Inequality is not inevitable. comprensioni dell’eguaglianza, razza e azioni affermative nell’esperienza costituzionale statunitense

The paper analyzes the case-law of the Supreme Court of the United States regarding race-conscious affirmative actions, with reference to university admissions, highlighting its implications on the different understandings of equality in the United States. Specifically, the paper shows how the configuration of the equality judgment in formal terms has been accompanied – in the case of university admissions – by the identification of diversity as a rationale, avoiding any consideration of racial justice. Any acknowledgment of the deeper causes and implications of preferential treatments is therefore excluded, together with the possibility of the interpretation of the Equal Protection Clause to contribute to the transformation of the structural conditions of inequality.