Echoing sentiments that have been hinted at by MSNBC’s Melissa Harris Perry and The View’s Whoopi Goldberg, a professor of law and sociology at the USC Gould School of Law today argues that Rachel Dolezal has a “right to be black.” Here’s her conclusion:

Dolezal’s case forces us to examine our society, which made her feel that passing for a black woman was her best choice in her advocacy for African American issues. She forces us to consider whether our biology or our action is more important to identity, and should we act in ways that honor our chosen identity in meaningful ways. We should not have to be slaves to the biological definition of identity, and we should not use race or gender identities as weapons to punish one another.

Fair enough. But I would be interested to see a follow-up piece in which the author, Camille Gear Rich, grapples with what the likely practical consequences of such a shift should be. “I will not indict [Dolezal] for her choice to link herself to this community,” Rich writes, “and I would consider her claim no greater if she identified a long lost African ancestor.” Okay. But one has to ask where the limits are here. In a vacuum, it is no skin off my nose how Dolezal chooses to behave in private. If she wishes to tell people she’s black, that’s her prerogative. If she genuinely believes that she is black, that’s her prerogative. Hell, if she wishes to lie brazenly about her past, that’s her prerogative. But we do not live entirely in a vacuum, under laws that draw no distinctions between people. Rather, for better or for worse, we have set up a whole host of institutions, programs, and conventions that were explicitly intended to help those have been historically victimized by the state and by the majority. It is all very well for Camille Rich to suggest in theory that Dolezal should be able to “link herself to this community” regardless of her ancestry. But one has to inquire what that would mean in practice. Slowly but surely, transgender groups are convincing state governments to recognize the altered state of those who have transitioned — to the extent that even birth certificates are being amended post-hoc. Will the state be expected to treat Rachel Dolezal in a similar manner?

If so, questions abound. Should those who behave like Dolezal be eligible for affirmative action programs that have been established in order to help right historical wrongs? If not, why not? Should those of her persuasion be entitled to scholarships that are set up explicitly for minority students? If not, why not? Were she to find herself as a plaintiff, should she be regarded as part of a “suspect class” by the United States Supreme Court? Should she be eligible for any reparations that might, in the future, be coming? If not, why not? Dolezal claims to be Native American, too. Should she be subject to the legal exceptions that have been carved out for that group? If the answer to any of these questions is “No,” can it honestly be said with a straight face — as Rich specifically does — that Dolezal’s claim to her identity would be “no greater if she identified a long lost . . . ancestor”?

In a country in which to tick one’s race off on a government form is often to prompt practical and meaningful consequences, can we really have a system in which one can elect to choose that race on the basis of one’s feelings? I rather think not. It is absolutely fine for race to be treated as social construct, so that if you think you’re black, you present yourself as black, and you are treated as black, you’re black. It is not fine, however, to completely ignore the implications of this shift. At the very least, it would be nice to see those who are proposing the change acknowledge that, if they get their way, our institutions are going to have to play catch-up — and not always in a direction that they will enjoy.