Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2015
Abstract
One of the most controversial aspect of the Supreme Court's decisions in Citizens United and Hobby Lobby is its treatment of corporate personhood. Many members of the public object to the notion that corporations should have the same rights as human beings. Yet many scholars claim that this concern is misplaced. In this article I argue that concern about corporate personhood is not misplaced because the personhood metaphor conceals the degree to which there has not been an adequate justification given for extending fundamental rights to corporations. Focusing on personhood allows us to push on the metaphor to ask whether it is appropriate to extend the analogy to antidiscrimination. I argue that it is not because treating distinctions between human beings and corporations or between different types of corporations, as if it entailed invidious discrimination casts a constitutional shadow on a great deal of law previously thought well settled.
Recommended Citation
30 Constitutional Commentary 361 (2015).