Steiker Con Law II Quotes
Washington (1976)
"A rule that a statute designed to serve neutral ends is nevertheless invalid, absent compelling justification, if in practice it benefits or burdens one race more than another would be far reaching and would raise serious questions about, and perhaps invalidate, a whole range of tax, welfare, public service, regulatory, and licensing statutes that may be more burdensome to the poor and to the average black than to the more affluent white." Justice White for the majority holding that the Griggs disparate impact standard was not required by the 14th am. A law is not unconstitutional solely because it has a racially disproportionate impact - there must be a discriminatory purpose.
Strauder
(1880) "We do not say that within the limits from which it is not excluded by the amendment a state may not prescribe the qualifications of its jurors, and in so doing make discriminations. It may confine the selection to males, to freeholders, to citizens, to persons within certain ages, or to persons having educational qualifications. We do not believe the 14th Amendment was ever intended to prohibit this. Looking at its history, it is clear that it had no such purpose. Its aim was against discrimination because of race or color." Justice Strong Describing the two tiered approach taken under the equal protection clause, echoed in Slaughterhouse.
Richmond
"At least where a state or local action is at issue, only a social emergency rising to the level of imminent danger to life and limb—for example, a prison race riot, requiring temporary segregation of inmates, can justify an exception to the principle embodied in 14th amendment that "our constitution is colorblind, and neither knows nor tolerates classes among citizens."
Kevin Brown the Philosopher
"At the time of Brown, there were at least still hard labor jobs in which a high school diploma was not really a necessity. Now even factory jobs require a skill. Problems with ru economy and competitiveness cannot be separated from our educational system. This country cannot afford to have a huge segment of our society that is not well educated, well skilled, well trained and productive."
Michael M. (1981)
"Because their chastity was considered particularly precious ... young women were felt to be uniquely in need of the state's protection."
Bell The Philosopher
"Brown, while taking from whites the benefits of segregation referred to by Professor Black, has proved of greater value to whites than blacks. Certainly, it has been a great blessing to whites in policy-making positions able to benefit from the economic and political advances at home and abroad that followed abandonment of apartheid in our national law." Discussing how segregation and the Brown decision benefitted white policy makers by providing immediate credibility to America's struggle with communist countries to win the hearts and minds of emerging Third World peoples. Also offered much needed reassurance to American blacks that the precepts of equality and freedom so heralded during WWII might have meaning at home. Finally, it showed that the south is profitable because it is segregated and could not make the transition from rural plantation society to the sunbelt with all its potential for profit.
Bell the Philosopher
"But poorer whites neither recognized nor profited directly from school desegregation. To the contrary, they relied (as generations before them) on the expectation that white elites would protect the long-held entitlement of lower class whites to a place in the society superior to blacks." White people resented the Brown decision because they felt betrayed by the white class that allowed blacks to compete with them. They lost the entitlement that lower class white people were better simply because they were white.
Bell the philosopher
"But successful magnet schools may be a lesson that effective schools for blacks must precede, rather than come as a result of integration." Believes that integration should be viewed as a hallmark of a well-rounded education rather than a small component. The error in Brown was the amount of time spent creating unitary schools. Maybe the better thing would have been creating the separate buy equal. If there had been an early influx of resources into the separate buy equal. He thinks we should have focused on resources from the beginning.
Nevada v. Hibbs
"Congress may enact so called prophylactic legislation that proscribes facially constitutional conduct, in order to prevent and deter unconstitutional conduct. ... Reliance on such stereotypes cannot justify the States' gender discrimination in this area. For these reasons, we conclude that §2612 is congruent and proportional to its remedial object and can be understood as responsive to and or designed to prevent unconstitutional behavior" Chief Justice Rehnquist explains for the majority that the FMLA entitles both men and women to take up to 12 work weeks of unpaid leave despite stereotypes about women's domestic roles that run parallel stereotypes to presuming a lack of domestic responsibilities for men. Employers may not rely on these stereotypes and deny men FMLA that they would otherwise grant for women.
Feeney
"Discriminatory purpose implies more than intent as volition or intent as awareness of consequences. It implies that the decision maker, in this case a state legislature, selected or reaffirmed a particular course of action at least in part "because of," not merely "in spite of," its adverse effects upon an identifiable group."
Personnel Administrator of Massachusetts v. Feeney (1979)
"Discriminatory purpose" however, implies more tan intent as volition or intent as awareness of consequences. It implies that the decionsmaker, in this case a state legislature, selected or reaffirmed a particular course of action at least in part "because of," not merely "in spite of," its adverse effects upon an unidentifiable group.
Plessy (1896) -
"Everyone knows that the statute in question had its origin in the purpose, not so much to exclude white persons from railroad cars occupied by blacks, as to exclude colored people from coaches occupied by or assigned to white persons." Harlan Dissent
Green v. New Kent County (1968)
"Freedom of choice is not a sacred talisman; it is only a means to a constitutionally required end - the abolition of the system of segregation and its effects. If the means prove effective, it is acceptable but if it fails to undo segregation, other means must be used to achieve this end. The school officials have the continuing duty to take whatever action may ne necessary to create a unitary, non racial system."
Kevin Brown the Philosopher
"Freeman and Dowell make too easy for district courts to dissolve desegregation decrees, enabling the reemergence of the racially identifiable and stigmatizing schools that the decrees were designed to eradicate." The length of judicial interpretation should not be relevant to determining whether discrimination has been eliminated.
Homer Plessy's Brief
"How much would it be worth to a young man entering upon the practice of law, to be regarded as a white man rather than a colored one? Six sevenths of the population are white. Nineteen-twentieths of the property of the country is owned by white people. Ninety-nine hundredths of the business opportunities are in the control of the white people. . . . Probably most white persons if given a choice, would prefer death to life in the United States as colored persons. Under these conditions, is it possible to conclude that the reputation of being white is not property? Indeed, is it not the most valuable sort of property, being the master-key that unlocks the golden door of opportunity?
US v. Fordice
"I agree with the court that a state does not satisfy its obligation to dismantle a dual system of higher education merely by adopting race neutral policies for the future administration of that system ... I write separately to emphasize that this standard is far different from the one adopted to govern the grad-school context in Green. In particular, it does not compel the elimination of all observed racial imbalance, it portends neither the destruction of historically balck colleges nor the severing of those institutions from their traditions."
Adarand (1995)
"I believe that there is a "moral [and] constitutional equivalence," between laws designed to subjugate a race and those that distribute benefits on the basis of race in order to foster some current notion of equality. Government cannot make us equal; it can only recognize, respect, and protect us as equal before the law." & "These programs not only raise grave constitutional questions, they also under- mine the moral basis of the equal protection principle." & "These programs stamp minorities with a badge of inferiority and may cause them to develop dependencies or to adopt an attitude that they are "entitled" to preferences."
Plessy
"In determining the question of reasonableness, it is at liberty to act with reference to the established usages, customs, and traditions of the people.... Gauged by this standard, we cannot say that a law which authorizes or even requires the separation of the two races in public conveyances is unreasonable, or more obnoxious to the 14th amendment than the acts of congress requiring separate schools for colored children in the District of Columbia"
Plessy (1896)
"In determining the question of reasonableness, it is at liberty to act with reference to the established usages, customs, and traditions of the people.... Gauged by this standard, we cannot say that a law which authorizes or even requires the separation of the two races in public conveyances is unreasonable, or more obnoxious to the 14th amendment than the acts of congress requiring separate schools for colored children in the District of Columbia."
Brown II
"In fashioning and effectuating the decrees, the court will be guided by equitable principles. Traditionally, equity has been characterized by a practical flexibility in shaping its remedies and by a facility for adjusting and recconciling public and private needs. These cases call for the exercise of these traditional attributes of equity power. At stake is the personal interest of the plaintiffs in admission to public schools as soon as possible on a nondiscriminatory basis. Courts of equity may properly take into account the public interest in the elimination of such obstacles in a systematic and effective manner."
Brown II
"In fashioning and effectuating the decrees, the court will be guided by equitable principles. Traditionally, equity has been characterized by a practical flexibility in shaping its remedies and by a facility for adjusting and reconciling public and private needs. These cases call for the exercise of these traditional attributes of equity power. At stake is the personal interest of the plaintiffs in admission to public schools as soon as possible on a nondiscriminatory basis. Courts of equity may properly take into account the public interest in the elimination of such obstacles in a systematic and effective manner"
Tushnet the Philosopher
"In my view Justices Black and Douglas offered the most sensible solution: require immediate desegregation, in the sense that every child who applied to attend a desegregated school with room for him or her would have to be admitted, knowing full well that where resistance was strongest, few parents would subject their children to the inevitable ordeal. That way the Court could continue to adhere to its traditional commitment to the present and person l concept would not compromise on fundamental issues of principle, and yet would not really force massive immediate changes in southern practices." Because Brown did not give an immediate remedy, it created a greater intrusion on states that an immediate remedy would have done. It created public law litigation with years of federal court supervision with institutions trying to comply with federal mandate. It does extend just to litigation but to hospitals, prisons, hospitals etc.
Richmond
"In my view there is only one circumstance in which the states may act by race to : "undo the effects of past discrimination" where that it is necessary to eliminate their own maintenance of a system of unlawful racial classification."
Bell the Philosopher
"In the absence of any racial discrimination of a character that shocks the public conscience, the 14th am, standing alone, will not authorize judicial relief profiding an effective remedy for blacks where the remedy sought threatens the superior societal status of meddle and upper class whites." The courts will follow the societal interests of upper class whites in their decisions.
Brown
"In these days, it is doubtful that any child may reasonably be expected to succeed in life if he is denied the opportunity of an education. Such an opportunity , where the state has undertaken to provide it, is a right which must be made available to all on equal terms."
Freeman v. Pitts (1992)
"It is beyond the authority and beyond practical ability of the federal courts to try and counteract these kinds of continuous and massive demographic shifts. To attempt such results would require ongoing and never ending supervision by the courts of school districts simply because they were one de jure segregated. As the de jure violation becomes more remote in time and these demographic changes intervene, it becomes less likely that a current racial imbalance in a school district is a vestige of the prior de jure system. The casual link between current conditions and the prior violation is even more attenuated if the school district has demonstrated good faith."
Strauder v. West Virginia (1880)
"It is to be observed that the question is not whether a colored man, when an indictment has been preferred against him, has a right to a grand or a petit jury composed in whole or in part of persons of his own race or color, but it is whether, in the composition or selection of jurors by whom he is to be indicted or tried, all persons of his race or color may be excluded by law, solely because of their race or color, so that by no possibility can any colored man sit upon the jury...." Here, J. Strong is making the argument that the Fourteenth amendment is one of a series of constitutional provisions having a common purpose of securing to a race recently emancipated all the civil right that the "superior race enjoy."
Strauder (1880)
"It may confine the selection to males, to freeholders, to citizens, to persons within certain ages, or to persons having educational qualifications. We do not believe the Fourteenth Amendment was ever intended to prohibit this. Looking at its history, it is clear it had no such purpose. Its aim was against discrimination because of race or color. As we have said more than once, its design was to protect an emancipated race, and to strike down all possible legal discriminations against those who belong to it..."
Frontiero v. Richardson
"classifications based upon sex, like classifications based upon race, alienage, and national origin, are inherently suspect and must therefore be subjected to close judicial scrutiny."
Missouri v. Jenkins (1995)
"It never ceases to amaze me that the courts are so willing to assume that anything that is predominantly black must be inferior. Instead of focusing on remedying the harm done to those black schoolchildren injured by segregation, the DC here sought to convert the district into a magnet district that would reverse white flight caused by desegregation.
Nguyen v. INS (2001)
"It should be noted, furthermore, that the difference does not result from some stereotype, defined as a frame of mind resulting from irrational or uncritical analysis. There is nothing irrational or improper in the recognition that at the moment of birth—a critical event in the statutory scheme and in the whole tradition of citizenship law—the mothers knowledge of the child and the fact of parenthood have been established in a way not guaranteed in the case of the unwed father. This is not a stereotype."
Loving v Virginia
"Its implicit in our liberty that people be allowed to get married." Marriage does give way to substantive due process."
Swann (1971)
"Judicial powers may be exercised only on the basis of a constitutional violation. Remedial judicial authority does not put judges automatically in the shoes of school authorities whose powers are plenary. School authorities are traditionally charged with broad power to formulate and implement educational policy and might well conclude, for example, that in order to prepare students to live in a pluralistic society each school should have a prescribed ratio of Negro to white students reflection the proportion of the district as a whole. To do this, an educational policy is within the broad discretionary powers of school authorities; absent a finding of a constitutional violation.
Plessy
"Legislation is powerless to eradicate racial instincts, or to abolish distinctions based upon physical differences, and the attempt to do so can only result in accentuating the difficulties of the present situation" ***** Const. cannot give social equality. It can only give civil and political rights.
City of Richmond v. JA Croson Co. (1989)
"More fundamentally, today's decision marks a deliberate and giant step backward in this Court's affirmative action jurisprudence. ...[and] will inevitably discourage or prevent governmental entities, particularly states and localities, from acting to rectify the scourge of past discrimination. This is the harsh reality of the majority's decision, but it is not the Constitution's command." Justice Thurgood Marshall (J. Marshall) dissenting, states Richmond's Plan would be declared constitutional under the intermediate level of scrutiny and argues the Court should have applied the intermediate level rather than the strict scrutiny standard. Preventing initiatives, such as the set-aside program, for lack of a showing of past discrimination in the area only perpetuates racial discrimination because it suggests that racial discrimination no longer exists. Here, Marshall is arguing that by not permitting this sort of affirmative action (even in light of the "abundant evidence" as of 1977 of minority businesses being denied effective participation in public contracting opportunities), the Court is taking affirmative action jurisprudence a "giant step backward."
Sweat v. Painter
"Moreover, although the law is a highly learned profession, we are well aware that it is an intensely practical one. The law school, the proving ground for legal learning and practice, cannot be effective in isolation from the individuals and institutions with which the law interacts. Few students and no one who has practiced law would choose to study in an academic vacuum, removed from the interplay of ideas and the exchange of views with which the law is concerned." This quote reflects an implicit repudiation of the "separate but equal" doctrine of Plessy v. Ferguson. Here the court is saying there are so many intangible factors which cannot be ameliorated through tangibly equal facilities (library and faculty size for example). Rather, the intermingling of the races is necessary to achieve equality. Social equality is an aspect of equal protection of the laws.
Richmond v. Croson (1989)
"None of these "findings," singly or together, provide the city of Richmond with a "strong basis in evidence for its conclusion that remedial action was necessary." There is nothing approaching a prima facie case of a constitutional or statutory violation by anyone in the Richmond construction industry." O'Connor is rejecting the City's use of remedial measures for minority-owned subcontractors. Here, O'Connor makes the 5th section of the 14th amendment apply only to COngress and local governments which can show evidence of a past history of discrimination. O'Connor says it's okay for Congress to make unique remedial measures under section 5 of the 14th amendment. But not for local governments without direct evidence of of race discrimination on the part of the city in the past or any evidence that the city's prime contractors had discriminated against minority-owned subcontractors. She also says this could lead to a "windfall" for the minority business in Richmond because of the disproportionately small number of minority-owned subcontractors."the mere fact that black membership in these trade organizations is low, standing alone, cannot establish a prima facie case of discrimination."
Richmond v. Croson -
"Nothing we say today precludes a state or local entity from taking action to rectify the effects of identified discrimination within its jurisdiction"
US v. Virginia
"Parties who seek to defend gender based government action must demonstrate an "exceedingly persuasive justification" for that action."
Palmore v. Sidoti
"Public officials sworn to uphold the Constitution may not avoid a constitutional duty by bowing to the hypothetical effects of private racial prejudice that they assume to be both widely and deeply held."
Keyes v. School District No 1, Denver
"a finding of intentionally segregative school board actions in a meaningful portion of a school system, ... creates a presumption that other segregated schooling within the system is not adventitious. It establishes... a prima facie case of unlawful segregative design on the part of school authorities, and shifts to those authorities the burden of proving that other segregated schools within the system are not also the result of intentionally segregative actions." Justice Brennan's Majority opinion.
Bolling v. Sharpe
"Segregation in public education is not reasonably related to any proper government objective and thus imposes on Negro children of the District of Columbia a burden that constitutes an arbitrary deprivation of their liberty in violation of the Due Process Clause." District of Columbia was not bound by the 14th Amendment and allowed segregation because it was not a state. The court read in an equal protection clause into the 5th Amendment Due Process clause. Bolling should have been written before Brown because the federal government is governed y the bill of rights. Thus, there would be no focus on education as with Brown regarding racial classifications.
City of Richmond v. JA Croson Co. (1989)
"Significantly, this evidence demonstrated that discrimination had prevented existing or nascent minority-owned business from obtaining not only federal contracting assignments, but state and local ones as well." Justice Thurgood Marshall (J. Marshall) dissenting, states Richmond's Plan would be declared constitutional under the intermediate level of scrutiny and argues the Court should have applied the intermediate level rather than the strict scrutiny standard. Preventing initiatives, such as the set-aside program, for lack of a showing of past discrimination in the area only perpetuates racial discrimination because it suggests that racial discrimination no longer exists. Here, Marshall is arguing that Richmond would not if they have a history of discrimination and that as of 1977 there was "abundant evidence" that minority businesses had been denied effective participation in public contracting opportunities.
Brown
"Such considerations apply with added force to children in grade and high schools. To separate them from others of similar age and qualifications solely because of their race generates a feeling of inferiority as to their status in the community that may affect their hearts and minds in a way unlikely ever to be undone." Chief Justice Warren rebutting one of the fundamental holdings of Plessy, that social equality and legal equality are not intertwined. However, this did not amount to a direct condemnation of Plessy because at other points in the opinion, the court emphasized changed conditions in the 1950's have animated its opinion
Wygant v. Jackson Board of Education
"The Court has insisted upon some showing of prior discrimination by the government unit involved before allowing lmtd use of racial classifications in order to remedy such discrimination....Before it embarks on an AA program, a public employer must have convincing evidence that remedial action is warrant, sufficient evidence to justify the conclusion that there has been prior discrimination. ... The layoff provision was not a legally appropriate means of achieveing even a compelling purpose because of the burden that a preferential layoff scheme imposes on innocent parties." Justice Powell writing for the majority that SS applies because alleviating the effects of societal discrimination and providing minority faculty role models were not compelling state purposes to layoff white teachers first.
Missouri v. Jenkins (1995)
"The DC's remedial plan is not designed solely to redistribute the students within KCMSD in order to eliminate racially identifiable schools within KCMSD. Instead its purpose is to attract non-minority students from outside KCMSD schools. But this interdistrict goal is beyond the scope of the intradistrict violation identified by the DC. In effect, the DC has devised a remedy to accomplish indirectly what it admittedly lacks the remedial authority to mandate directly: the interdistrict transfer of students." Chief Justice Rehnquist for majority.
Miliken v. Bradley (1974)
"The State must ... bear part of the blame for the white flight to the suburbs ... Allowing white flight to the suburbs to succeed, the court today allows the state to profit from its own wrong and to perpetuate for years to come the separation of there aces it achieved in the past by purposeful state action. .......Under a Detroit only decree, Detroit's schools will clearly remain racially identifiable in comparison with neighboring schools in the metropolitan community..... School district lines, however innocently draw, will surely be perceived as fences to separate the races when, under a Detroit only decree, white parents withdraw their children from the Detroit city schools and move to the suburbs in order to continue them in all white schools. The message of this action will not escape the Negro children in the city of Detroit." Justice Marshall's Dissent - he argued that bussing should be allowed as an interdistrict remedy.
Giles v. Harris
"The bill imports that the great mass of the white population intends to keep the blacks from voting. To meet such an intent something more than ordering the plaintiff's name to be inscribed upon the lists of 1902 will be needed. If the conspiracy and the intent exist, a name on a piece of paper will not defeat them. Unless we are prepared to supervise the voting in that state by officers of the court, it seems to us that all the plaintiff could get from equity would be an empty form. Apart from damages to the individual, relief from a great political wrong, if done, as alleged, by the people of a state and the state itself, must be given by them or by the legislative and political department of the government of the US." SCOTUS refuses to grant a black man the right to vote because they feel powerless to enforce it in the south.
Bolling v. Sharpe
"The fifth amendment, which is applicable in the District of Columbia, does not contain an equal protection clause as does the 14th which applies only to the states. But the concepts of equal protection and due process, both stemming from our American ideal of fairness are not mutually exclusive."
Brown II
"These cases are remanded to the District Courts to take such proceedings and enter such orders and decrees consistent with this opinion as are necessary and proper to admit to public schools on a racially nondiscriminatory basis with all deliberate speed the parties to these cases." The Supreme Court concluded brown v. board of education of Topeka by setting the cases for reargument on the question of appropriate relief. Justice warrent delivered the opinion of the court calling for "all deliberate speed" in integration. However, speed was off-balanced by deliberateness. Almost establishes an oxymoron. The NAACP was hoping for more teeth and the southerners considered this a victory for slow integration.
Board of Education v. Dowell (1991)
"The legal justification for displacement of local authority in a school desegregation case by an injunctive decree is a violation of the Constitution by local authorities. Dissolving a desegregation degree after the local authorities have operated in compliance with it for a reasonable period of time properly recognizes that necessary concern for the important values of local control of public schools dictates that a federal court's regulatory control of such systems does not extend beyond the time required to remedy the effects of pat intentional discrimination. In considering whether the vestiges of de jure segregation have been eliminated as far as practicable, the District Court should look not only at student assignments, but to every facet of school operation." Chief Justice Rehnquist. The District court dissolved a ten year old desegregation decree against the school district. The court found that the original plan was no longer workable, that the district had complied in good faith and that the Reassignment plan returning desegregated schools to one race schools was not designed with discriminatory intent.
Grutter
"The majority of blacks admitted to the Law School because of discrimination, and because of this policy all are tarred as undeserving. ... When blacks take positions in the highest places of government, industry, or academia, it is an open question today whether their skin color played a part in their advancement. The question itself is the stigma..."
Johnson v. CA
"The need for SS is no less important here, where prison officials cite racial violence as the reason for their policy.... Indeed by insisting that inmantes be housed with other inmates of the same race, it is possible that prison officials will breed further hostility among prisoners and reinforce racial and ethnic divisions. By perpetuating the notion that race matters most, racial segregation of inmates my 'exacerbate the very patters of violence that it is said to counteract." Justice O'Conner writing for the majority that overturns the Turner standard that held where prisoners allege prison regulations violate their fundamental rights, deference to prison administrators counsels a relaxed standard where courts only asked whether the regulation was 'reasonably related' to the legitimate penological interests with no inquiry. They apply SS and do not permit the California Dept of Corrections to temporarily racially classify to prevent gang violence.
Kevin Brown the Philosopher
"The new standard in Dowell is an alarming retreat from Supreme Court's 1968 pronouncement in Green that a court may 'retain jurisdiction until it is clear that state-imposed segregation has been completely removed.;" Yet the Supreme Court went even further the following year in Freeman holding that a district court can relinquish its supervision and control over those aspects of a school system in which there was compliance with a desegregation decree even if other aspects of the system remain in non-compliance."
Pace v. Alabama
"The offense against which is aimed cannot be committed without involving the persons of both races in the same punishment. Whatever discrimination is made in the punishment prescribed in the two sections is directed against the offense designated and not against the person of any particular color or race. The punishment of each offending person, whether white or black, is the same." Court upholds Alabama's prohibition of interracial marriage.
Milliken v. Bradley (1974)
"The scope of the remedy is determined by the nature and extend of the constitutional violation. Before the boundaries of separate and autonomous school districts may be set aside by consolidating the separate units for remedial purposes or by imposing a cross-district remedy, it must first be shown ... that racially discriminatory acts of the state or local school districts, or of a single school district have been a SUBSTANTIAL CAUSE of interdistrict segregation. Chief Justice Burger writing for the Majority holding that Detroit could not use bussing from the suburbs to remedy their de facto segregation within the city. You cannot harm the innocent suburbs.
Geduldig v. Aiello
"The state has a legitimate interest in maintaining the self supporting nature of the insurance program. Similarly, it has an interest in distributing the best available resources such a way as to keep benefit payments at an adequate level for disabilities that are covered rather than to cover all disabilities inadequately." SCOTUS denies EP challenge and upholds insurance statute under RB because the statute allowing a state-run employment disability insurance program to exclude disabilities with a pregnancy, classification on the basis of pregnancy is no always a classification on the basis of sex within the meaning of the EP clause.
MS Univ v. Hogan
"The state's primary justification for maintaining the single sex admission policy of MUW's School of Nursing is that it compensates for discrimination against women and constitutes educational AA...... Rather than compensate for discriminatory barriers faced by women, MUW's policy of excluding males from admission to the School of nursing tends to perpetuate the stereotyped view of nursing exclusively as a woman's job. " Majority finds that the school's policies of excluding men was not substantially related to its objective to compensate women for past discrimination because their claim is destroyed by the exclusion of men.
Strauder (1880)
"The very fact that colored people are singled out and expressly denied by a statute all right to participate in the administration of the law, as jurors, because of their color, though they are citizens, and may be in other respects fully qualified, is practically a brand upon them, affixed by the law, an assertion of their inferiority..."
McLaurin v. Oklahoma
"There is a vast difference - a Constitutional difference -between restrictions imposed by the state which prohibit the intellectual comingling of students, and refusal of individuals to commingle where the state presents no such bar... The removal of state restrictions will not necessarily abate individual and group prejudices and choices. But at the very least, the state will be depriving appellant of the opportunity to secure acceptance by his fellow students on his own merits." Discussing how setting the black students aside will not allow for the same educational opportunities. Challenging the Separate but Equal Doctrine.
Loving (1967)
"There is patently no legitimate overriding purpose independent of invidious racial discrimination which justifies this classification. The fact that Virginia prohibits only interracial marriages involving white persons demonstrates that the racial classifications must stand on their own justification, as measures designed to maintain White Supremacy."
Grutter
"[W]e have never held that the only governmental use of race that can survive strict scrutiny is remedying past discrimination."
Tushnet the Philosopher
"These lawyers occasionally mentioned administrative problems, but every knew that 'admin probs' properly understood, simply meant coming up with different lists of student assignments - a task that school boards could accomplish over a weekend. The lawyers for the school boards, therefore, danced around the question of resistance saying instead that desegregation had to be gradual because of administrative or other unspecified problems. When occasionally slipped and revealed that the real issue was resistance, the NAAP's lawyers, particularly Marshall, jumped on them.
Strauder (1880)
"They especially needed protection against unfriendly action in the States where they were resident. It was in view of these considerations the 14th Amendment was framed and adopted. It was designed to assure to the colored race the enjoyment of all the civil rights that under the law are enjoyed by white persons, and to give to that race the protection of the general government, in that enjoyment, whenever it should be denied by the states" Justice Strong The court here holds that the equal protection clause does the work to ensure that state's laws don't prohibit blacks from serving on juries. While this embrace of the equal protection clause was certainly helpful to blacks, it's notable that the privileges and immunities clause of the 14th Amendment is not doing any of the work to ensure black equality
Brown
"This discussion and our own investigation convince us that, although these sources cast some light, it is not enough to resolve the problem, with which we are faced. At best, they are inconclusive" Chief Justice Warren Rejecting an attempt to use an originalist methodology to address the question of school segregation, and instead, choosing to embrace a theory of living constitutionalism to address the question
Richmond
"Thomas: racial paternalism affirmative action programs stamp beneficiaries with badge of inferiority"
Yick Wo (1886)
"Though the law itself be fair on its face, and impartial in appearance, yet, if it is applied and administered by public authority with an evil eye and an unequal hand, so as practically to make unjust and illegal discriminations between persons in similar circumstances, material to their rights, the denial of equal justice is still within the prohibition of the constitution"
US v. Virginia
"Today's skeptical scrutiny of official action denying rights or opportunities based on sex responds to volumes of history."
Griggs v. Duke Power (1964)
"Under the act, practices, procedures or tests neutral on their face and even neutral in terms of intent cannot be maintained if they operate to freeze the status quo of prior discriminatory employment practices" Justice Burger holding for the majority that Title VII of the CRA 1964 prohibited an employer from requiring high school diplomas and giving them a general intelligence test where the effect was to disadvantage black applicants and where the criteria had not been demonstrated to predict job performance.
McClesky v. Kemp
"WARREN MCCLESKEYS EVIDENCE CONFRONTS US WITH THE SUBTLE, PERSISTENT INFUENCE OF THE PAST. HIS MESSAGE IS A DISTURBING ONE TO A SOCIETY THAT HAS FORMALLY REPUDATED RACISM, AND A FRUSTATING ONE TO A NATION ACCUSTOMED TO REGARDING ITS DESTINY AS THE PRODUCT OF ITS OWN WILL. NONETHELESS WE IGNORE HIM AT OUR PERIL, FOR WE REMAIN IMPRISONED BY THE PAST AS LONG AS WE DENY ITS INFLUENCE IN THE PRESENT."
Plessy (1896)
"We consider the underlying fallacy of the plaintiff's argument to consist in the assumption that the enforced separation of the two races stamps the colored race with a badge of inferiority. If this be so, it is not by reason of anything found in the act, but solely because the colored race chooses to put that construction upon it. The argument necessarily assumes that if, as has been more than once the case, and is not unlikely to be so again, the colored race should become the dominant power in the state legislature, and should enact a law in precisely similar terms, it would thereby relegate the white race to an inferior position. We imagine that the white race, at least, would not acquiesce in this assumption.
Keyes v. School District
"We should abandon the de jure/de facto distinction which long since has outlived its time and formulate constitutional pricniples of national rather than merely regional application. This is a national not a southern phenomenon. And it is largely unrelated to whether a particular State had or did not have segregative laws. Justice Powell - Dissent
Dred Scott
"We think they are not, and they are not included, and were not intended to be included, under the word "citizens" in the Constitution, and can therefore claim none of the rights and privileges which that instrument provides for and secures to citizens of the United States."
Fulilove v. Klutznick
"When effectuating a limited and properly tailored remedy to cure the effects of prior discrimination such a sharing of the burden by innocent parties is not impermissible." Chief Justice Burger writing for the plurality upholding the minority business enterprise provision of the PWA of 1977 that required 10% of federal funds granted for local public works projects must be used to procure services or supplies from businesses owned by minority group members because the whites were not greatly harmed.
Loving (1967)
"While these statements have some relevance to the intention of Congress in submitting the Fourteenth Amendment, it must be understood that they pertained to the passage of specific statutes and not to the broader, organic purpose of a constitutional amendment."
Dred Scott (1857)
"Yet the men who framed this declaration were great men—high in literary acquirements—high in their sense of honor, and incapable of asserting principles inconsistent with those on which they were acting."
Korematsu (1944)
"[A]ll legal restrictions which curtail the civil rights of a single racial group are immediately suspect. That is not to say that all such restrictions are unconstitutional. It is to say that courts must subject them to the most rigid scrutiny. Pressing public necessity may sometimes justify the existence of such restrictions; racial antagonism never can."
Dred Scott (1857)
"[T]he men who framed this declaration were ... incapable of asserting principles inconsistent with those on which they were acting."
Brown (1954) -
"[W]e cannot turn the clock back to 1868 when the Amendment was adopted, or even to 1896 when Plessy v. Ferguson was written. We must consider public education in the light of its full development and its present place in American life throughout the nation."
Bakke (1978)
"it is no longer possible to peg the guarantees of the Fourteenth amendment to the struggle for equality of one racial minority because "the united states had become a nation of minorities[,] [e]ach [of which] had to struggle--and to some extent struggles still--to overcome the prejudices not of a monolithic majority, of of a "majority" composed of various minority groups of whom it was said--perhaps unfairly in many cases--that a shared characteristic was a willingness to disadvantage other groups." Powell rejected the argument that strict scrutiny did not apply to special admissions program because "white males such as respondent, are not a 'discrete and insular minority' requiring extraordinary protection from the majoritarian political process." Powell conceded that the Fourteenth Amendment was originally concerned with the promotion of freedom and equality for blacks; however, in this quotation, Powell is saying it's impossible to determine who is the majority based on a "nation of minorities."
Frontiero v. Richardson (1973)
"it is unecessary for the Court in this case to characterize sex as a suspect classification, with all of the far-reaching implications of such a holding" (concurrence) (p. 872)
Grutter
"law schools, represent the training ground for a large number of our nation's leaders."
Frontiero v. Richardson
"our Nation has had a long and unfortunate history of sex discrimination."
McLaurin v. Oklahoma
"restrictions impair and inhibit petitioner's ability to study, to engage in discussions and exchange views with other students and in general, to learn from his profession."
Grutter
"the law School's education judgment that such diversity is essential to its educational mission is one to which we defer." O'Connor again (as in Croson and Adarand) delivers the opinion of the Court to determine whether the University of Michigan's use of racial preferences in the admissions process (which denied Barbara Grutter admission with a 3.8(?) GPA and a 161 LSAT score) violates the Equal Protection Clause or Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964? The Court said No. The law school in this case was conducting highly individualized reviews of each applicant. In this quotation, Justice O'Connor is determining that race was only one of many factors considered to determine the applicant's eligibility and that schools have a compelling interest in having diverse student bodies.
City of Richmond v. JA Croson Co. (1989)
"the mere fact that black membership in these trade organizations is low, standing alone, cannot establish a prima facie case of discrimination." O'Connor is rejecting the City's use of remedial measures for minority-owned subcontractors. O'Connor says it's okay for Congress to make unique remedial measures under section 5 of the 14th amendment. But not for local governments without direct evidence of of race discrimination on the part of the city in the past or any evidence that the city's prime contractors had discriminated against minority-owned subcontractors. Here, O'Connor says a showing of the disproportinately small number of minority-owned subcontractors is not evidence to establish a history of past discrimination. She goes on to say this remedial measure could lead to a "windfall" for the minority business in Richmond because of the disproportionately small number of minority-owned subcontractors.
Green v New Kent County School Board 1968
"the transition to a unitary, non-racial system of public education," is the goal of desegregation. "The school board must be required to formulate a new plan and in light of other courses which appear open to the Board, such as zoning, fashion steps which promise realistically to convert promptly to a system without a 'white' school and a'negro' school but just schools." Court unanimously holds that freedom of choice plans were constitutionally inadequate when their effect was to perpetuate racially identified schools.
Frontiero v. Richardson
"to give a mandatory preference, to members of either sex over members of the other, merely to accomplish the elimination of hearings on the merits, is to make the very kind of arbitrary legislative choice forbidden by the [Constitution] ..." This departure from "traditional" rational-basis analysis with respect to sex-based classifications is clearly justified." A female Air Force Lieutenant sought increased benefits on the basis of her husband as a dependent, which were refused by the armed services' policy of only allowing men to claim wives presumptively as dependents. Does the statute offering different spousal benefits for servicemen on the basis of gender violate the Fifth Amendment's guarantee of equal protection? The Ct. says yes.
Michael M. (1981)
"virtually all of the significant harmful and inescapably identifiable consequences of teenage pregnancy fall on the young female,"
Virginia (1996)
'Inherent differences' between men and women, we have come to appreciate, remain cause for celebration, but not for denigration of the members of either sex or for artificial constraints on an individual's opportunity."
Brown v. Bd of Education (1954)
(1) Today, education is perhaps the most important function of state and local governments. Compulsory schooling attendance laws and the great expendutures for education both demonstrate our recogniztion of the importance of education to our democratic society. It is required in the performance of our most basic public responsibilities, even service in the armed forces. IT IS THE VERY FOUNDATION OF GOOD CITIZENSHIP. (p. 764)
Brown v. Bd of Ed (1954)
(2)Segregation of white and colored children in public schools has a detrimental effect upon the colored children. The impact is greater when it has the sanction of the law: for the policy of segreagting the races is usually intepreted as denoting the inferiority of the negro group. A sense of inferiority affects the motivation of a child to learn. Segregation with the sanction of law, therefore, has a tendency to [retard] the educational and mental development (. p. 764 - resting heavily on social science data)
Minor v Happersat
.Certainly, if the courts can consider any question settled, this is one. For nearly ninety yers the people have acted upon the idea that the Constitution, when it conferred citizenship did not necessarily confer the right to suffrage.
Virginia (1996)
14A forbids providing men-only "adversative method" education, because that "rel[ies] on overbroad generalizations about the different talents, capacities, or preferences of males and females,", and "fixed notions concerning the roles and abilities of males and females,"
Strauder (1880)
A little bit of attention to the text, but not much: all races must be "equally protected by the law" and receive "equal legal protection,"
Washington v. Davis (1976)
A rule that a statute designed to serve neutral ends is nevertheless invalid, absent compelling justification, if in practice it benefits or burdens one race more than another would be far-reaching and would raise serious questions about, and perhaps invalidate, a whole range of tax, welfare, public service, regulatory, and licensing statutes that may be more burdensome to the poor and to the average black than to the more affluent white. (p. 774) (slippery slope argument)
Richmond v. J.A. Croson Co. (1989)
Absent searching judicial inquiry into the justification for such race-based measures, there is simply no way of determining what classifications are "benign" or "remedial" and what classifications are in fact motivated by illegitimate notions of racial inferiority or simple racial politics. Indeed, the purpose of *strict scrutiny* is to "smoke out" illegitimate uses of race by assuring that the legislative body is pursuing a goal important enough to warrant use of a highly suspect tool. The test also ensures that the means chosen "fit" this compelling goal so closely that there is little or no possibility that the motive for the classification was illegitimate racial prejudice or stereotype. Classifications based on race carry a danger of stigmatic harm.
Richmond v. J.A. Croson Co. (1989)
As a matter of state law, the city of Richmond has legislative authority over its procurement policies, and can use its spending powers to remedy private discrimination if it identifies that discrimination with the particularity required by the 14th Amendment. Thus, if the city could show that it had essentially become a "passive participant" in a system of racial exclusion practiced by the local construction industry, we think it clear that the city could take affirmative steps to dismantle such a system. It is beyond dispute that any public entity, state or federal, has a compelling interest in assuring that public dollars drawn from the tax contributions of all citizens, do not serve to finance the evil of private prejudice. (828) (looking like the entanglement exceptions from SAD)
Village of Arlington Heights v. Metro Housing Development Corp (1979)
DAVIS does not require a plaintiff to prove that the challenged action rested solely on racially discriminatory purposes. Rarely can it be said that a legislature or administrative body operating under a broad mandate made a decision motivated solely by a single concern, or even that a particular purpose was the "dominant" or "primary" one. In fact, it is because legislators and administrators are properly concerned with balancing numerous competing considerations that courts refrain from reviewing the merits of their decisions, absnet a showing of arbitrariness or irrationality. But racial discrimination is not just another competing consideration. *When there is a proof that a discriminatory purpose has been a motivating factor in the decision, this judicial deference is no longer justified* (p. 790) [tweaks the Washington v. Davis standard, making it *slightly* easier for P]
Parents Involved v. Seattle (2007)
For Kennedy, the labeling is the problem—other race-conscious measures like putting schools near boundary between generally-white & generally-black neighborhoods would be OK "Assigning to each student a personal designation according to a crude system of individual racial classifications is quite a different matter; and the legal analysis changes accordingly."
Nguyen v. INS (2001)
Heightened scrutiny does not countenance justifications that "rely on overbroad generalizations about the different talents, capacities, or preferences of males and females." Moreover, overboard sex-based generalizations are impermissible even when they enjoy empirical support. (903) (dissent)
Adarand (1995)
I believe that there is a "moral [and] constitutional equivalence," between laws designed to subjugate a race and those that distribute benefits on the basis of race in order to foster some current notion of equality. Government cannot make us equal; it can only recognize, respect, and protect us as equal before the law. (835)
Richmond v. J.A. Croson Co. (1989)
I share the view expressed by Alexander Bickel that, "the lesson of the great decisions of the Supreme Court and the lesson of contemporary history have been the same for at least a generation: discrimination on the basis of race is illegal, immoral, unconstitutional, and inherently wrong, and destructive of democratic society. At least where state or local action is at issue, only a social emergency rising to the level of imminent danger to life and limb --for exampl, a prison race riot, requiring a temporary segregation of inmates, can justify an exception to the principle embodied in the Fourteenth Amendment that "our Constitution is colorblind, and neither knows nor tolerates classes among citizens." (832) (scalia, concurring)
Richmond v. J.A. Croson Co. (1989)
In concluding that remedial classifications warrant no different standard of review under the Constitution than the most brutal and repugnant forms of state-sponsored racism, a majority of this Court signals that it regards racial discrimination as largely a phenomenon of the past, and that government bodies need no longer preoccupy themselves with rectifying racial injustice. (833) (Marshall, dissenting)
Parents Involved v. Seattle
In keeping with his view that SS should not apply, Justice Breyer repeatedly urges deference to local school boards on these issues. Such deference "is fundamentally at odds with our equal protection jurisprudence. We put the burden on state actors to demonstrate that their race-based policies are justified." (plurality)
Grutter v. Bollinger (2003)
In order to cultivate a set of leaders with legitimacy in the eyes of the citizenry, it is necessary that the path to leadership be visibly open to talented and qualified individuals of every race and ethnicity. Access to legal education (and the legal profession) must be inclusive of talented and qualified individuals of every race and ethnicity, so that all members of our heterogenous society may participate in the educational institutions that provide the training and education necessary to succeed in America
Dred Scott (1857)
It is not the province of the court to decide upon the justice or injustice, the policy or impolicy of these laws. The decision of that question belonged to the political or law-making power, to those who formed the sovereignty and framed the Constitution. The duty of the court is, to interpret the instrument they have framed, with the best lights we can obtain on the subject, and to administer it as we find it, according to its true intent and meaning when it was adopted. (743 - judicial restraint)
Grutter
It is well documented that conscious and unconscious race bias, even rank discrimination based on race, remain alive in our land, impeding realization of our highest values and ideals. (846, ginsburg, dissenting)
Korematsu v. United States (1944)
It should be noted, to begin with, that all legal restrictions which curtail the civil rights of a single racial group are immediately suspect. That is not to say that all such restrictions are unconstitutional. It is to say that courts must subject them to the most rigid scrutiny. Pressing public necessity may sometimes justify the exitence of such restrictions; racial antagonism never can. (p. 748- language establishes SS)
Nguyen v. INS (2001)
Mechanistic classification of all our differences as stereotypes would operate to obscure those misconceptions and prejudices that are real. (902)
Gender stereotype: "defined as a frame of mind resulting from irrational or uncritical analysis."
Kennedy from Ngyuen
Adarand Constructors
Mountain Gravel, the prime contractor, would receive additional federal funds for awarding subcontracts to businesses owned by "socially and economically disadvantaged individuals." The government's policy to award subcontracts to businesses owned by "socially and economically disadvantaged individuals" included a presumption that minority-owned businesses were socially and economically disadvantaged. Justice Sandra Day O'Connor (J. O'Connor), writing for the majority, extends the Fourteenth Amendment requirement to the states in Richmond v. Croson to the federal government through the Fifth Amendment. Namely, strict scrutiny is applied to all race-based classification, regardless of benign or remedial motive.
Minor v. Happersat
No argument as to the need of suffrage can be considered. We can only act upon her rights as they exist. It is not for us to look at the hardship of withholding. Our duty is at an end if we find it is within the power of a State to withhold.
Grutter -
O'Connor for the Court "When using race as a 'plus' factor in university admissions, a university's admissions program must remain flexible enough to ensure that each applicant is evaluated as an individual and not in a way that makes an applicant's race or ethnicity the defining feature of his or her application."
McClesky v. Kemp (1989)
Our analysis begins with the basic principle that a defendant who alleges an equal protection violation has the burden of proving "the existence of purposeful discrimination." A corollary to this principle is that a criminal defendant must prove that the purposeful discrimination "had a discriminatory effect" on him. Thus, *to prevail under the EPC, McCleskey must prove that the decision-makers in his case acted with discriminatory purpose* He offers no evidence specific to *his own case* that would support an inference that racial considerations played a part *in HIS sentence*. (p. 777).
United States v. Virginia (1996)
Parties who seek to defend gender-based government action must demonstrat an "exceedingly persuasive justification" for that action. Today's skeptical scrutiny of official action denying rights or opportunities based on sex responds to volumes of history. As a plurality of this Ct acknowledged a generation ago, 'our Nation has a long and unfortunate history of sex discrimination.' through a century plus three decades and more of that history, women gain a constitutional right to the franchise. and for a half century thereafter, it remained the prevailing doctrine that gov't both federal and state, could withhold from women opportunities accorded men so long as any 'basis in reason' could be conceived for discrimination. the heightened review standard our precedent establishes does not make sex a proscribed classification. supposed 'inherent differences' are no longer accepted as a ground for race or national origin classifications. physical differences between men and women, however, are enduring. 'inherent differnces' between men and women, we have come to appreciate, remain cause for celebration, but not for denigration of the members of either sex or for artificial constraints on an individual's opportunity. sex classifications may be used to compensate women . . . but such classifications may not be used, as they once were, to create or perpetuate the legal, social, and economic inferiority of woman. (877) (notorious RBG)
Nguyen v. INS (2001)
Petitioners and their amici argue in addition that, rather than fulfilling an important governmental interest, § 1409 merely embodies a gender-based stereotype. Although the above discussion should illustrate that, contrary to petitioners assertions, §1409 addresses an undeniable difference in the circumstance of the parents at the time a child is born, it should be noted, that the difference does not result from some stereotype, defined as a frame of mind resulting from irrational or uncritical analysis. There is nothing irrational or improper in the recognition that at the moment of birth -- the mother's knowledge of the child and the fact of parenthood have been established in a way not guaranteed in the case of the unwed father. This is not a stereotype. (902) (stereotype definition)
"The white race deems itself to be the dominant race in this country. And so it is, in prestige, in achievements, in education, in wealth and in power. So, I doubt not, it will continue to be for all time, if it remains true to its great heritage, and holds fast to the principles of constitutional liberty. But in view of the constitution, in the eye of the law, there is in this country no superior, dominant, ruling class of citizens. There is no caste here. Our constitution is colorblind and neither knows nor tolerates classes among citizens."
Plessy
Palmore v. Sidoti (1984)
Private biases may be outside the reach of the law, but the law cannot, directly or indirectly, give them effect.
Feeney (1979)
Response would have to be "sometimes disparate impact triggers constitutional scrutiny, but sometimes not"
Civil Rights Act 1866
That all persons born in the US and not subject to any foreign power, excluding Indians not taxed, are hereby declared citizens of the US; and such citizens of every race and color without regard to any previous condition of slavery or involuntary servitude except as punishment for a crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall have the same right, every State and Territory in the US, to make and enforce Ks, to sue, be parties,, and give evidence, to inherit, purchase, lease, sell, hold, and convey real and personal property and to full and equal benefit of all laws and proceeds for the security of person and property as is enjoyed by white citizens, and shall be subject to punishment, pains and penalties... Does the bill convey civil rights or does it also convey political rights? Overrules Dred Scott by granting citizenship and basic Civil Rights.
Michael M. (1981)
That's "outmoded sexual stereotype,"
Washington v. Davis (1976)
The conclusion would not be different in the face of proof that more Negroes than whites had been disqualified by Test 21. That other Negroes also failed to score well would, alone, not demonstrate that respondents *individually* were being denied equal protection of the laws by the application of an otherwise valid qualifying test being administered to prospective police recruits (773)
Dred Scott v. Sanford (1857)
The language of the DoI is equally conclusive . . . the general waords above quoted would seem to embrace the whole human family, and if they were used in a similar instrument at this day would be so understood. But it is too clear for dispute, that the enslaved African race were not intended to be included, and formed no part of the people who framed and adopted this declaration; for if the language, as understood in that day, would embrace them, the conduct of the distinguished men who framed the DoI would have been utterly and flagrantly inconsistent with the principles they assert; and instead of the sympathy of mankind, to which they so confidently appealed, they would have deserved and received universal rebuke and reprobation. (744 - originalism)
Plessy v. Ferguson (1896)
The object of the 14th amendment was undoubtedly to enforce the absolute equality of the two races before the law, but, in the nature of things, it could not have been intended to abolish distinctions based upon color, or to enforce social, as distinguished from political, equality, or a commingling of the two races upon terms unsatisfactory to either. Laws permitting, and even requiring, their separation, in places where they are liable to brought into contact do not necessarily imply the inferiority of either race to the other, and have been generally, if not universally, recognized as within the competentcy of the state legislatures in the exercise of their police power. The most common instance of this is connected with the establishment of separate schools for white and colored children(p. 758 - its social, not political)
Parents Involved
The plurality opinion is at least open to the interpretation that the Constitution requires school districts to ignore the problem of de factor resegregation in schooling. I cannot endorse that conclusion. School boards may pursue the goal of bringing together students of diverse backgrounds and races through other means, including strategic site selection of new schools; drawing attendance zones with general recognition of the demographics of neighborhoods; allocating resources for special programs; recruiting students and faculty in a targeted fashion; and tracking enrollments, performance, and other statistics by race. These mechanisms are race conscious but do not lead to different treatment based on a classification that tells each student he or she is to be defined by race, so it is unlikely any of them would demand SS to be found permissible. (kennedy, concurring)
Adarand
The principle of consistency simply means that whenever the government treats any person unequally because of his or her race, the person has suffered an injury that falls squarely within the language and spirit of the Constitution's guarantee of Equal Protection."
Strauder (1880)
The words of the amendment, it is true, are prohibitory, but they contain a necessary implication of a positive immunity, or right, most valuable to the colored race—the right to exemption from unfriendly legislation against them distinctively as colored—exemption from legal discriminations, implying inferiority in civil society"
Adarand (1995)
There is not a moral or constitutional equivalence between a policy that is designed to perpetuate a caste system and one that seeks to eradicate racial subordination. Invidious discrimination is an engine of oppression, subjugating a disfavored group to enhance or maintain the power of the majority. Remedial race-based preferences reflect the opposite impulse: a desire to foster equality in society. No sensible conception of the Government's constitutional obligation to "govern impartially" should ignore this distinction. (836) (Stevens, Ginsburg, dissenting).
Washington v. Davis (1976)
This is not to say that the necessary discriminatory racial purpose must be express or appear on the face of the statute, or that a law's disproportionate impact is irrelevant in cases involving Constitution-based claims of racial discrimination. A statute, otherwise neutral on its face, must not be applied so as invidiously to discriminate on the basis of race. (772)
Richmond v. J.A. Croson Co. (1989)
Where there is a significant statistical disparity between the number of qualified minority contractors willing and able to perform a particular service and the number of such contractors actually engaged by the locality or the locality's prime contractors, an inference of discriminatory exclusion could arise. (831)
Craig v. Boren (1976)
To withstand constitutional challenge, previous cases establish that classifications by gender must serve important governmental objectives and must be substantially related to achievement of those objectives. (establishes IS as standard of review in gender cases)
Feeney
When there is a proof that a discriminatory purpose has been a motivating factor in the decision, this judicial deference is no longer justified.
Brown (1954) -..
[T]he policy of separating the races is usually interpreted as denoting the inferiority of the negro group." Approves finding of trial court,"Segregation of white and colored children in public schools has a detrimental effect upon the colored children. .
McCleskey v Kemp
[his] evidence confronts us with the subtle and persistent influence of the past. his message is a disturbing one to a society that has formally repudiated racism, and a frustratng one to a Nation accustomed to regarding its destiny as the product of its own will. Nonetheless, we ignore him at our peril, for *we remain imprisoned by the past as long as we deny its influence in the present* (Brennan, dissenting)
Gong Lum v. Rice
separate but equal principle is within the discretion of the State in regulating its public schools and does not conflict with the 14th Am.
14th Amendment
§1 All persons born or naturalized in the US, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the US and the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privilidges and immunities of citizens of the US; no shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.