Rigid equal treatment suppresses clients’ willingness to assert need.

Evidence

Second, routines provide a legitimate excuse for not dealing flexibly, since fairness in a limited sense demands equal treatment. Unresponsiveness and inflexibility reinforce common beliefs already present that bureaucracy is part of the problem rather than the solution, and they further reduce clients’ claims for service or assertions of need. — Michael Lipsky, Street-Level Bureaucracy, 739

Categorization

• DEFINE: Clarifies ‘fairness in a limited sense’ as a legitimacy shield for inflexibility.
• XREF: connects to: Clients must feel represented or they withhold facts and act destructively; Equal-treatment norms structurally generate unequal treatment in street-level bureaucracies. — Michael Lipsky, Street-Level Bureaucracy: Dilemmas of…, 1114

Broader Connections

• Clients must feel represented or they withhold facts and act destructively #corroborates (0.75)
• Equal-treatment norms structurally generate unequal treatment in street-level bureaucracies. #expands (0.70) — Michael Lipsky, Street-Level Bureaucracy, 1114