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The American space discriminates against and excludes various social groups. This discrimination, whether on a racial, economic, or religious basis, threatens the social equality promised by the Supreme Court when it rejected the "separate but equal" doctrine in Brown v. Board of Education--the same social equality which is supposedly enshrined in subsequent years of civil rights laws. The persistence, and even expansion, of racial, economic, and religious discrimination in the American space necessitates a re-examination of longestablished legal presumptions and their effects on attaining equality. One of those legal presumptions is that separation between social groups is inherently discriminatory, making attempts to separate population groups in a given community unconstitutional. However, while segregation within the community is prohibited, nothing prevents separation seekers from achieving separation by altering community boundaries through municipal incorporation. While municipal incorporation may serve essential economic and social needs, it may also become a device for spatial discrimination, as it allows separation seekers to easily bypass long-established segregation bans. Therefore, municipal incorporation may pose a significant challenge to achieving equality in American society. This Article argues that the potential discriminatory use of municipal incorporation requires the assimilation of a mandatory examination of its racial and socioeconomic implications within the incorporation approval processes. Such an examination should consider the justifications and objections for spatial separation, as well as the incorporation's effects on the communities involved, on the autonomy of the communities' members, and on society as a whole. This Article provides a nuanced roadmap that serves to guide the political or judicial entities responsible for approving the incorporation. It also provides an in-depth study implementing the proposed roadmap to two recent municipal incorporation cases: the case of St. George, Louisiana, and the case of Kiryas Joel, New York. The analysis of these cases will illustrate how the proposed roadmap makes it possible to distinguish between incidences where separation is merely a device for otherwise unlawful discrimination and those cases in which separation may contribute to spatial equality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID-19 pandemic did not eliminate existing social tensions; rather, it at times intensified them. Thus, it is unsurprising that the tension between the liberal state and illiberal religious communities likewise intensified, as those communities were late to comply with COVID-19 public health regulations issued by state authorities. This Article suggests that alongside the behavioral and psychological explanations for individual non-compliance, illiberal religious communities' late response to the COVID-19 threats stems out of these communities' unique characteristics and deeply held norms. It provides five explanations supporting this argument and argues that all result from the interventionist liberal-centric policies embraced by most Western states for dealing with illiberal religious communities. Since COVID-19 is not expected to be the last health-related crisis, and as other environmental, economic, or security emergencies may still require social adherence to government regulations, liberal states should rethink their policies toward illiberal religious communities. The ability to harness those communities to comply with life-saving regulations may not only save lives within these communities but also reduce threats to areas and neighborhoods adjacent to those communities. This Article suggests that the isolation and fortification processes that illiberal religious communities engage in may be mitigated if states embrace pluralistic-centric policies regarding illiberal religious communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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This Article argues that individuals who live in highly cooperative common interest communities should, in certain instances, be entitled to additional compensation or other remedies when their property is taken through eminent domain. The exclusive takings remedy of monetary compensation equal to the fair market value of the property cannot always account for loss of communality. This Article offers guidelines for allocation of additional remedies (monetary and in-kind) that recognize such loss. This proposal is grounded in a pluralistic conception of property, which holds that the state should support individuals' use of property as a social instrument to fulfill diverse values and beliefs. To that end, the state should balance several factors to determine whether a member of a community, or a community as a whole, should be entitled to remedies for communal loss: (1) the size and scope of the taking with in the comm unity ; (2) the role, if any, of the community's cooperation in its members ' realization of a shared conception of the good; (3) the community's social legitimacy as determined primarily by its structural openness, that is, its members ' ability to simultaneously belong to other communities; and (4) the community's ability to self-rehabilitate as determined by its political and economic strength. The state should also consider these factors in determining which of several types of remedies for communality loss would be most appropriate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]