The Privatization of Protection: The Neoliberal Fourteenth Amendment

Abstract

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.