legal equality
Same rules apply
Legal equality is the principle that all persons are entitled to the same rights, protections, and treatment under the law, regardless of race, sex, wealth, or social status.
The concept doesn't require identical outcomes but demands that laws apply uniformly: The Constitution guarantees legal equality, but achieving it in practice remains contested.
Distinguished from social or economic equality.
- Title VIIEmployment discrimination prohibition statute
- voting rightsEntitlement to elect officials
- equityImpartial treatment or ownership value
- citizenshipStatus as state member
- fairnessJust and equal treatment
impartiality · blind justice · protected class · freedom of speech · fundamental rights · Fourteenth Amendment · democracy · non-discrimination · disparate impact · affirmative action · same sex marriage · level playing field · fair trial · due process · intersectionality · accessibility · civil rights · civil liberties
- justicecourtroom, trials, retributive justice, courts, gavel
- human rightshuman dignity, civil liberties, right to liberty, right to life, fundamental rights
- legal systemsconstitutional law, judiciary, criminal code, court system, penal code
- defendant rightsright to counsel, Miranda rights, Miranda warning, presumption of innocence, right to silence
- enlightenmentVoltaire, Rousseau, Locke, Kant, Montesquieu
- equal rightsequal treatment, equal protection, equal pay, equal opportunity, discrimination law
legal equalitydiscrimination
Unjust differential treatment
privilege · legal discrimination · unequal treatment · exemption · favoritism
legal equalitysubjugation
Forcing into submission
apartheid · Jim Crow · caste system · institutionalized racism · systemic discrimination