Brent has a Ph.D. in American culture, specializing in film studies, from the University of Michigan. She is a freelance writer and teaches courses in the history of American cinema. In the following essay, Brent discusses the principle of equality of opportunity in Rawls's theory of justice as fairness.

A central concern for Rawls is the problem of how to regulate equality of opportunity, given that the potential for any person to succeed in life is in part determined by their inborn, innate talents and abilities, and in part by the social, material, and psychological conditions under which they are raised as children.

Rawls's second principle of justice of fairness states that:

Social and economic inequalities are to be arranged so that they are both (a) reasonably expected to be to everyone's advantage, and (b) attached to positions and offices open to all.

In other words...