Rights, Equality, and the Ethics of School Policy

ABSTRACT

I argue in this paper that questions concerning educational policy do not usually require a uniform answer throughout a society. Where uniformity is not required, and where a plurality of opinions about policy exists, the effect of uniform policy is to prohibit some people from having what they want. When this is justified on majority grounds, a minority can be prevented from having what it wants because a majority disapproves of its desires. This can violate the equal rights of minority members and turn policy into a tool for enforcing partisan views of the best way to live. Ronald Dworkin's theory of rights is drawn on to support this view.

Dworkin argues that any policy which grants greater concern or respect to some citizens than others violates the rights of individuals to be treated as equals. To prevent some people from living as they wish because others disapprove, when it is possible for all to live as they wish without interfering with others, fails to treat all citizens equally. Uniform educational policies can constitute such failures. Since government is unable to distinguish the worth of the lives of its various citizens, policies which impose uniform schooling practices on persons who do not want them involve an illegitimate devaluation by government of the worth of the lives of some citizens.