reach. Festering outside of this doctrinal sphere are powerful examples of state actions that impose disparate impacts on marginalized communities, such as the nationwide system of laws that disqualify individuals—disproportionately black men—with felony convictions from the jury pool. However, the door to a new approach for combatting such issues may have recently opened. In Obergefell v. Hodges, the Supreme Court embraced the interconnection between the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses to move beyond the restrictions of current equal protection doctrine and strike down same-sex marriage bans. This “equal dignity” approach embraces a different view of equality protection: antisubordination theory, which focuses on ensuring substantive equality. This Note proposes a framework for applying equal dignity, utilizing the example of felon-juror exclusion to argue that it can serve as a principled approach for addressing disparate impact claims

Sensitivity to Hand Path Curvature during Reaching

People optimize reaching to make straight and smooth movements. We performed experiments characterizing human sensitivity to hand path deviations from a straight reach. Vision of the arm was blocked. Subjects either moved the hand along paths of constrained curvature, or a robot moved the relaxed limb along similar trajectories (active and passive conditions, respectively). Subjects responded after each trial whether or not they thought the movement curved convex right. In a series of three experiments, we tested the effects of modifying visual feedback of hand position to suppress curvature, isotonic muscle activation, and a distracter task on subjects ability to detect curvature during reaching. We found that both active reaching and artificial minimization of visual hand path deviations significantly decreased proprioceptive curvature sensitivity. Specifically, isotonic contraction of muscles antagonistic to the movement decreased sensitivity to curvature while agonistic contraction had no effect. The distracter task did not significantly affect proprioceptive sensitivity, though it did interfere with the detrimental effect of minimizing visual error feedback. These findings demonstrate that: 1) antagonist muscle activation decreases efficacy of proprioceptive feedback during hand path curvature estimation, and 2) vision\u27s dominance over proprioception can be manipulated by altering the attentional demands of the task