Where is equal protection clause

The governing body state must treat an individual in the same manner as others in similar conditions and circumstances. Before proceeding, it is important to remember that a government is allowed to discriminate against individuals, as long as the discrimination satisfies the equal protection analysis outlined below, and described in full detail in this Santa Clara Law Review article. Equal protection forces a state to govern impartially—not draw distinctions between individuals solely on differences that are irrelevant to a legitimate governmental objective.

Thus, the equal protection clause is crucial to the protection of civil rights. When an individual believes that either the federal government or a state government has violated that individual's guaranteed equal rights, that individual is able to bring a lawsuit against that governmental body for relief. The Traditional Standard: Restrained Review.

The Constitution does not require things which are different in fact or opinion to be treated in law as though they were the same. How then is the line between permissible and invidious classification to be determined? In Lindsley v. Natural Carbonic Gas Co. The equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment does not take from the State the power to classify in the adoption of police laws, but admits of the exercise of a wide scope of discretion in that regard, and avoids what is done only when it is without any reasonable basis and therefore is purely arbitrary.

A classification having some reasonable basis does not offend against that clause merely because it is not made with mathematical nicety or because in practice it results in some inequality. When the classification in such a law is called in question, if any state of facts reasonably can be conceived that would sustain it, the existence of that state of facts at the time the law was enacted must be assumed.

One who assails the classification in such a law must carry the burden of showing that it does not rest upon any reasonable basis, but is essentially arbitrary.

But, contemporaneously with this test, the Court also pronounced another lenient standard which did leave to the courts a judgmental role. Royster Guano Co. But then, coincident with the demise of substantive due process in the area of economic regulation, the Court reverted to the former standard, deferring to the legislative judgment on questions of economics and related matters; even when an impermissible purpose could have been attributed to the classifiers it was usually possible to conceive of a reason that would justify the classification.

It has upheld economic classifications that suggested impermissible intention to discriminate, reciting at length the Lindsley standard, complete with the conceiving-of-a-basis and the onestepatatime rationale, and it has applied this relaxed standard to social welfare regulations. Finally, purportedly applying the rational basis test, the Court has invalidated some classifications in the areas traditionally most subject to total deference.

Attempts to develop a consistent principle have so far been unsuccessful. In Railroad Retirement Board v. But, shortly, in Schweiker v. Wilson , in an opinion written by a different Justice, the Court sustained another classification, using the Royster Guano standard to evaluate whether the classification bore a substantial relationship to the goal actually chosen and articulated by Congress.

In short, it is uncertain which formulation of the rational basis standard the Court will adhere to. The recent decisions voiding classifications have not clearly set out which standard they have been using. The New Standards: Active Review. First in the line of cases dealing with this issue is Korematsu v. Toward the end of the Warren Court, there emerged a trend to treat classifications on the basis of nationality or alienage as suspect, to accord sex classifications a somewhat heightened traditional review while hinting that a higher standard might be appropriate if such classifications passed lenient review, and to pass on statutory and administrative treatments of illegitimates inconsistently.

However, in a major evaluation of equal protection analysis early in this period, the Court reaffirmed a two-tier approach, determining that where the interests involved that did not occasion strict scrutiny, the Court would decide the case on minimum rationality standards. Rodriguez , decisively rejected the contention that a de facto wealth classification, with an adverse impact on the poor, was either a suspect classification or merited some scrutiny other than the traditional basis, a holding that has several times been strongly reaffirmed by the Court.

Without extended consideration of the issue of standards, the Court more recently adopted an intermediate level of scrutiny, perhaps one encompassing several degrees of intermediate scrutiny. The Court has so far resisted further expansion of classifications that must be justified by a standard more stringent than rational basis. For example, the Court has held that age classifications are neither suspect nor entitled to intermediate scrutiny. The other phase of active review of classifications holds that when certain fundamental liberties and interests are involved, government classifications which adversely affect them must be justified by a showing of a compelling interest necessitating the classification and by a showing that the distinctions are required to further the governmental purpose.

The effect of applying the test, as in the other branch of active review, is to deny to legislative judgments the deference usually accorded them and to dispense with the general presumption of constitutionality usually given state classifications. Oklahoma ex rel. In Rodriguez , the Court also sought to rationalize and restrict this branch of active review, as that case involved both a claim that de facto wealth classifications should be suspect and a claim that education was a fundamental interest, so that providing less of it to people because they were poor triggered a compelling state interest standard.

The Court readily agreed that education was an important value in our society. The difficulty was that Court decisions on the right to vote, the right to travel, the right to procreate, as well as other rights, premise the constitutional violation to be of the Equal Protection Clause, which does not itself guarantee the right but prevents the differential governmental treatment of those attempting to exercise the right.

Doe , the complete denial of education to the children of illegal aliens was found subject to intermediate scrutiny and invalidated. An open question after Obergefell v. Hodges , the case finding the right to same-sex marriage is protected by the Constitution, is the extent to which the Court is reconceptualizing equal protection analysis.

A classification made expressly upon the basis of race triggers strict scrutiny and ordinarily results in its invalidation; similarly, a classification that facially makes a distinction on the basis of sex, or alienage, or illegitimacy triggers the level of scrutiny appropriate to it. A classification that is ostensibly neutral but is an obvious pretext for racial discrimination or for discrimination on some other forbidden basis is subject to heightened scrutiny and ordinarily invalidation.

In Washington v. Davis , the Court held that is necessary that one claiming harm based on the disparate or disproportionate impact of a facially neutral law prove intent or motive to discriminate. It is also not infrequently true that the discriminatory impact. The application of Davis in the following Terms led to both elucidation and not a little confusion. Looking to a challenged zoning decision of a local board that had a harsher impact upon blacks and low-income persons than upon others, the Court in Village of Arlington Heights v.

Metropolitan Housing Dev. The specific sequence of events may shed light on purpose, as would departures from normal procedural sequences or from substantive considerations usually relied on in the past to guide official actions.

Strengthening of the intent standard was evidenced in a decision sustaining against a sex discrimination challenge a state law giving an absolute preference in civil service hiring to veterans. Veterans who obtain at least a passing grade on the relevant examination may exercise the preference at any time and as many times as they wish and are ranked ahead of all non-veterans, no matter what their score.

The lower court observed that the statutory and administrative exclusion of women from the armed forces until the recent past meant that virtually all women were excluded from state civil service positions and held that results so clearly foreseen could not be said to be unintended. Reversing, the Supreme Court found that the veterans preference law was not overtly or covertly gender-based; too many men are non-veterans to permit such a conclusion, and some women are veterans.

That the preference implicitly incorporated past official discrimination against women was held not to detract from the fact that rewarding veterans for their service to their country was a legitimate public purpose.

Acknowledging that the consequences of the preference were foreseeable, the Court pronounced this fact insufficient to make the requisite showing of intent. It implies that the decisionmaker. Moreover, in City of Mobile v.

Bolden a plurality of the Court apparently attempted to do away with the totality of circumstances test and to separately evaluate each of the factors offered to show a discriminatory intent.

At issue was the constitutionality of the use of multi-member electoral districts to select the city commission. A prior decision had invalidated a multi-member districting system as discriminatory against blacks and Hispanics by listing and weighing a series of factors which in totality showed invidious discrimination, but the Court did not consider whether its ruling was premised on discriminatory purpose or adverse impact.

Davis cases than of the more recent decisions. Rogers v. Lodge was also a multimember electoral district case brought under the Equal Protection Clause and the Fifteenth Amendment.

The fact that the system operated to cancel out or dilute black voting strength, standing alone, was insufficient to condemn it; discriminatory intent in creating or maintaining the system was necessary.

But direct proof of such intent is not required. The Court in a jury discrimination case also seemed to allow what it had said in Davis and Arlington Heights it would not permit. Several factors probably account for the difference.

First, the Court has long recognized that discrimination in jury selection can be inferred from less of a disproportion than is needed to show other discriminations, in major part because if jury selection is truly random any substantial disproportion reveals the presence of an impermissible factor, whereas most official decisions are not random.

There are, of course, numerous federal statutes that prohibit discrimination by private parties. See , e. See Katzenbach v. McClung, U. United States, U. Kraemer, U. Individual invasion of individual rights is not the subject-matter of the amendment. It has a deeper and broader scope. It nullifies and makes void all State legislation, and State action of every kind, which impairs the privileges and immunities of citizens of the United States, or which injures them in life, liberty or property without due process of law, or which denies to any of them the equal protection of the laws.

Several other constitutional rights are similarly limited—the Fifteenth Amendment racial discrimination in voting , the Nineteenth Amendment sex discrimination in voting and the Twenty-sixth Amendment voting rights for year olds —although the Thirteenth Amendment, banning slavery and involuntary servitude, is not.

See CBS v. Metropolitan Edison Co. Brooks, U. Kohn, U. Edmondson Oil Co. Yaretsky, U. Raines, U. A prime example is the statutory requirement of racially segregated schools condemned in Brown v.

Board of Education, U. See also Peterson v. City of Greenville, U. It can act in no other way. The constitutional provision, therefore, must mean that no agency of the State, or of the officers or agents by whom its powers are exerted, shall deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. Adams, U. Wilmington Parking Auth. This liberty would be overridden in the name of equality, if the structures of the amendment were applied to governmental and private action without distinction.

Also inherent in the concept of state action are values of federalism, a recognition that there are areas of private rights upon which federal power should not lay a heavy hand and which should properly be left to the more precise instruments of local authority. Seattle School Dist. Los Angeles Bd. Denver School District, U. See also Columbus Bd. Penick, U. The continuing validity of the Keyes shifting-of-the-burden principle, after Washington v. Davis, U.

Brinkman, U. Bradley, U. Similarly, the acts of a state governor are state actions, Cooper v. Aaron, U. Constantin, U. Holohan, U. Classic, U. Griffin v. Maryland, U. Pape, U. United States v. Price, U. See also Screws v. See also United States v.

Bennett, U. Adickes v. Louisiana, U. No statute or ordinance mandated segregation at lunch counters but both the mayor and the chief of police had recently issued statements announcing their intention to maintain the existing policy of separation.

Thus, the conviction of African-Americans for trespass because they refused to leave a segregated lunch counter was voided. Guard at private entertainment ground was also deputy sheriff; he could not execute the racially discriminatory policies of his private employer. See also Williams v. Florida, U. Rather, these are cases in which the States have made available to such individuals the full coercive power of government to deny to petitioners, on the grounds of race or color, the enjoyment of property rights in premises which petitioners are willing and financially able to acquire and which the grantors are willing to sell.

In Hurd v. Hodge, U. Barrows v. Jackson, U. Cutter Laboratories, U. Individual Justices did elaborate, however. Compare Bell v. Sullivan, U. See id. Claiborne Hardware Co. The matter had previously been before the Court in Evans v.

Newton, U. Note the use of the same rationale in another context in Palmer v. Thompson, U. Board of Trustees, U. But see City of Cuyahoga Falls v.

Buckeye Community Hope Foundation, U. In Lee v. Nyquist, F. The federal court held the law void, relying on Mulkey to conclude that the statute encouraged racial discrimination and that by treating educational matters involving racial criteria differently than it treated other educational matters it made more difficult a resolution of the de facto segregation problem.

A five-to-four majority in Seattle found the fault to be a racially based structuring of the political process making it more difficult to undertake actions designed to improve racial conditions than to undertake any other educational action. An 8-to-1 majority in Crawford found that repeal of a measure to bus to undo de facto segregation, without imposing any barrier to other remedial devices, was permissible.

See also Dayton Bd. Wilmington Parking Authority, U. Allwright, U. On remand, the state courts substituted private persons as trustees to carry out the will. In re Girard College Trusteeship, Pa. This expedient was, however, ultimately held unconstitutional. Brown v. Pennsylvania, F.

Justices Black, Harlan, and Stewart dissented. For the subsequent ruling in this case, see Evans v. Abney, U. But the text of the Clause is worded very broadly and it has come a long way from its original purpose. Near the end of the nineteenth century, the Court considered whether racial segregation by the government violated the Constitution.

If people were separated into different facilities by race, but those facilities were purportedly equally suitable, did that constitute discrimination? Historians have debated whether the Fourteenth Amendment was intended to end such segregation, but in Plessy v. The decision cemented into place racist Jim Crow-era laws. Board of Education. The Supreme Court unanimously overruled the reasoning of Plessy and held that separate schools for blacks and whites violated the Equal Protection Clause.

Brown was a decisive turning point in a decades-long struggle to dismantle governmentally imposed segregation, not only in schools but throughout American society. Brown was a turning point, but it was not the end of the struggle. For example, it was not until in Loving v. Virginia that the Supreme Court held that laws prohibiting interracial marriages violated Equal Protection. Although the original purpose was to protect blacks from discrimination, the broad wording has led the Supreme Court to hold that all racial discrimination including against whites, Hispanics, Asians, and Native Americans is constitutionally suspect.

These holdings have led to an ongoing debate for the last several decades over whether it is unconstitutional for governments to consider the race of blacks, Hispanics, and Native Americans as a positive factor in university admissions, employment, and government contracting. We will address this question in our separate statements. The Supreme Court has also used the Equal Protection Clause to prohibit discrimination on other bases besides race.

In light of the history of the Equal Protection Clause, it is no surprise that race and national origin are suspect classifications. But the Court has also held that gender, immigration status, and wedlock status at birth qualify as suspect classifications. The Court has rejected arguments that age and poverty should be elevated to suspect classifications. One of the greatest controversies regarding the Equal Protection Clause today is whether the Court should find that sexual orientation is a suspect classification.

In its recent same-sex marriage opinion, Obergefell v. Hodges , the Court suggested that discrimination against gays and lesbians can violate the Equal Protection Clause. But the Court did not decide what level of scrutiny should apply, leaving this question for another day. Racial preference programs give a leg up to blacks, Hispanics, and Native Americans in college admissions, employment, and winning government contracts.

They have been constitutionally contentious ever since they began in the s, and many people believe that the Supreme Court is poised to end these programs in the near future. Although well-intended to atone for past racial discrimination and to spread opportunity more equally throughout society, many people believe that preference programs are morally questionable, have bred racial tensions, and stigmatize the people they are intended to help.

Indeed, new empirical arguments are the reason why many people believe racial preference programs may not survive court challenges for much longer. First, some people believe that the individuals who take opportunities on account of racial preferences are actually wealthier than those who are displaced. This has undermined the notion that racial preferences spread opportunity more equally throughout society.