New Article: Danieli Evans, The Violence of Ostracism, SSRN Aug. 2023. Abstract below:
Belonging is a fundamental need, like food or water. In recent decades, hundreds of studies have shown that ostracism (being excluded, rejected, or ignored) inflicts severe pain and suffering. It threatens basic needs, triggers the same neurocognitive processing system as physical pain, and impairs functioning.
Drawing from this research, I argue that ostracism is a form of violence that the state has a duty to protect people from. The state has a well-recognized duty to protect people from physical violence because it hampers a person’s security, wellbeing, functioning, freedom, and opportunity. The same goes for ostracism. I describe how major social policies (in housing, education, employment, and the carceral system) embrace and use ostracism, oftentimes as a means of control, regulation, and enforcing social hierarchy. These ostracizing policies may create self-reinforcing cycles of deviant labeling and exclusion. Existing discrimination law allows many ostracizing policies because ostracism oftentimes does not fall within the law’s definition of discrimination. Thus, powerful groups use ostracism to injure, control, and subordinate the less powerful.
If we understand that ostracism is violence, and that exclusion from basic social institutions (decent housing, education, and employment) is ostracism, it follows that protecting people from violence requires making these institutions inclusive and welcoming to all. I explore the policy reforms that would follow from this understanding. This discussion also exposes deficits in relevant constitutional jurisprudence, including decisions this past term in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard1 and 303 Creative v. Elenis.2 Finally, I consider several arguments in defense of ostracism, including that it is protected by the First Amendment and that it serves several important social values.
Poverty Law 