Practical Equality: Forging Justice in a Divided Nation

by Robert L. Tsai

A path-breaking account of how Americans have used innovative legal measures to overcome injustice―and an indispensable guide to pursuing equality in our time. Equality is easy to grasp in theory but often hard to achieve in reality. In this accessible and wide-ranging work, American University law professor Robert L. Tsai offers a stirring account of how legal ideas that aren’t necessarily about equality at all―ensuring fair play, behaving reasonably, avoiding cruelty, and protecting free speech―have often been used to overcome resistance to justice and remain vital today. Practical Equality is an original and compelling book on the intersection of law and society. Tsai, a leading expert on constitutional law who has written widely in the popular press, traces challenges to equality throughout American history: from the oppression of emancipated slaves after the Civil War to the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II to President Trump’s ban on Muslim travelers. He applies lessons from these and other past struggles to such pressing contemporary issues as the rights of sexual minorities and the homeless, racism in the criminal justice system, police brutality, voting restrictions, oppressive measures against migrants, and more. Deeply researched and well argued, Practical Equality offers a sense of optimism and a guide to pursuing equality for activists, lawyers, public officials, and concerned citizens.

“The gap between intuition and argument—between outrage and the best response to that outrage—is the subject of Robert Tsai’s Practical Equality. Tsai, a constitutional litigator, is intimately familiar with how arguments about equality have unfolded in the courts. Often, he writes, the moral magnetism of the equality backfires.”
—Joshua Rothman, The New Yorker

“Robert’s words and his book are so important.”
—Joe Scarborough, Morning Joe

“Tsai has done an important service by clarifying the intimate connections between equality, at least understood in a certain way, and related normative concepts. By asking why equality matters, he invites a more searching inquiry into a social and legal norm that is recklessly invoked and rarely explicated with care or good faith.”
— Aziz Huq, Michigan Law Review

Genres: Law, Politics, Nonfiction

288 pages, Hardcover

Published February 19, 2019

About the author

Robert L. Tsai is Professor of Law & Harry Elwood Warren Scholar at Boston University. He has been awarded a '24-'25 Laurance S. Rockefeller Fellowship at Princeton's University Center for Human Values. Tsai is the author of four books: Demand the Impossible, Practical Equality, America’s Forgotten Constitutions, and Eloquence and Reason. Bryan Stevenson, best-selling author of Just Mercy, calls Tsai's latest book, Demand the Impossible, "an inspiring account of one of our nation's greatest lawyers ... who has prioritized the poor, the vulnerable, and condemned." Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Heather Ann Thompson calls the book "deeply moving and sobering." Kirkus declares Demand the Impossible "an excellent complement to Bryan Stevenson’s Just Mercy" and "provocative, necessary reading."

Tsai's essays on law, politics, and history have appeared in New York Review of Books, Politico, Washington Post, Boston Globe, Los Angeles Review of Books, Boston Review, and Slate. Tsai has appeared on Meet the Press, Morning Joe, and NPR. He splits his time between Boston and Washington, D.C.

Reviews

[Yuna · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5*
Hard to rate, because I thought this was good in ways and a bit dull in others. Liked the examples and how they were used to express points and show Tsai's approach or aim in how practical egalitarianism has been/can/should be used. Thought it wandered a bit in aim and lost my attention at times.

[Edward Sullivan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tsai eloquently explains that overcoming injustices and achieving inequality is a long, arduous road full of pitfalls and promise. Accessible, provocative, and revealing.

[Claire Binkley · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was paranoid I would need a renewal but I decided against it tonight. It had been difficult for me to contemplate, not for legal reasons, but for inter-racial marital reasons, which Robert Tsai described within this text with examples. The rationale I'm using is that I really don't want to explain why not or what's going on with me. I was just reading about privacy on the Internet with the last book I reviewed: Computer Privacy Annoyances.
I'm about to get to sleep anyway. It's 2300 in my time zone, ahh... I know it's -5 GMT, so it must be 6 PM over in the UK. OK - I'm done being an international sleuth - time to go to bed!

Meanwhile, I was also having an interesting time envisaging the concept of equality as Robert Tsai depicts it, in a pragmatic way, but, you see, the past is the past, and... um...
It hurt enough that I wasn't really enthused enough to delve into the nooks and crannies of justice theory, which I explored in depth at the university late at night. As in, the class went until 11. Ugh. Then I had to drive home.
This IS fascinating stuff though so you might want to read it even if you feel driven apart!
It's just I had some other problems with the text personally so I didn't give it a 4- or 5-star review.

[K · Rating 4 out of 5]

I probably need to read this one more time. There is a lot of information here. It was a great review for my con law class. But more importantly it gave hope and showed all the ways equality can be created in spite of the wave of white supremacy trying to wash it all away.

Having written this before January 6th, 2021, I would love to hear his thoughts about speech, democracy, and white supremacy now. I felt that chapter was a bit naive in light of January 6th.

Most importantly, it helped to have a background in law but anyone can read and understand the content on this book. If you are looking to understand the Constitution a little bit better, this is a good choice.

[Ryan · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 rounded up. The author makes a compelling argument for egalitarianism in a number of different legal situations, but I have to admit that he does get a bit repetitive at times. I understand that this may be unavoidable because of the nature of the book, but I found myself alternatively unable to put it down at times, and wanting to skip pages in others.

The book is simultaneously idealistic and realistic. Tsai reminds us that Justice is not a competition, and that it is not a “scarce resource “. Therefore we have to treat each other with dignity, even in these polarizing times.

[Julie Bergley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Oh my. This book takes a deep look at our judicial system and the difficulties that can extend from taking matters of justice before it. It gives several strategies for achieving even a modicum of equality on a number of different topics without potentially getting a bad verdict that could make things worse (which is always a possibility). I found it fascinating if a little sad.

[Carrotcakie]

read/skimmed through for seminar - can revisit