Give felons the vote -- but no other rights?

For example, felons are barred in many places from serving as public-school teachers. While that may strike most of us as eminently sensible for certain classes of felons — sex offenders, the habitually violent — it generally covers all felons, including those convicted of nonviolent, non-sexual offenses such as credit fraud and tax evasion. In many cases, it includes felons who have been pardoned. Some public-sector jobs are denied to felons on obvious grounds — working as police officers, for example — but in some jurisdictions felons are categorically excluded from all government employment. Federal rules specifically prohibit felons from holding many government jobs. And many private-sector jobs are off-limits to felons as well. If justice demands that felons be restored all of their fundamental rights, then how can we justify employment discrimination against them? Under what consistent moral principle ought a felon be a full citizen so far as voting is concerned but an untouchable so far as a job as an elementary-school principal is concerned?

Eric Holder has not given any speeches about restoring felons’ rights to work in public schools.

In some (but not all) cases, felons are excluded from certain welfare benefits, with drug offenders being barred from residence in public housing in some jurisdictions. Again, this seems a prudent policy, but one that is inconsistent with the argument that it violates the principles of justice to extend sanctions against felons beyond their formal penal terms.