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<p>This dissertation, “The Privatization of Protection: The Neoliberal Fourteenth
Amendment” examines how the importation of private law and free market frameworks
into public law have reshaped the Supreme Court’s understanding of equality and due
process in areas as diverse as international arbitration, access to abortion, and
affirmative action. My research draws on both legal and critical theory methods, reading
studies of political economy alongside analysis of doctrinal and historical sources,
to explore how the rhetoric of the market transforms and limits the ways we imagine
our society and the role of government in it. This dissertation traces how the embrace
of the models of efficiency, choice, and human capital by both liberal and conservative
justices alike has eroded the law’s protective role. Equal protection and due process
have been redefined according to the needs, logics, and limits of the market with
consequences disproportionately borne by the poor and working class.</p>
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