At a time when public discourse is so charged, and the label "bigot" carries enormous emotional and psychological weight, Linda McClain helpfully unpacks the legal provenance of this fraught term. Drawing on a diverse range of contexts - from interracial marriage to the present debate over conscience exemptions - McClain considers what it means, as a matter of law and culture, to characterize someone (and their actions) as bigoted. This is required reading for anyone
who wants to understand our polarized society and how we got here.
Linda C. McClain is the Robert Kent Professor at Boston University School of Law. She also teaches in BU's Kilachand Honors College. An internationally known scholar, she has written about marriage, family law, civil rights law, gender equality and law, feminist legal theory, and law and religion. She has held fellowships at the University Center for Human Values, Princeton University, and the Safra Center at Harvard University. Her books include
The Place of Families: Fostering Capacity, Equality, and Responsibility, Ordered Liberty: Rights, Responsibilities, and Virtues (with James E. Fleming), Gender Equality: Dimensions of Women's Equal Citizenship (co-edited with Joanna Grossman and cited in the credits for On the Basis of Sex), and What Is Parenthood?
Contemporary Debates About the Family. A graduate of Oberlin College, she has an M.A. from University of Chicago Divinity School, a J.D. from Georgetown University Law Center, and an LL.M. from NYU School of Law.