Discrimination Based On Gender
What did the Court rule in Hoyt v. Florida (1961)?
Facts: A Florida statute automatically exempted women from jury duty and did not place women on jury lists. Women could, however, volunteer and register for jury duty. After an all-male jury convicted Mrs. Hoyt for murdering her husband, she appealed the decision to the Florida Supreme Court. The Florida Court upheld the conviction. Ruling: Did the Florida statute violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment? In a unanimous decision, the Court held that the statute was based on a reasonable classification and was therefore constitutional. Noting that women were "still regarded as the center of home and family life," the Court found that the states could relieve them from the civic responsibility of jury duty unless they themselves determined that such service was consistent with their own "special responsibilities." The Court held that the case was distinct from other cases involving racial discrimination in jury selection, and that male-female disproportions on jury lists carried no constitutional significance.
What law was at issue in Craig v. Boren (1976)? What did the Court rule?
Facts: An Oklahoma law prohibited the sale of "nonintoxicating" to males under the age of 21 and to females under the age of 18. Curtis Craig, a male then between the ages of 18 and 21, and Carolyn Whitener, a licensed vendor challenged the law as discriminatory. Ruling: Did an Oklahoma statute violate the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause by establishing different drinking ages for men and women? Yes. In a 7-to-2 decision, the Court held that the statute made unconstitutional gender classifications. The Court held that the statistics relied on by the state of Oklahoma were insufficient to show a substantial relationship between the law and the maintenance of traffic safety. Generalities about the drinking habits of aggregate groups did not suffice. The Court also found that the Twenty-first Amendment did not alter the application of the Equal Protection Clause in the case.In striking down the Oklahoma law, the Court established a new standard for review in gender discrimination cases. More demanding than the lowest standard for review -- rational basis -- but less demanding than the highest standard -- strict scrutiny, the majority articulated an in-between standard -- intermediate scrutiny.
What did the Court rule in Reed v. Reed (1971), particularly with respect to the level of scrutiny to be applied to gender classifications? In Frontiero v. Richardson (1973)?
Intermediate The Idaho Probate Code specified that "males must be preferred to females" in appointing administrators of estates. After the death of their adopted son, both Sally and Cecil Reed sought to be named the administrator of their son's estate (the Reeds were separated). According to the Probate Code, Cecil was appointed administrator and Sally challenged the law in court. Did the Idaho Probate Code violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment? In a unanimous decision, the Court held that the law's dissimilar treatment of men and women was unconstitutional. The Court argued that "[t]o 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 Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. . .[T]he choice in this context may not lawfully be mandated solely on the basis of sex." signalled equal protection would be upheld for women, first time law favoring men was struck down, occurred in Idaho, Ginsberg was the lawyer, occurred in conservative Burger court, left no precedence for scrutiny standard
What did the Court rule in Muller v. Oregon (1908)?
Oregon enacted a law that limited women to ten hours of work in factories and laundries. The owner of a laundry business, Curt Muller, was fined $10 when he violated the law. Muller appealed the conviction. The state supreme court upheld the law's constitutionality. Does an Oregon law limiting the hours women are allowed to work violate the Fourteenth Amendment? The Court unanimously upheld the Oregon regulation. The Court distinguished Lochner v. New York, which invalidated a similar law restricting the hours of bakers, on the basis of the "difference between the sexes." The Court reasoned that the child-bearing nature and social role of women provided a strong state interest in reducing their working hours.
When did American women obtain the right to vote? African-Americans?
Passed by Congress June 4, 1919, and ratified on August 18, 1920, the 19th amendment granted women the right to vote. The 19th amendment guarantees all American women the right to vote. -It would take the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 before the majority of African Americans in the South were registered to vote.
Prior to approximately what year did the Court use the deferential "traditional approach" in evaluating the constitutionality of classifications based on gender?
Prior to 1971 the court used the traditional approach (p.796)
What did the Court rule in Frontiero v. Richardson (1973)?
Sharron Frontiero, a lieutenant in the United States Air Force, sought a dependent's allowance for her husband. Federal law provided that the wives of members of the military automatically became dependents; husbands of female members of the military, however, were not accepted as dependents unless they were dependent on their wives for over one-half of their support. Frontiero's request for dependent status for her husband was turned down. Did a federal law, requiring different qualification criteria for male and female military spousal dependency, unconstitutionally discriminate against women thereby violating the Fifth Amendment's Due Process Clause? 8-1 Yes. The Court held that the statute in question clearly commanded "dissimilar treatment for men and women who are similarly situated," violating the Due Process Clause and the equal protection requirements that clause implied. A majority could not agree on the standard of review, however. The plurality opinion written by Justice William J. Brennan, Jr., applying a strict standard of review to the sex-based classification as it would to racial classification, found that the government's interest in administrative convenience could not justify discriminatory practices. But a concurring opinion by Justice Lewis F. Powell and joined by Chief Justice Warren E. Burger and Justice Harry A. Blackmun would not go so far as to hold sex discrimination to the same standard as race, choosing instead to argue that statutes drawing lines between the sexes alone necessarily involved the "very kind of arbitrary legislative choice forbidden by the Constitution," an approach employed in the Court's prior decision in Reed v. Reed. Justice Potter Stewart concurred separately that the statutes created invidious discrimination in violation of the Constitution. Justice William H. Rehnquist dissented affirming the reasoning of the lower court opinion.
Discrimination Based On Gender- Strict scrutiny has never been applied to this.
Strict scrutiny has never been applied to this.
What facts were at issue in United States v. Virginia (1996)? What arguments were advanced by the State? What did the Court rule? What did Justice Scalia argue in dissent?
The Virginia Military Institute (VMI) boasted a long and proud tradition as Virginia's only exclusively male public undergraduate higher learning institution. The United States brought suit against Virginia and VMI alleging that the school's male-only admissions policy was unconstitutional insofar as it violated the Fourteenth Amendment's equal protection clause. On appeal from a District Court ruling favoring VMI, the Fourth Circuit reversed. It found VMI's admissions policy to be unconstitutional. Virginia, in response to the Fourth Circuit's reversal, proposed to create the Virginia Women's Institute for Leadership (VWIL) as a parallel program for women. On appeal from the District Court's affirmation of the plan, the Fourth Circuit ruled that despite the difference in prestige between the VMI and VWIL, the two programs would offer "substantively comparable" educational benefits. The United States appealed to the Supreme Court. Does Virginia's creation of a women's-only academy, as a comparable program to a male-only academy, satisfy the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause? No. In a 7-to-1 decision, the Court held that VMI's male-only admissions policy was unconstitutional. Because it failed to show "exceedingly persuasive justification" for VMI's gender-biased admissions policy, Virginia violated the Fourteenth Amendment's equal protection clause. Virginia failed to support its claim that single-sex education contributes to educational diversity because it did not show that VMI's male-only admissions policy was created or maintained in order to further educational diversity. Furthermore, Virginia's VWIL could not offer women the same benefits as VMI offered men. The VWIL would not provide women with the same rigorous military training, faculty, courses, facilities, financial opportunities, or alumni reputation and connections that VMI affords its male cadets. Finally, the Fourth Circuit's "substantive comparability" between VMI and VWIL was misplaced. The Court held that the Fourth Circuit's "substantive comparability" standard was a displacement of the Court's more exacting standard, requiring that "all gender-based classifications today" be evaluated with "heightened scrutiny." When evaluated with such "heightened scrutiny," Virginia's plan to create the VWIL would not provide women with the same opportunities as VMI provides its men and so it failed to meet requirements of the equal protection clause. [NOTE: Justice Ginsburg's announcement of the Court's opinion may be considered an address to the American public. It is a plain-spoken and forceful summary of the majority position.]
