Equal Treatment

People have different needs and abilities under different sets of circumstances. Treating them equally often require treating individuals differently. A quick example is found in families where the parents love their teenage son and toddler daughter equally. Yet the rules parents set for them and the chores required of them, if any, would be drastically different. Therefore, equal treatment of people does not require that they receive identical treatment.

The Federal government treats the citizens of the states equally when it comes to natural disaster aid, but not all necessarily receive identical treatments. This past week, hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans hard. Thousands of people have died, lost their homes and all their belongings due to this tragic disaster. New Orleans is in a time of need. The Federal government is providing billions in aid to help the citizens of the affected areas to recover and to rebuild. One estimate goes up to $50 billion dollars. This amount dwarfs the meager three billion dollars that California received after the Loma Prieta earthquake in 1989. However, California is not complaining about the difference in treatments. On the contrary, Californians are opening up their homes to some Katrina victims and provide long-term shelter for them. The circumstances and needs are different. The Federal government treats the citizens of all states equally in providing disaster relief. Yet they not all necessarily receive equal treatment as reflected by the Federal aids received by the affected areas after Katrina and the Loma Prieta quake.

Secondly, not only does treatment of equality depend on the circumstances, but it also depends on the ability of the individual. Some students may need more guidance from teachers than others because of the differences of their intelligence levels. For instance, in school, a teacher treats all students equally. However, if a student requires more help on a particular subject, he is encouraged to seek help from the teacher. The teacher will spend extra and one-on-one time to help the student. This action is not considered to be unfair to the other students. All the students in the class continue to be treated equally by the teacher. Yet because there is a difference in peoples' abilities, different amounts of time and dedication on the part of the teacher are spent.

Lastly, the amount of treatment someone receives depends