A Right to Discriminate?: How the Case of Boy Scouts of America v. James Dale Warped the Law of Free Association

Should the Boy Scouts of America and other noncommercial associations have a right to discriminate when selecting their members?

Does the state have a legitimate interest in regulating the membership practices of private associations? These questions-- raised by Boy Scouts of America v. Dale, in which the Supreme Court ruled that the Scouts had a right to expel gay members-- are at the core of this provocative book, an in-depth exploration of the tension between freedom of association and antidiscrimination law.

The book demonstrates that the “right” to discriminate has a long and unpleasant history. Andrew Koppelman and Tobias Wolff bring together legal history, constitutional theory, and political philosophy to analyze how the law ought to deal with discriminatory private organizations.