When Minorities are 99%. The Lost Currency of Anti-Discrimination Law. Insights from Europe

NICCOLAI, SILVIA

2015-01-01

---

Abstract

By discussing two components of the ‘universalistic and dignitarian turn’ that anti-discrimination law is facing both in the Us and in Europe, this paper suggests that what is making traditional anti-discrimination old and no longer in tune with contemporary needs and ways of thinking is its paternalistic, though progressive, aim, reflected in its utilitarian, instrumental and skeptical matrix. This has made anti-discrimination, up to now, capable of seeing minorities as problem-bearers or as interest-bearers, but incapable of seeing them as equal participants in the research of just, fair, and changeable settlements of the values of living together.