 In contemporary public discourse, the term ’civil rights’ is typically used to refer to a range of rights narrower than the full set of claims belonging to free and equal citizens. This usage reflects the now standard idea of civil rights as the rights that members of society have against discrimination on the basis of race, sex, ethnicity, disability, sexual preference, and other characteristics regarded as morally objectionable reasons for the distribution of major social benefits and burdens. Discrimination, in turn, is understood as encompassing those actions, policies and practices that (wrongfully) disadvantage the members of certain socially salient groups, on account of their group identity, relative to other members of society (cf. Lippert- Rasmussen 2014). 