ABSTRACT
This Essay puts the popular idea of collective action together with the law of complaint to tell a cautionary tale. Calls for collective action in modern progressive circles tend to promote a vision of collective as group-based activity, of people physically, intellectually, and emotionally working together. As captivating as this vision is, it misses that individuals can act for collective good even when they are not acting through group-based action. The Essay unpacks the problem of individualizing complaint in antidiscrimination law as having two aspects: one of isolating individuals from each other and the other of atomizing individuals’ stories, pressing individuals into telling narrow stories about discrimination and thereby to seek narrow solutions. Collective action understood as working together focuses attention on the isolating without adequately attending to the atomizing. Additionally, overemphasis on collective as group-based activity risks disempowering individuals who seek to raise questions about systemic practices and who seek to effect more systemic institutional change. The Essay maps a project of resituating collective on broader footing, facilitating individual efforts to act for groups even if they do not necessarily act in groups.
Green, Tristin K, Collective Complaint (September 12, 2024), Loyola Law School, Los Angeles Legal Studies Research Paper No 2024-18. Forthcoming in American Journal of Law and Equality, volume 4 (2024).
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