Equitable Relief as a Relay between Juridical and Biopower: The Case of School Desegregation

Continental Philosophy Review, Forthcoming

35 Pages Posted: 11 Nov 2015 Last revised: 29 May 2016

See all articles by Gordon Hull

Gordon Hull

University of North Carolina at Charlotte - Department of Philosophy

Date Written: November 10, 2015

Abstract

The present paper looks at the intersection of juridical and biopower in the U.S. Supreme Court’s school desegregation cases. These cases generally deploy “equitable relief” as a relay between the juridicially-specified injury of segregation and the biopolitical mandates of integration. This strategy is evident in the line of cases running from Brown to Swann v. Mecklenburg, and has its antecedents in pre-war economic regulation. Later cases have attempted to close this relay, confining equality and rejecting claims of equitable relief. Study of the school desegregation cases thus both shows an example of the intersection of biopower and law (which has been difficult on Foucauldian grounds), as an example of the biopolitical race war that Foucault identifies in Society must be Defended.

Keywords: Foucault, biopower, juridical power, racism, education, desegregation

Suggested Citation

Hull, Gordon, Equitable Relief as a Relay between Juridical and Biopower: The Case of School Desegregation (November 10, 2015). Continental Philosophy Review, Forthcoming, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2688717 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2688717

Gordon Hull (Contact Author)

University of North Carolina at Charlotte - Department of Philosophy ( email )

9201 University City Blvd.
Charlotte, NC 28223
United States

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