In matters such as affirmative action or home schooling, rights of ethnic and other minority groups often come into conflict with those of society in a culturally diverse population such as ours. But before considering the dilemmas posed by these issues, we must first ask such basic but important questions as what group rights are and how they intersect with the principles of democracy.

This new collection brings together some of today's leading thinkers from the cutting edge of these debates, taking in a broad range of issues confronting philosophers, sociologists, and political...