How are rights conceived in the United States?

“When Americans talk about rights, we think in absolutist terms: my right prohibits or preempts your action. But as Jamal Greene observes in this deftly argued book, that notion betrays how our rights were originally conceived.

Why is our obsession with rights is wrong?

An eminent constitutional scholar reveals how our approach to rights is dividing America, and shows how we can build a better system of justice. You have the right to remain silent—and the right to free speech. The right to worship, and to doubt. The right to be free from discrimination, and to hate. The right to life, and the right to own a gun.

Who is Jamal Greene and how did rights went wrong?

In this paradigm-shifting account, Greene forces readers to rethink the relationship between constitutional law and political dysfunction and shows how we can recover America’s original vision of rights, while updating them to confront the challenges of the twenty-first century. JAMAL GREENE is Dwight Professor of Law at Columbia Law School.

Why are rights so important to the United States?

The right to be free from discrimination, and to hate. The right to life, and the right to own a gun. Rights are a sacred part of American identity. Yet they also are the source of some of our greatest divisions.

“When Americans talk about rights, we think in absolutist terms: my right prohibits or preempts your action. But as Jamal Greene observes in this deftly argued book, that notion betrays how our rights were originally conceived.

An eminent constitutional scholar reveals how our approach to rights is dividing America, and shows how we can build a better system of justice. You have the right to remain silent—and the right to free speech. The right to worship, and to doubt. The right to be free from discrimination, and to hate. The right to life, and the right to own a gun.

In this paradigm-shifting account, Greene forces readers to rethink the relationship between constitutional law and political dysfunction and shows how we can recover America’s original vision of rights, while updating them to confront the challenges of the twenty-first century. JAMAL GREENE is Dwight Professor of Law at Columbia Law School.

The right to be free from discrimination, and to hate. The right to life, and the right to own a gun. Rights are a sacred part of American identity. Yet they also are the source of some of our greatest divisions.