When Is Inequality a Problem?

Abstract

The authors argue that since social activists are often busier establishing the unfairness of inequalities than establishing the mere existence of those inequalities, a constructionist sociology of inequality ought to build upon the scholarship on “victim claiming” and “injustice framing.” To illustrate, they present the case of the Office of Gay, Lesbian, and Bisexual Student Support Services at Indiana University—a local controversy in Bloomington, Indiana, in 1994 that was also part of the national debate over gay and lesbian rights. The central issue in the case was whether treating gays differently from heterosexuals was justified, often framed as comparable to discrimination against blacks. Among other things, the authors conclude that the discourse of black civil rights has spawned a broader cultural discourse for inequalities that are also unjust, and hence, it has become central to debates about the meaning of inequality, particularly in the United States.