What's in a Handshake? Legal Equality and Legal Consciousness in the Netherlands

In this article, I examine how ordinary citizens and legal professionals in The Netherlands understand non-discrimination law, using the theoretical framework of legal consciousness. In 2006, the Dutch Equal Treatment Commission ruled that a school was wrong to suspend a female Muslim teacher who, for religious reasons, refused to shake hands with men. This ruling provoked a wave of controversy. This article examines to what extent these critical reactions were indicative of the overall level of public support for the Dutch Equal Treatment Act. I first provide a brief summary of Dutch non-discrimination law. Next, following recent critiques in the literature, I introduce three modifications to the original legal consciousness framework. People's understandings of legal equality are then examined using data from a large-scale multi-method study, which included an online survey, case-studies and in-depth interviews. Moreover, I provide a brief reconstruction of the handshake case. I argue that the controversy in this case was not an isolated incident, but an important illustration of how non-discrimination law matters — or fails to matter — in The Netherlands.