The author contrasts two punishment logics: one that scales only with the wrongness of the act, and another that adjusts sanctions by the actor’s identity or role. He argues institutions increasingly use the latter via 'safety' rationales, leading to double standards and eroding impartiality.
— This reframes campus, conference, and corporate discipline as a due‑process problem—judging acts vs judging identities—rather than a culture‑war skirmish.
2025.10.10
83% relevant
The article claims Judge Deborah Boardman cited Nicholas Roske’s mental health and transgender status in imposing an eight-year sentence, arguing this 'identity-based indulgence' undermines equal application of the law and weakens deterrence for political violence—an instance of identity‑weighted sanctioning.
PW Daily
2025.09.08
80% relevant
A proposed DOJ ban on gun ownership tied to a person’s gender identity is a quintessential identity-based rule rather than an act-based standard, mirroring the article’s warning about asymmetric, identity-weighted sanctioning that erodes impartiality.
Alan Schmidt
2025.09.05
67% relevant
The article highlights a city that stays peaceful only by placing shock collars on 'predators'—a species‑identity rule that differentially restrains one group. This mirrors debates over identity‑based standards and whether safety rationales justify asymmetric enforcement.
Yascha Mounk
2025.08.27
72% relevant
His critique of analyzing behavior 'asymmetrically' for different groups and institutions aligns with the concern that standards and sanctions are applied based on identity rather than acts.
Lily Isaacs
2025.08.25
80% relevant
The article argues that trauma narratives increasingly absolve culpability ('own truth' reframing mens rea), paralleling the idea that sanctions are being adjusted by identity/context rather than the act alone; the Menendez case is presented as moving toward leniency based on a trauma frame.
Christopher F. Rufo
2025.08.20
80% relevant
Rufo documents Doreen St. Felix’s anti‑white posts and argues the New Yorker’s antiracist posture effectively carves out tolerance for bigotry when aimed at whites/Jews, echoing the idea that institutions are shifting from act‑based to identity‑weighted standards.
Rob Kurzban
2025.07.23
100% relevant
Kurzban’s two illustrative graphs and his example of Sam Harris praising Trump’s Iran strike on its merits despite disliking Trump.
Rob Kurzban
2025.07.09
65% relevant
Kurzban’s 'boosting' is the positive mirror of identity-weighted punishment: social and institutional judgments modulate not only sanctions but also praise based on who performs the act (e.g., women running marathons in 1967, disabled children scoring goals), which can shift standards of evaluation toward identity-coded boundary crossing.
Eric Kaufmann
2025.05.12
70% relevant
Kaufmann’s claim that woke treats marginalized groups as sacred and casts 'blasphemers' out of society (debanking, unfriending, piling on) mirrors the idea that institutions increasingly punish based on the actor’s identity and offense against protected totems rather than the act alone.