The Failures of Equal Protection - An Examination of The Supreme C

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University Honors Theses University Honors College
5-25-2017
The Failures of Equal Protection: an Examination of the Supreme

Court's Three-Tiered Test in Equal Protection Claims
Jazmyn A. Ortiz
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Ortiz, Jazmyn A., "The Failures of Equal Protection: an Examination of the Supreme Court's Three-Tiered Test in Equal Protection
Claims" (2017). University Honors Theses. Paper 381.
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The Failures of Equal Protection 1
The Failures of Equal Protection: An Examination of the Supreme Court’s Three-Tiered
Test in Equal Protection Claims
Jazmyn Ortiz

Abstract
Identity is incredibly complex when we recognize the spectrums of race, gender, and
sexuality. While these identities have always been complex, it has been only recently that those
diverse people are gaining recognition and acceptance within society. Recognition and
acceptance is propelled forward when we establish law that is meant to protect diverse identities.
The Equal Protection Clause is meant to protect those who have historically been marginalized
or even failed to be recognized by the law. When states violate the Fourteenth Amendment’s
Equal Protection Clause, the case may reach the Supreme Court of the United States. The
Supreme Court will determine if the state law in question is permissible under the Equal
Protection Clause through the three-tiered test; in doing so, the Supreme Court sets the standard
for all lower courts to follow. The tiers of this test define the levels of scrutiny used by the Court,
and are dependent upon who is being discriminated against by the state. The highest level of
scrutiny is strict scrutiny; following strict scrutiny is intermediate scrutiny; and lastly there is the
rational basis test, the lowest level of scrutiny the Court can apply. The thesis argues that there
are an abundance of flaws with this existing model; specifically, the model leaves out a number
of diverse groups because the Court views it through a lens that only sees race, gender, and
sexuality as binary. Because of this, it fails to protect all citizens equally under the law. By
examining past cases of Equal Protection claims, this thesis demonstrates the need for a removal
of the three-tiered test if the federal and state governments are to protect all Americans equally.
INTRODUCTION
In the year 2017, self-identity has become far more complicated and diverse than it was in
years past. The melting pot of the United States consists of mixed races, non-binary genders, and
fluid sexualities. Yet as society advances, the laws that govern it progress at a rather depressing
pace. Restrictive legislation often clashes with the will of the people, and when that legislation
violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, it is then that the opposing
parties present their cases to the courts. In order to determine how to approach a case of
discrimination, the Court assesses who was being discriminated against and for what cause. Did
the law discriminate against race, gender, or sexuality? If so, is it within the reasonable interest of
the government? Over time, the Court has developed a three-tiered test with varying levels of
scrutiny: rational basis, intermediate scrutiny, and strict scrutiny. With this method, the Court has
managed to rule on issues involving white people and people of color, men and women, and
heterosexuality and homosexuality as those are the binaries which the Court recognizes. But
modern society has evolved to the point that the majority of Americans no longer fit neatly into
any of the Court’s hypothetical boxes. How will the Court address affirmative action cases
brought by multiracial students? How will the Court address laws banning trans women from
using public restrooms? How will the Court address class action suits for pansexual individuals,
and why does the Court insist that the queer community is not entitled to being reviewed under a
higher level of scrutiny? With the existing methods of examination used by the Court, these
questions are impossible to answer, and not all will be protected equally by the Court.
In this article, I argue that the existing three-tiered test the Court implements in
discrimination cases is not sufficient in addressing all cases of discrimination, and in fact, does
not treat them equally, despite the language of the Equal Protection Clause. The three-tiered test
allows much room for failure because it lacks the ability to protect individuals who cannot be
neatly packed into the Court’s boxes of classifications. In order to gain a deeper understanding of
just how inadequate the current system is in addressing modern issues, there has to be an
understanding of how the Court has assessed race, gender, and sexuality in past cases.
The Equal Protection Clause
The Reconstruction Era after the Civil War witnessed a shift in constitutional law. By way
of preparing for the social chaos that would ensue after the freeing of former slaves, the federal
government added the Fourteenth Amendment. In his article The Strange Career of the
Reconstruction Amendments, Eric Foner (1999) notes, “The Reconstruction amendments
transformed the Constitution from a document primarily concerned with federal-state relations
and the rights of property into a vehicle through which members of vulnerable minorities could
stake a claim to substantive freedom and seek protection against misconduct by all levels of
government.” Just as the federal government follows the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution, so
the states must follow the Fourteenth Amendment. The first section of the Fourteenth Amendment
states the following:
“All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are
citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce
any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor
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.”
The states must treat all similarly situated citizens equally under the law. This clause is
vital to the civil rights of all citizens of a given state and has been used by civil rights activists in
order to advance the rights of people of color, women, and the queer community. When the
Court is presented with legislation that is accused of violating the Equal Protection Clause, the
Court uses the three-tiered test, with varying levels of scrutiny.
Footnote 4
The Court has also used the term “discrete and insular minority” in its famous Footnote 4,
a passage from its ruling on United States v. Carolene Products Company (1938).1 What began as
a dispute over filled milk in the 1930’s turned into the origins for the line of reasoning the Court
would use to evaluate appropriate federal interference in state government. The Court recognized
the need to intervene in matters specific to the Equal Protection Clause, but had to do so while
maintaining a balance in dual federalism. This began as the Court was leaving the Lochner era, as
mentioned in The Lochner Era and Comparative Constitutionalism by Sujit Choudhry (2004).
Justice Stone, author of Footnote 4, wrote, “‘a more searching judicial inquiry’ is warranted when
prejudice against ‘discrete and insular minorities’ undercuts the ‘operation of those political
processes ordinarily to be relied upon to protect minorities, and which may call for
a correspondingly more searching judicial inquiry.’”
1
304 U.S. 144 (1938).
The idea of the “discrete and insular” minority would be applied later in a more relevant
case to minorities, Graham v. Richardson (1971).2 Gerstmann covers this rationale of the Court’s
opinion in The Constitutional Underclass: Gays, Lesbians, and the Failure of Class-Based Equal
Protection (1999). “Without acknowledging that it had never before used the political-process
rationale in an equal protection case, the Court held, “Aliens as a class are a prime example of a
‘discrete and insular’ minority for whom such heightened judicial solicitude is appropriate,”
Gerstmann writes in addressing Footnote 4. Footnote 4, he continues, has been used in order to
both expand and deplete the list of “acceptable” minorities, proving further the inconsistencies of
the Court in addressing marginalized groups and their qualifications.
Rational Basis Test
A state law passes the rational basis test, the lowest level of scrutiny, when the challenger
of said law proves that the law is not a reasonable measure to achieve a legitimate government
interest. This test is triggered when a law discriminates against specific classifications, including
age,3 poverty,4 developmental disabilities,5 and sexual orientation.6 In other words, the test
applies when a law discriminates against anyone that is not considered a suspect class, a quasi-
suspect class, or a fundamental right. The classifications mentioned above are not considered
suspect because according to the Court, they do not meet certain criteria, which includes a
history of discrimination, political powerlessness, immutability, and are not “discrete and
insular.”7 Strauss (2011) writes in her article Reevaluating Suspect Classifications that the Court
2
403 U.S. 365 (1971).
3
See Gregory v. Ashcroft, 501 U.S. 452 (1991).
4
See M.L.B. v. S.L.J., 519 U.S. 102 (1996).
5
See City of Cleburne, Texas v. Cleburne Living Center, Inc., 473 U.S. 432 (1985).
6
See Romer v. Evans, 517 U.S. 620 (1996).
7
Strauss, Marcy. 2011. “Reevaluating Suspect Classifications.” Seattle University Law Review.
appears to follow this set of criteria, but provides little context as to what it means by history of
discrimination, immutability, political powerlessness, and discrete and insular. Strauss questions,
“Is powerlessness measured by the inability to vote (so that minors under eighteen would be
politically powerless), or by the ability to be adequately protected by the political process (so that
minors would likely not be politically powerless)? And even if the substantive definition of
political powerlessness were universally defined, there remains the question of timing. Should
powerlessness be measured from the date the law was passed (i.e., a law passed discriminating
against women at a time when women could not vote), or at the time of the legal challenge?”
Because the criteria has not been sharply defined by the Court, it leaves the matter open to wide
interpretation, which arguably leads to inconsistency in the Court’s reasoning. We can assert,
however, that in the context of political powerlessness, the Court decided in Massachusetts
Board of Retirement v. Murgia8 that should a group demonstrate a lack of political power, it may
qualify as a suspect or quasi-suspect class.
Intermediate Scrutiny
The second tier, known as intermediate scrutiny, applies to what the Court has
determined to be “quasi-suspect” groups. In this test, the state must prove that the law has a
substantial relationship to an important government interest.9 Issues surrounding gender10 and
illegitimacy11 trigger this test. Cornell University Law School defines quasi-suspect in its legal
information institute, writing, “A class is characterized “quasi-suspect” if the class is not entirely
politically powerless, but traditionally lacks substantial political power.” Yet this fails to address
8
427 U.S. 307, 313 (1975).
9
See United States v. Virginia, 518 U.S. 515 (1996).
10
See Michael M. v. Superior Court of Sonoma County, 450 U.S. 464 (1981).
11
See Nguyen v. Immigration and Naturalization Service, 533 U.S. 53 (2001).
immutability or historical discrimination, and the questions raised by Strauss are still applicable
to this standard of political powerlessness. Certainly cisgender women can be considered
immutable, and women have a long history of holding second-class status to men. Despite this,
the Court has deemed that women are not entirely suspect and therefore the level of review at
which a state must show a substantial relationship to an important government interest is not as
rigorous as strict scrutiny.
Strict Scrutiny
To pass strict scrutiny, a state law must have a compelling government interest in
imposing said law and achieve it through the least restrictive means.12 This test is often referred
to as being “strict in name, but fatal in practice” (Adarand v. Peña, 1995).13 When a claim is
made that state law is discriminatory against race,14 alienage,15 or violates a fundamental right,16
this final test is triggered and used by the Court. The Court finds that race and alienage do
constitute political powerlessness, immutability, and history of discrimination. Cornell University
Law School writes, “As suggested by [Carolene Products, 1938], strict scrutiny represents an
approach in which a presumption of constitutionality is shed in favor more exacting judicial
review.”
The three-tiered test on its face appears to be rather simple. Tests are triggered dependent
upon what class or classification is being discriminated against. The state must have a
legitimate, important, or compelling interest in order to justify such discriminatory laws. But
12
See Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin, et al., 570 U.S._(2016).
13
515 U.S. 200 (1995).
14
See Grutter v. Bollinger, 539 U.S. 306 (2003).
15
See Graham v. Richardson, 403 U.S. 365 (1971).
16
See San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriguez, 411 U.S. 1 (1973).
what the Court claims to put into practice does not reflect reality, and these cases become far
more complicated when they play out in the courtroom. The three-tiered test is layered at each
level, each test more complex than the Court will admit to. In Evan Gerstmann’s and Christopher
Shortell’s The Many Faces of Strict Scrutiny: How the Supreme Court Changes the Rules in
Race Cases (2010), the authors analyze strict scrutiny and argue, “In practice, the process [of
strict scrutiny] is rarely as simple as looking for a compelling government interest and then
evaluating whether the law is narrowly tailored… [The] meaning of strict scrutiny varies
tremendously from subject area to subject area within equal protection jurisprudence. Strict
scrutiny in the area of remedial affirmative action is not the same as strict scrutiny in diversity-
based affirmative action.” (p. 4).
Rational basis “with teeth” has become the unofficial term for the Court’s sharper version
of the first test, often used when the Court does not want to grant suspect status or quasi suspect
status to a particular group.17 William D. Araiza writes, “Indeed, Justice O’Connor was recently
moved to acknowledge that cases such as Cleburne and Romer involved something more than
traditional rational basis review, a suggestion the rest of the Court has not been willing to
embrace, at least officially” (The Section 5 Power and the Rational Basis Standard of Equal
Protection, 2005, p. 554). If the Court does not acknowledge that each level of review is not
narrowly defined, it leaves the tests open to interpretation, which then gives way to the Court’s
ability to treat cases of discrimination with higher levels of scrutiny without granting suspect
class status. Gerstmann, regarding Levy v. Louisiana (1968),18 writes, “Under a true rational-basis
test, the law would have been upheld if it possibly had even a slight effect of discouraging out of
wedlockbirths. The Court, therefore, was clearly applying a higher level of scrutiny than the
17
See Reed v. Reed, 404 U.S. 71 (1971).
18
391 U.S. 68 (1968).
traditional rational-basis test; in fact, many legal scholars interpreted Levy to mean that illegitimacy
was now a suspect classification.”
The willingness to abandon the accepted definitions of the three tests, or to even define
them precisely, casts shadows of doubt in the Court’s reasoning, and ultimately hinders its
legitimacy among marginalized communities. The tests also appear to hold back the Court
because of the nature in which it chooses to award suspect status to certain classes. Now more
than ever, American society is broadening its lens surrounding race, gender, and sexuality. The
United States is a true melting pot for diversity. Many citizens do not ascribe to a singular race;
understanding of the gender binary has already broken down traditional social construction; and
the fluidity of sexuality is becoming more accepted across the nation, particularly amongst
younger generations. This begs the question of whether or not the Court should continue to work
with the three tiered test as it stands now, or to do away with it entirely to be replaced by a new
model that would be more inclusive to diverse communities. As earlier stated, the population in
the United States is so diverse, it can no longer be confined to the borders that American society,
including the Supreme Court, has set forth in an attempt to make sense of who people are. This is
not to say that it has only recently been so; but recent years indicate that younger generations are
discovering and coining terminology to further understand the diversity of people in race,
gender, and sexuality. With this change in understanding of people, there will be a social push
towards removing such constricting guidelines that we see within the Supreme Court. The
question, some argue, should be whether or not a fundamental right is being violated as opposed
to who is being discriminated against. A singular, inclusive test would include those who do not
meet the three standards of suspect class and would erase the stigma of being considered
suspect. Although to be suspect in the eyes of the law may seem favorable to minority groups,
the outcome may have a detrimental social impact. Flexibility and inclusiveness are key factors
in a test that determines what a fundamental right is and whether or not a law is invidious.
In the following chapters, I will address discrimination cases with issues of race, gender, and
sexuality, with an analysis of how the corresponding tests are used by the Supreme Court. A
close look at various past cases addressed by the Supreme Court can grant us insight to future
failings of the existing tests. In these chapters, I analyze the existing “boxes” the Court uses to
contain its classifications and critique how its methodology allows for many diverse citizens to
fall through the cracks of equal protection. By observing how social acceptance of diversity in
race, gender, and sexuality has grown into what it is today, and comparing that acceptance of
diversity to the three tiered test and what it calls for, we will find that the three tiered test is
inefficient to meeting the reality of the diversity within the American people.
Chapter One: Race and the Supreme Court
The decision by the Court to use strict scrutiny in matters of racial discrimination can be
traced back to Skinner v. Oklahoma19 and Korematsu v. United States.20’21 Despite being the first
cases in which the Court used the terminology “strict scrutiny,” Siegel (2006) writes that it was
not until the Warren Court that the elements of strict scrutiny were put into practice and followed.
Siegel continues to say that, “Strict scrutiny varies from ordinary scrutiny by imposing three
hurdles on the government. It shifts the burden of proof to the government; requires the
government to pursue a ‘compelling state interest;’ and demands that the regulation promoting
the compelling interest be ‘narrowly tailored.’”
Since Skinner and Korematsu, there have been a wide range of cases in which the Court
has used strict scrutiny to weigh racial discrimination in state legislation. These cases have
addressed varying issues, including marriage equality and affirmative action in higher education.
However, the Court addressed racial discrimination as it pertained to the Equal Protection Clause
before coining strict scrutiny, such as in Plessy v. Ferguson.22
This chapter, while demonstrating the ways in which multiracial citizens are left behind
by the Court’s current interpretations of Equal Protection, remains aware that multiracial people
in the United States are not a new concept. Since the colonization of North American, children
have been born out of unions between white settlers, their slaves, and Native Americans. 23 These
unions were often forced, the enslaved and colonized women raped by slave owners. For much
19
316 U.S. 535, 541 (1942).
20
323 U.S. 214,216(1944).
21
Siegel, S. (2006).The Origin of the Compelling State Interest and Strict Scrutiny. The American Journal
of Legal History. Vol. 48, No. 4 (Oct., 2006), pp. 355-407.
22
163 US 537 (1896).
23
Cruz, B., Berson, M. (2001). The American Melting Pot? American Miscegenation Laws in the United
States. OAH Magazine of History. Vol. 15, No. 4. Pp. 80-84.
of history, the children born out of these rapes were to be considered as black or brown as their
mothers; no matter how white they appeared to be, any amount of nonwhite heritage was enough
to be considered “colored.” It is for that reason that this chapter refers to multiracial individuals
as a new concept for the Court to tackle since it can be argued that the rights of multiracial
individuals grew with the rights of people of color.
Plessy is relevant to this chapter as it pertains to how the Court has addressed racially
mixed individuals. Following a discussion of Plessy, this chapter focuses on exemplary cases
addressing some of the various issues in racial discrimination to demonstrate the inconsistent
logic the Court enforces through strict scrutiny. It is these inconsistencies in which this chapter
argues that multiracial individuals will fall through the cracks of the Equal Protection Clause by
the Court.
Plessy v. Ferguson
Homer Plessy boarded a train in New Orleans in the summer of 1892.24 When he stepped
into the train, he walked over to the seating reserved for “Whites only.” Plessy was 1/8th African
American. At first glance, no other person on the train would think twice to remove Plessy from
the whites only compartment of the train; Plessy passed as a white man enough to be unnoticed.
But Plessy was, in fact, part of a grander scheme. Enlisted by the Citizens Committee to Test the
Constitutionality of the Separate Car Law and attorney Albion Tourgee, Plessy was to sit in the
whites only compartment so that the Committee could bring suit against the state. This could
only happen if the Committee had the railroad management’s support, and since the segregation
complicated the work of the train operators, they complied in helping the suit move forward. One
24
Davis, T. (2012). Plessy v. Ferguson. W estport: ABC-CLIO, LLC.
of the conductors, knowing that Plessy was a plant, asked him to leave the train. After Plessy was
forcibly removed, Tourgee could move the suit forward.
Tourgee argued before the Supreme Court that Louisiana was violating the Equal
Protection Clause as the law in question was directed at the black race. He further argued that
because the law failed to define “race,” it left open to interpretation what is black and white,
allowing train conductors to discriminate with no basis. Representation for the state argued that
the law was not a violation of Equal Protection as it separated both races from each other and
accommodations were, supposedly, equal.
Justice Brown delivered the opinion for the Court. The Fourteenth Amendment, Justice
Brown wrote, forbid the States from “...making or enforcing any law which shall abridge the
privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States.” However, Justice Brown found that,
“Laws permitting, and even requiring, their separation in places where they are liable to be
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 competency of the state legislatures in
the exercise of their police power…. 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.”
With this line of reasoning and gas lighting of black citizens, the Court had endorsed the
“separate but equal” doctrine, compelling the growth of Jim Crow. Endorsing “separate but
equal” resulted in the affirmation that whites and blacks were equal in the face of the law, which
we know did not reflect the reality of society. This case demonstrates the Court’s limited
categorization of people. Plessy was only 1/8th black, yet his white features were not enough to
allow him to be considered for anything but the “black” box of the Court’s construction.
This came from the “one drop rule,” the standard by which Louisiana had used to keep
even Homer Plessy separate from the “real” white people. The “one drop rule” was born out of
issues the South was faced with when, as a result of white slave owners raping their black female
slaves, interracial children were being produced at higher rates.25 This rule was essential in
keeping the white race “pure.” This rule was vital to the survival of white supremacy after the
downfall of slavery; Jim Crow inherited this rule as a way to keep the line drawn between blacks
and whites firmly in the sand. Sociologist Nikki Khanna writes that the “one drop rule” is still
highly relevant today when we discuss multiracial identities. Khanna reasons that in more recent
times, multiracial identities have “increased exponentially” due to the breaking down of
antimiscegenation laws, increased visibility through multiracial celebrities in social media, and
even the option for people to check multiple boxes on the Census in regards to race. While
Plessy would eventually be overturned, this case is an example of how boxes are limiting the
Court’s abilities to make decisions based on the reality of the impact of certain legislation as it
pertains to Equal Protection. This also forces the Court to overreach by defining what race is in
America, which is clearly not a one size fits all solution.
As races began to mix, this obviously became more of an issue for the Court. Golub
writes, “Plessy's ability to pass for white (and his publicly staged refusal to do so) called
attention to the social and legal processes of racial sorting through which purportedly natural and
discrete racial groups are produced and maintained. Reading Plessy as a case fundamentally
about racial passing reveals the Court's deep anxiety regarding mixed-race individuals and the
25
Khanna, N. (2010). "IF YOU'RE HALF BLACK, YOU'RE JUST BLACK": Reflected Appraisals and the
Persistence of the One-Drop Rule. The Sociological Quarterly, 51(1), 96-121.
specter of interracial sexuality that ambiguously raced bodies necessarily signify. Within the
Court's racial narrative, passing simultaneously constitutes a violation of white supremacist
norms of sexual behavior and a challenge to the assumption of natural racial differences upon
which the institutions of segregation depended.”26
Golub examines Tourgee’s argument to the Court, highlighting the attorney’s
hypothetical question to the Justices: what would the Justices do if despite their white ancestry,
they had black features and were forced into the “blacks only” car of a train? Tourgee’s point,
Golub argues, was to showcase the arbitrariness of determining someone’s race. Golub explains,
“Tourgee's hypothetical demonstrated the power of law to impose racial subjectivity: it is not
simply a matter of properly matching the race of each person to the appropriate train car. Rather,
an individual's race may be a product of being assigned to a white or a colored car.”
Additionally, Golub points out the implications of Justice Brown’s reasoning and strategy
to reasoning that “separate but equal” was allowable per the Equal Protection Clause. Golub
writes, “Significantly, both of Justice Brown's arguments are implicitly linked to questions of
mixed race. The theory of symmetrical equality developed as a legal justification for anti-
miscegenation laws, adopted by the Court in Pace v. Alabama (1883). As visible evidence of
previous miscegenation, passing is closely related to the theme of mixed race. To the extent that
race-thinking presupposes discrete or pure racial kinds, race requires the denial of mixed race.
Where scientific theories of race attempted to define away the racially destabilizing implications
of mixed-race people, anti-miscegenation laws sought to legislate against such disruptions. In
this regard, Justice Brown's majority opinion can be seen as an exercise in containment, reacting
against the destabilizing potential of passing in Tourgee's defense.”
26
Golub, M. (2005). Plessy as "Passing": Judicial Responses to Ambiguously Raced Bodies in Plessy v.
Ferguson. Law & Society Review. Vol. 39, No. 3 pp. 563-600.
Plessy demonstrates the complications of a case involving a mixed race individual. How
would the Court determine in which box to place such an individual? Is it based on ancestry,
despite someone’s ability to “pass” as white or black? Or would it be based on appearance,
despite ancestry? Fortunately, society and the Court would change after time passed from the
Plessy decision. Legislation banning biracial marriage would last until the late 1960’s. By that
time, unlike in Plessy, the Court would have developed the levels of scrutiny and be openly
using strict scrutiny to cases involving racially discriminatory legislation. While the banning of
biracial marriage is no longer alive in the country today, it is critical to understand the Court’s
decision in such cases as it points to the failures of categorizing people and cases by narrow
classifications alone.
Loving v. Virginia
Richard and Mildred Loving were happily married in 1958 in Washington D.C.27 The
couple made the trip to the Capital from their home state of Virginia, where state law mandated
that interracial marriage was illegal. Richard was white; Mildred was black. When they
returned, the newlyweds began their new life together, not expecting the legal battle ahead of
them.
It was just a couple hours past midnight, not yet one year into their marriage, when
Richard and Mildred were woken up by the county sheriff standing at their bedside. Someone
had informed law enforcement of the couple’s union. The sheriff and his deputies promptly
arrested the two for breaking the state’s anti-miscegenation law.
When the couple stood before the county judge, they were found guilty. The judge
presented them with a choice, however; they could either both spend one year in prison, or they
could leave the state and not return for twenty-five years. There was no easy answer for the
couple. Mildred was five months pregnant at the time of the arrest, and could not spend a year in
27
Wallenstein, P. (1995). The Right to Marry: Loving v. Virginia. OAH Magazine of History, 9(2), 37-41.
prison without being forced to give birth there. The couple did not want to uproot themselves
from their home; they had family, friends, and a community in Virginia. Instead, Mildred sought
out legal help from the Attorney General. At his advice, she contacted the American Civil
Liberties Union. Through the Union, Richard and Mildred were introduced to Bernard Cohen, a
civil rights attorney. The ACLU agreed to pay for the attorney fees, and with Cohen joined Philip
Hirschkop. The attorneys brought suit against the state of Virginia, claiming that the law which
had displaced Richard and Mildred out of their home was a violation of the Equal Protection
Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
By the time that Loving v. Virginia28 had reached the Court, it had already been faced
with an opportunity to dismantle antimiscegenation laws. Just a few years earlier, in 1955, Naim
v. Naim29 was dismissed before the Court on a technicality.30 The Court at the time feared
hearing a case regarding interracial marriage, since it was so soon after Brown. The stability of
the Court was wavering in public opinion, given its very liberal decision. Dorr writes in his
article regarding the case, “Opposition in Brown was mounting daily and, ‘The southern
governors were talking about interposition.... Over and over again, the fear was expressed that
Brown was going to lead to mongrelization of the races. The notion was that little black boys
would be sitting next to little white girls in school, and the next thing would be intermarriage and
worse.’” The attorneys representing the Lovings argued that Brown v. Board of Education31
should hold precedent for this case. Brown, the attorneys argued, laid framework that stated that
the Fourteenth Amendment was violated by Virginia because it criminalized marriage only when
it pertained to mixed race couples. The State argued that both parties were punished equally, and
28
388 U.S. 1 (1967).
29
350 U.S. 891 (1955).
30
Dorr, G. (1998). Principled Expediency: Eugenics, Naim v. Naim, and the Supreme Court. The
American Journal of Legal History, 42(2), 119-159.
31
347 U.S. 483 (1954).
so the law was not a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment since not one party was punished
more than the other for violating Virginia law.
After hearing oral arguments from Cohen, Hirschkop and the State, Chief Justice Warren
himself wrote the majority opinion for the Court, which turned out to be a unanimous decision.
Chief Justice Warren wrote that the Virginia law “cannot stand consistently with the Fourteenth
Amendment…. [We] do not accept the State’s contention that these statutes should be upheld if
there is any possible basis for concluding that they serve a rational purpose….In the case at bar,
we deal with statutes containing racial classifications, and the fact of equal application does not
immunize the statute from the very heavy burden of justification which the Fourteenth
Amendment has traditionally required of state statutes drawn according to race….[The] Equal
Protection Clause requires the consideration of whether the classifications drawn by any of the
statutes constitute an arbitrary and invidious discrimination. The clear and central purpose of the
Fourteenth Amendment was to eliminate all official state sources of invidious racial
discrimination in the States.”
In his argument for the Court, Chief Justice Warren held the Virginia statute against the
test of strict scrutiny, in which he found that the law barring interracial marriage failed to
identify a compelling government interest, let alone find the least restrictive means possible to
achieve said interest. Chief Justice Warren found that, “the state court is no doubt correct in
asserting that marriage is a social relation subject to the State’s police power, [however] the State
does not contend in its argument before this Court that its powers to regulate marriage are
unlimited notwithstanding the commands of the Fourteenth Amendment.” While he found that
the institution of marriage is within the powers of the State, those powers, he concluded, could
not outweigh the protections of the Fourteenth Amendment.

He continued, “Penalties for miscegenation arose as an incident to slavery, and have been
common in Virginia since the colonial period… 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. We have consistently
denied the constitutionality of measures which restrict the rights of citizens on account of race.
There can be no doubt that restricting the freedom to marry solely because of racial
classifications violates the central meaning of the Equal Protection Clause….”
The decision in this case was a victory for civil rights. Loving set precedent that anti-
miscegenation laws are unconstitutional, which broke down a major foundation in white
supremacy, as noted by Chief Justice Warren. However, as the chapter will further exemplify,
Loving still fails to protect multiracial individuals. By using strict scrutiny to address the
question of the case, the Court enforced the idea of classifications by race, the very boxes that
are limiting the Court’s decision making when it comes to extremely diverse individuals. Loving
allows biracial coupling, and as a result of biracial coupling, multiracial children are made. As
noted before, multiracial children are no new concept to the United States. Yet after Loving, their
existence was given validation in society. Legally, however, they are forced into the white box or
non-white box in the question of Equal Protection. Neither of these boxes is a true testimony to
the identities and experiences of these children and the very specific discrimination they may
face as multiracial individuals. It also leaves open the door for the Court to place those
individuals in boxes based off of heritage or physical features as was the concern raised in
Plessy.If the Court is left to decide where to place multiracial people within a system of tests that
views identity in a limited fashion, what will be the outcome of affirmative action suits brought
by multiracial students?
Bakke and Fisher
Slavery is an ever-existing dark mark in our nation’s history, a mark that many would
like to forget, or rather ignore. In an attempt to remedy the evil committed in the eras of slavery
and Jim Crow, public schools, particularly institutions of higher education, have implemented
“affirmative action” policies. These policies often sought to lift minority students from their
disadvantaged placement by reserving seats within admissions to universities for them.
The University of California at Davis Medical School was one such institution that felt
compelled to use an affirmative action policy.32 After the school opened in 1968, it had only
admitted three students of color within its first two years.33 Recognizing the lack of diversity, the
school fashioned two admissions programs: regular and special. The regular program evaluated
prospective students in the traditional way by examining GPA, test scores, and resumes. This
program took no consideration of the demographics of the applicant pool. The special program,
however, was reserved only for students who demonstrated a disadvantage financially,
educationally, or indicated being a person of color. The special program held its pool to the same
standards as the regular admissions, but the pools were not competing against one another.
Sixteen seats were left open to only those enlisted in the special admissions program.
Allan Bakke applied to the medical school and was rejected twice. Bakke believed he
was rejected due to his whiteness, since his undergraduate GPA and test scores ranked higher
than many minority applicants. Making the claim that his rejection was on racially
discriminatory grounds, Bakke filed suit and the case made its way through the legal ladder and
finally to the Supreme Court.
32
438 U.S. 265 (1978).
33
Epstein, L., W alker, T. (2015) Constitutional Law for a Changing America: Rights, Liberties, and Justice
(Ninth Edition). SAGE Publications.
The Court was presented with three questions: was the University’s dual admissions
program constitutional? Did the University wrongfully deny Bakke’s applications? And is a
consideration of race permissible when a University chooses to admit students?34
Because there was a question of racial discrimination, despite the claim being made by a
white man, the Court continued to use strict scrutiny in evaluating if the admissions program was
acceptable under the Equal Protection Clause. The decision in Bakke was unusual and complex,
and ultimately the decision was split five to four on two separate thoughts. Justice Powell wrote
the opinion for the Court, but agreed with varying aspects of both the majority and the dissenting
opinions. Chief Justice Burger and Justices Stuart, Rehnquist, and Stevens dissented, while the
majority ultimately agreed that affirmative action programs should be allowed, so long as
universities do not use quotas, in which case the program would be unconstitutional. Justices
Brennan, White, Marshall, Blackmun, and Powell agreed that such admissions programs may be
allowed and may consider race in admissions decisions.
Justice Powell reviewed the arguments of both parties as well as the decisions handed
down by the lower courts, stating, “[Strict scrutiny, the University] asserts, should be reserved
for classifications that disadvantage ‘discrete and insular minorities.’ [Bakke], on the other hand,
contends that the California court correctly rejected the notion that the degree of Judicial scrutiny
accorded to a particular racial or ethnic classification hinges upon membership in a discrete and
insular minority and duly recognized that the ‘rights established [by the Fourteenth Amendment]
are personal rights.’ Shelley v. Kraemer, 334 U.S. 1, 22 (1948).... [The University] prefers to
view [the program] as establishing a ‘goal’ of minority representation in the Medical School.
[Bakke], echoing the courts below, labels it a racial quota.”
34
Hazard, W. (1978) The Bakke Decision: Mixed Signals from the Court. The Phi Delta Kappan. Vol. 60,
No. 1. Pp. 16-19.
Justice Powell continues, “The guarantees of the Fourteenth Amendment extend to all
persons. Its language is explicit: ‘No State shall... deny to any person within its jurisdiction the
equal protection of the laws.’ It is settled beyond question that the rights created by the first
section of the Fourteenth Amendment are, by its terms, guaranteed to the individual. The rights
established are personal rights. The guarantee of equal protection cannot mean one thing when
applied to one individual and something else when applied to a person of another color. If both
are not accorded the same protection, then it is not equal.”
The question of how a white male such as Bakke could be considered a “discrete and
insular minority” was also addressed by Justice Powell, who argued, “[Strict scrutiny] has never
been invoked in our decisions as a prerequisite to subjecting racial or ethnic distinctions to strict
scrutiny. Nor has this Court held that discreteness and insularity constitute necessary
preconditions to a holding that a particular classification is invidious. These characteristics may
be relevant in deciding whether or not to add new types of classifications to the list of ‘suspect’
categories or whether a particular classification survives close examination. Racial and ethnic
classifications, however, are subject to stringent examination without regard to these additional
characteristics. We declared as much in the first cases explicitly to recognize racial distinctions
as suspect...” This reasoning appears to undermine the logic of how the Court assigns
classifications to levels of scrutiny; if these standards do not determine what level of scrutiny is
applied, why should they matter at all?
The admissions program was found to be unconstitutional by the Court, which “...tells
applicants who are not Negro, Asian, or Chicano that they are totally excluded from a specific
percentage of the seats in an entering class. No matter how strong their qualifications,
quantitative and extracurricular, including their own potential for contribution to educational
diversity, they are never afforded the chance to compete with applicants from preferred groups
for the special admission seats. At the same time, the preferred applicants have the opportunity to
compete for every seat in the class. The fatal flaw in [the University’s] preferential program is its
disregard of individual rights as guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment.”
In short, the Court found that the special admissions program was not constitutional, that
Bakke was wrongfully denied from the school. Additionally, the Court ruled that while seeking
diversity in a student population is a compelling government interest, diversity cannot just be
based on race and ethnicity. However, affirmative action programs are constitutionally valid so
long as they follow this guideline and do not attempt to fulfill a quota.
Since Bakke, there has been a wave of civil suits against universities, claiming “reverse
racism,” including cases like Grutter v. Bollinger in 2003. Most recently, the Supreme Court
heard Fisher v. University of Texas.35 Abigail Fisher, a white woman, applied for admission to
the University of Texas’s undergraduate freshman class in 2008. Fisher was a high school senior,
but because she was not in the top ten percent of her graduating class, she was not automatically
admitted per the University’s policy. Instead, she would be considered in the standard admissions
program, a program in which race was considered when students were admitted. When the
University of Texas denied her application, Fisher filed suit, claiming discrimination on the basis
of race. The district court as well as the Court of Appeals ruled in favor of the University, leaving
Fisher the option of appealing to the Supreme Court.
The Court was asked if the Equal Protection Clause permitted the consideration of race in
admissions decisions to undergraduate programs in universities. Justice Kennedy delivered the
opinion for the Court, a four to three decision.Justice Kennedy wrote, “...it is not a failure of
narrow tailoring for the impact of racial consideration to be minor. The fact that race
35
579 U.S. _ (2016).
consciousness played a role in only a small portion of admissions decisions should be a hallmark
of narrow tailoring, not evidence of unconstitutionality.”
The decisions between Fisher and Bakke were vastly different; while both parties were in
similar situations, the Court recognized significant differences between the schools’ admissions
programs. University of Texas, unlike the medical school in Bakke, used a different metric in
evaluating race in their incoming class. “Race is not itself assigned a numerical value for each
applicant, but the University has committed itself to increasing racial minority enrollment on
campus. It refers to this goal as a ‘critical mass.’”36 The vagueness of the admissions program to
admit minority students allowed University of Texas to pass the strict scrutiny test, unlike the
medical school, which specifically called for a reservation of 16 seats to students of color.
Both of the cases mentioned above applied strict scrutiny despite the fact that white
students could not be considered “discrete and insular” based on skin color alone. Strict scrutiny
is triggered when race is involved, white, black or brown. But the racial divide in the United
States is becoming more of a blurred line as time passes.
In her article Political Attitudes and Ideologies of Multiracial Americans: The
Implications of Mixed Race in the United States, Natalie Masuoka (2008) addresses this topic,
writing, “While multiracial Americans make up approximately 2.4 percent of the population in
2000, Smith and Edmonston (1997) estimate that the multiracial population could make up as
much as 21 percent of the population by 2050…. Indeed, individuals who self-identify as
multiracial exemplify a new direction in racial identification. As individuals who have chosen
an identity that falls outside the traditional racial spectrum, those who self-identify as multiracial
resist thehistorical precedent to accept the racial identity that is imposed on them…. It is
important to note that multiracial identities are not new phenomena in this country, but I argue
36
570 U.S. _ (2013).
that self-identification as such represents a recent and important trend. Historically, racial
identities have been imposed on individuals. As a result, minorities have had to both accept and
cope with the subordinate status associated with their race.” This is reflective of what Khanna
said about multiracial identities and how the Court had used the “one drop rule;” the Court
assigned individuals between the statuses of white and nonwhite. This cannot work in relation
with the numbers that Masouka provides.
Others would argue that the current strategies of the Court reflect too heavily the notion
of black and white, ignoring racial diversity among Americans. One such argument comes from
Deborah Ramirez, who writes in her article Multicultural Empowerment: It's Not Just Black and
White Anymore (1995) that, “When courts and legislatures first created race-conscious remedies
in the 1960s, the United States was seen as a black and white society. Blacks constituted
approximately 10 percent of the population, and whites nearly 90 percent…. Since the 1960s,
however, three important demographic trends have changed the face of America and its race
relations: first, the increasing percentage of persons of color; second, the increasing percentage
of persons of color who are not black; and third, the increasing number of persons
who consider themselves multiracial. These demographic changes affect existing color-conscious
remedies in crucial ways. In fact, demographic shifts may be causing our race-conscious
remedial system to implode. As the percentage of people of color in the population increases, so
too will the "exclusionary" effects of affirmative action on non-minorities.”
In her article, Professor Ramirez questions the effectiveness of affirmative action
programs as remedial tools to a history of oppression towards black Americans. She points out
that while affirmative action was a response to slavery and Jim Crow, other people of color, such
as Latinos and Asians, are benefiting from such programs. This begs the question, who is truly
uniquely disadvantaged? Ramirez asks, “If blacks are indeed uniquely disadvantaged, does the
"lesser" history of discrimination against Latinos and Asians entitle them to a lesser remedy, or
no remedy at all? In other words, should affirmative action programs treat Latinos and Asians as
whites, as blacks, or as something in between?” While Ramirez is questioning the effectiveness
of affirmative action programs, the same idea can be posed against strict scrutiny in racial
discrimination claims. The Reconstruction Era followed the Civil War, and the 14th
Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause evolved because of the enslavement of blacks. As
Ramirez mentioned, legislation in the 1960s was meant to remedy the unfair treatment of black
Americans. Yet the Court’s interpretation, based on decisions like Bakke and Fisher, indicate
otherwise. Furthermore, there is no indication of how to handle cases involving multiracial
people, or if the Court would recognize and handle these cases differently at all.
As Masuoka indicates, multiracial Americans are on the rise, but the Court, as
demonstrated in the cases in this chapter, have carefully crafted boxes that distinguish a party’s
class and classification. The current system in place by the Court to determine if a person is
“discrete and insular” and if strict scrutiny applies does not answer the complex question of how
to address discrimination against a multiracial individual. If Fisher or Bakke had been multiracial
students claiming racial discrimination, how would the Court address such claims? Multiracial
people are so diverse that some may look white, some may look brown. Would the Court
examine a person’s physical characteristics to determine if someone may be a discrete and
insular minority? As Khanna indicates in addressing Plessy, the “one drop rule” still presents a
struggle for courts today. Can an otherwise white individual claim to be multiracial and identify
with people of color if they are 1/32 Native American? Strict scrutiny is triggered by race
discrimination, but what does that mean for multiracial citizens? Or will the Court even
recognize those individuals for who they are, as complex and diverse individuals?
Chapter 2: Gender and the Supreme Court
In March of 2017, the Supreme Court chose not to hear Gavin Grimm’s lawsuit, opting to
reverse the case back to the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.37 The Court’s given reasoning for
this decision was the elimination by the Trump administration of federal guidelines imposed on
schools, mandating that transgender students be permitted to use bathrooms corresponding to
their identities. These guidelines were put in place by the Obama administration, but have since
been rescinded since Trump came into power. The 4th Circuit Court of Appeals sided with
Grimm, agreeing that the school violated the Equal Protection Clause, in addition to Title IX. 38
The Supreme Court will inevitably hear similar cases in the future, but for now, it has yet to rule
on cases of discrimination against transgender people.
According to a study completed in 2016, about 1.4 million American adults identify as
transgender.39 That is roughly 0.6% of the adult population in the United States and is double the
number given by Gary J. Gates in his survey in 2011.40 Coordinators of the 2016 study attribute
this increase to “a perceived increase in visibility and social acceptance of transgender people.”
Given that gender has historically and socially been perceived as binary, the growing number of
those who identify as transgender, like Grimm, are currently facing political and legal obstacles.
In Conformity Pressures and Gender Resistance Among Transgendered Individuals, Patricia
Gagne and Richard Tewksbury (1998) write, “Western industrial and post-industrial cultures
share the ideological presumption that gender will correlate with the sex assigned at birth.
Individuals whoseek to challenge this binary system of gender through enactments of
37
Liptak, A. (2017). Supreme Court Won’t Hear Major Case on Transgender Rights. The New York
Times.
38
Wheeler, L. (2017). Supreme Court won't hear transgender bathroom case. The Hill.
39
Flores, A.R., Herman, J.L., Gates, G.J, & Brown T.N.T. (2016) How Many Adults Identify as
Transgender in the United States? Los Angeles, CA: The Williams Institute.
40
Gates, G. (2011). How many people are lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender? Los Angeles, CA: The
Williams Institute.
androgynous gender or by crossing gender boundaries, including masculine women and feminine
men, are likely to be stigmatized, ostracized, and labeled mentally ill.”41 There is a clear
disparity in the way in which transgender people are treated socially compared to that of
cisgender42 people.
As referenced by Gagne & Tewksbury, Western society is held by the pillars of the
gender binary, among other long-held traditional social constructs. The Supreme Court is not
exempt from maintaining such societal models and expectations, and this is demonstrated clearly
when the Court applies intermediate scrutiny to gender discrimination claims.43 A state passes
intermediate scrutiny when the state can demonstrate that the law advances an important
government interest and the law is substantially related to that specific interest. This test is less
rigorous than strict scrutiny, but more so than the rational basis test. We also see the language
surrounding intermediate scrutiny shift and change over the course of certain cases, such as in
U.S. v. Virginia.44
Because the Court would not hear Grimm’s case, we are left to speculate how the Court,
if it had made a decision, would interpret transgender discrimination. Would the Court attempt to
categorize transgender individuals according to the binary construct? Would the Court recognize
the individual’s chosen gender, or persist in categorizing the individual with the gender printed
on his or her birth certificate? How would the Court apply intermediate scrutiny in either
scenario? While we cannot rely on Grimm’s case, looking at cases in the Court’s past offers
insight to how the Court interprets gender discrimination, which in turn may help to predict the
future of transgender rights in the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court over the years has
41
Gagne, P., Tewksbury, R. (1998). Conformity Pressures and Gender Resistance Among
Transgendered Individuals. Social Problems. Vol. 45., No. 1.
42
See Merriam-Webster dictionary: of, relating to, or being a person whose gender identity corresponds
with the sex the person had or was identified as having at birth.
43
See Craig v. Boren, 429 U.S. 190 (1976).
44
518 U.S. 515 (1996).
interpreted cases based on a fixed notion of gender, gender roles, and the gender binary.
Unfortunately, setting this kind of precedent leaves far too little room individuals who do not fit
the mold of the gender binary. This chapter focuses primarily on how the Court has interpreted
gender, specifically the gender binary, and how that may limit the Court’s interpretation of
transgender identities.
Craig v. Boren
In an attempt to avoid more traffic accidents, Oklahoma created legislation in 1972 which
permitted only women 18 years of age and older to purchase alcohol while men were allowed to
purchase alcohol at the age of 21 or older. A suit was brought forth by Mark Walker, a twenty-
year-old student at Oklahoma State University, who teamed up with local store owner Carolyn
Whitener. Walker and Whitener claimed sex discrimination, however, Walker would soon be
turning 21, rendering the suit susceptible to dismissal. In order to avert such a scenario, Walker’s
eighteen-year-old friend, Curtis Craig was made party to the case. At the trial court, rational
basis was used to evaluate the claim of discrimination on the basis of sex. In the year previous to
the birth of the Oklahoma law, the Supreme Court had evaluated discrimination on the basis of
sex through rational basis, the lowest form of scrutiny.45 However, the Court had used language
that implied a stronger form of rational basis in comparison to its traditional usage; this would be
dubbed “rational basis with teeth.” Craig and the rest of his party, on the other hand, argued that
the trial court should apply strict scrutiny. With the use of rational basis, the Oklahoma law
passed the test and the law was found to be constitutional.
When the case reached the Supreme Court, Justice Brennan wrote the opinion of the
Court in a seven to two decision. He stated, “To withstand constitutional challenge, previous
45
See Reed v. Reed, 404 U.S. 71 (1971).
cases establish that classifications by gender must serve important governmental objectives and
must be substantially related to achievement of those objectives… Reed v. Reed has also
provided the underpinning for decisions that have invalidated statutes employing gender as an
inaccurate proxy for other, more germane bases of classification. Hence, ‘archaic and overbroad’
generalizations could not justify use of a gender line in determining eligibility for certain
governmental entitlements… the relationship between gender and traffic safety becomes far too
tenuous to satisfy Reed’s requirement that the gender-based difference be substantially related to
achievement of the statutory objective.”
Justice Brennan in his reasoning is recognizing roles that are assigned to gender as being
“tenuous” in relation to this law. The law itself affirms the notion that young men are reckless,
are trouble makers, or the phrase “boys will be boys.” This is implied by the fact that the state
does not trust young men to consume alcohol responsibly in the same way it trusts young
women. This is because the opposite stereotypes are applied to this group; young women are
seen as demure, responsible, or reasonable. In this case, Justice Brennan found that these
assumptions by the state were not sufficient to justify discrimination against young men.
However, Justice Brennan does not seem to fight the gender roles of the “two genders.” He only
finds that the stereotypes are not strong enough evidence to support such a law.
Here, Justice Brennan has established the requirements of intermediate scrutiny, the first
time the Court would use that term. However, it was Justice Rehnquist in his dissent who used
that phrase, arguing, “...the Court’s application here of an elevated or ‘intermediate’ level
scrutiny, like that invoked in cases dealing with discrimination against females, raises the
question of why the statute here should be treated any differently from countless legislative
classifications unrelated to sex which have been upheld under a minimum rationality standard.”
Just as the Court attempted to deal with issues revolving around race with the answer of strict
scrutiny, the Court attempted to remedy gender discrimination with intermediate scrutiny. This
remedy, however, is only sufficient if gender is viewed as a simple binary in which men and
women are born into their roles and accept their gender assignments at birth.
In the majority opinion, Justice Brennan writes, “...statutory classifications that
distinguish between males and females are ‘subject to scrutiny under the Equal Protection
Clause…’ In light of the weak congruence between gender and the characteristic or trait that
gender purported to represent, it was necessary that the legislatures choose either to realign their
substantive laws in a gender-neutral fashion, or to adopt procedures for identifying those
instances where the sex-centered generalization actually comported with fact.” This language
reflects the gender binary to which the Court recognizes in order to assess gender classifications.
While the Court does not accept the state’s reasoning for the law, it reasons that the law could
meet the standards of intermediate scrutiny should the state have provided more evidence to
support the assumption about young men and alcohol. The reasoning leaves little space for a
discussion about how such a law may impact transgender identities and the implications of
gender assignment at birth correlating with stereotypes about that gender. Transgender issues
were not at the social front at the time of this case, of course, however transgender issues are
impacted by this case.
Additionally, the Court in this case presaged the Bakke line of reasoning. Although men
do not meet the standards to be considered suspect, that does not bar that group from being
protected under the same level of scrutiny as women, who the Court considers quasi-suspect
class. Similar ideas played out five years later, only this time, the matter was regarding a more
sinister act.
Michael M. v. Superior Court of Sonoma County
Michael M. was just shy of turning 18 when he violated California’s statutory rape law. 46
He had forced himself onto a 16 year old girl and raped her. They had met at a bus stop with a
group of other teenagers, and together the group had walked to the nearby railroad tracks and
drank.47 Michael and the teenage girl walked away from the group together and proceeded to
kiss. The intimacy progressed and Michael attempted to have sex with her; she refused, and he
struck her in the face. After that, Michael proceeded to remove her pants and rape her.
California law forbade that any man, or boy, have sex with a girl under the age of
eighteen. Prosecutors moved forward with the violation of the statutory rape law, as opposed to
holding Michael accountable for the forcible rape (this was due to the fact that proving such an
act would be difficult to prove in court). Michael’s attorney argued that the statutory rape law
was unconstitutional because it discriminated against males, a violation of the Equal Protection
Clause. When the case reached the Supreme Court of California, the Court sided with the state
and found that the state had a compelling interest in preventing teenage pregnancies.
When the case reached the Supreme Court, Justice Rehnquist delivered the judgement for
the Court. Relying on Craig v. Boren, Justice Rehnquist wrote that the law surpassed
intermediate scrutiny as the Court applied it, and that “the fact that the sexes are not similarly
situated” leaves room for this level of gender discrimination to be considered constitutionally
acceptable. Additionally, the law acted as a deterrent to underage males just as the risk of
pregnancy was a supposed deterrent to underage females, or so Justice Rehnquist argued.
This reasoning against statutory rape, while an older and outdated reasoning of the Court
nonetheless is harmful to any victim of sexual assault who does not fit the model of a pure,
cisgender woman. The reasoning of the Court leaves out male victims and trans women and
46
450 U.S. 464 (1981).
47
Lauer, R. (1981). Fourteenth Amendment. Statutory Rape: Protection of Minor Female and Prosecution
of Minor Male. The Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology (1973-), 72(4), 1374-1392.
although the Court claims to use intermediate scrutiny equally across discrimination against
males and females, this decision demonstrates otherwise. Lauer writes, “...the Supreme Court's
decision in Michael M. suffers from three major flaws. First, the Supreme Court should not have
accepted the pregnancy prevention rationale without questioning it. Second, the gender-based
classification cannot bear a substantial relation to the prevention of teenage pregnancies because
the statute is impermissibly overbroad. Finally, the statute also fails to satisfy the substantial
relation test since the classification is underinclusive…[The Navedo] conclusion was based on a
finding that the statute was underinclusive since it excluded a class of males, those under twenty-
five, which could have intercourse with and cause pregnancy in minor females. Accordingly, the
Navedo court found the pregnancy prevention justification implausible… By accepting the
pregnancy prevention rationale [in Michael M.] without question, the United States Supreme
Court participated in this rationalization process and thus denied equal protection to the
defendant.”
Furthermore, Lauer asserts, “If the prevention of teenage pregnancies is to be
accomplished through a statutory rape law prohibiting consensual intercourse, the state of
California should be required to exempt from the operation of the statute acts of intercourse
which cannot result in pregnancy. If individuals engaging in consensual intercourse without risk
of pregnancy are not exempt from prosecution under the statute, some other purpose must be
used to justify the prohibitions of the statutory rape law as applied to them. Finally, if pregnancy
prevention is the only purpose of the statute and if it includes within its prohibitions sexual
intercourse with individuals who are not yet of childbearing age or who are sterile or exercise
birth control, the statute must fail as being overinclusive in violation of equal protection.”
The Court had a very limited definition of gender in this case and the realities for those
genders. This logic left out a host of identities, and in particular, trans men and trans women.
Viewing pregnancy as the sole deterrent for women seriously limits future cases that reflect
similar laws, especially when the victims of such cases cannot physically become pregnant.
According to a recent study, half of all transgender people have experienced sexual assault, and
those numbers are only from those who have reported the assault.48
The lack of inclusion in the Court’s decision leaves out a host of identities, which is a
failure to protect all citizens in similarly situated circumstances equally. As time progressed the
Court would hold the states to higher standards that arguably exceeded the standards of
intermediate scrutiny, yet held on to the label of intermediate scrutiny.
U.S. v. Virginia
After complaints from female high school graduates, the federal government sought to
sue the Virginia Military Institute, or VMI. VMI was a single-sexed school established in 1839,
with only men admitted, and prided itself on making “citizen soldiers.” To achieve this goal, the
school relied on the adversative method, which entailed physical training and absolutely no
privacy for students. Because of this method, for all its history VMI only ever admitted male
students. Claiming that the school violated the Equal Protection Clause by discriminating on the
basis of gender, the federal government took legal action. The district court sided with the
school, stating that single-sexed institutions offered educational benefits that other institutions
could not. At the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals, the lower court’s decision was reversed in favor
of the federal government. In an attempt to appease the decision of the Circuit Court, VMI
48
Stotzer, R. (2009). Violence against transgender people: A review of United States data. Aggression
and Violent Behavior, 14, 170-179.
created the Virginia Women’s Institute for Leadership, set to be the alternate program for
women. The VWIL, however, was noticeably inferior to VMI as its resources were scarce and
did not hold the same prestige as the original institute. Unsatisfied with this answer from
Virginia, the federal government brought the case before the Supreme Court for review.
In a 7 to 1 decision, Justice Ginsburg wrote the majority opinion for the Court. In
assessing whether a women only academy was sufficient enough to counterbalance VMI’s male
only program, the Court decided it did not meet the standards of Equal Protection and therefore
was a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment. Justice Ginsburg wrote, “Virginia’s public
institutions of higher learning include an incomparable military college, Virginia Military
Institute. The United States maintains that the Constitution’s equal protection guarantee
precludes Virginia from reserving exclusively to men the unique educational opportunities VMI
affords. We agree… ‘Inherent differences’ between men and women, we have come to
appreciate, remain cause for celebration… [S]uch classifications may not be used, as they once
were, to create or perpetuate the legal, social, and economic inferiority of women… State actors
controlling gates to opportunity, we have instructed, may not exclude qualified individuals based
on ‘fixed notions concerning the roles and abilities of males and females.’”
The fixed notions to which Justice Ginsburg refers to is indicative of the gender binary,
but this leaves little room to interpret how the Court would address “fixed notions” of trans men
and women if there were any fixed notions at all. In its decision, the Court did not find the
alternative institute to be a sufficient answer to the issue of giving female students the same
opportunity as male students. In the Court’s attempt to deal with gender, it had deadlocked itself
by promoting the gender binary and writing this opinion in terms of cisgender individuals. Could
Grimm and future parties disputing bathroom laws within schools use Virginia to argue that
forcing trans students to use any bathroom but the bathroom of their choice violates Equal
Protection?
United States v. Virginia is notable among legal scholars for its unique use of
intermediate scrutiny, which adds to the inconsistencies committed by the Court in cases of
Equal Protection. David Bowsher writes, “The language used by the Court in United States v.
Virginia differed from the language normally used in gender-based equal protection cases.
Instead of examining VMI's admissions policy in terms of its ‘substantial relationship to
important governmental objectives,’ the Court placed new emphasis on the presence or absence
of an ‘exceedingly persuasive justification’ for the policy and introduced the phrase ‘skeptical
scrutiny’ to refer to its inquiry.49” The use of a seemingly more forceful version of intermediate
scrutiny almost implies that the Court has a goal of protecting the classification of gender more
so than it has in previous cases like Craig and Michael M. Still, however, gender is not
considered suspect enough to qualify for strict scrutiny, and intermediate scrutiny remains the
official test applied to gender discrimination cases. From this, we can see that the Court is
struggling to adapt to each case as it presents itself; Virginia uses a more forceful version of
intermediate scrutiny, and this action of straying away from this level of scrutiny’s official terms
reveals that intermediate scrutiny is not efficient in protecting certain classes, such as women. If
the Court struggles to consistently apply intermediate scrutiny as an answer to gender
discrimination within the context of the gender binary, how could it possibly answer questions
regarding the treatment of trans individuals? This instability in the way intermediate scrutiny
applies would completely undermine trans rights should the trans community be considered
oppressed enough to be classified as quasi suspect. It demonstrates a lack of consistency in that
on a case by case basis, the Court could shy away from the language of intermediate scrutiny, for
49
Bowsher, D. (1998). Cracking the Code of United States v. Virginia. Duke Law Journal, 48(2), 305-339.
better or for worse. In the case of Virginia, the Court, albeit slightly, advanced cis women’s
rights.
In the event the Court should choose to include transmen and transwomen within the
classification of cisgender men and women, would transmen and transwomen only be considered
quasi suspect? This does not seem to fit since, as was mentioned above, the trans community is
socially ostracized and stigmatized. “Transgender people, especially transgender women of
color, continue to be targeted in vicious attacks all throughout this country. The simple act of
walking down the street is cause for real fear and anti-transgender political rhetoric only serves
to embolden those who harass and intimidate people simply because of who they are,” said
Human Rights Campaign’s President Chad Griffin in a comment about the Crimes Report done
in 2016.50 “The tragic impact of hate crimes is felt by families, friends and entire communities,
creating fear and instability that ripple across the country. With a wave of bias-motivated
harassment in the wake of the recent election, HRC will continue to push for more accurate
reporting of hate crimes to the FBI so that we truly understand the full scope of the violence.”
In her article about transgender legal advocacy, author Demoya Gordon writes, “For the
most part, courts adjudicating these claims have found that transgender persons do not fall into
an enumerated protected class based on [the rationale that]…the plain meaning of the word ‘sex’
does not include transgender status or identity.51” Gordon notes arguments made by Ginsburg
before she earned the title of Justice. In these arguments, Ginsburg “[tapped] into fields such as
history, biology, and philosophy in order to convince the courts that many of the perceived
50
Human Rights Campaign. (2016). New Hate Crimes Report Shows Trans Community Targeted with
High Levels of Violence & Harassment.
51
Gordon, D. (2009). Transgender Legal Advocacy: What Do Feminist Legal Theories Have to Offer?
California Law Review, 97(6), 1719-1762.
differences between the sexes were not biologically inherent, but were rather learned through
social stereotyping.” Ginsburg’s argument can apply to the trans community as it pertains to
social stereotyping of gender; however, this argument was not made during a major trial when
she sat on the bench as a Justice, so it does little to advance trans rights in the Supreme Court.
Chapter 3: Sexuality and the Supreme Court
If the state in question is not discriminating against a suspect or quasi-suspect class, then
the law which the state imposes must pass the rational basis test, the lowest level of scrutiny.
Classifications include age, wealth, disability, and sexual orientation. In order to appease Equal
Protection in the act of discriminating against one of the aforementioned classifications, the state
law must pertain to a legitimate state interest and the law must be rationally related to said
interest. In the previous chapters, I addressed the Court’s limited view on race and gender. When
it comes to sexual orientation, this pattern continues: gay and straight. The cases in this chapter
demonstrate the struggle the Court has in addressing discrimination of sexual orientation.
Sexuality is a complex matter, a spectrum which leaves room for fluidity. The Court struggled
with race and gender, but more so struggles with sexuality as it is not so easily defined. It
becomes more difficult to categorize someone on their sexuality when sexuality cannot be seen.
As a way to address this issue, part of which includes the lack of immutability, the Court has
established that sexual orientation cannot be given suspect classification status. By this act, the
Court has denied the spectrum of sexuality equal protection under the law.
As mentioned above, the Supreme Court has deemed sexual orientation a classification
without suspectness. By doing so, the Court holds that the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Pansexual,
and Queer52 communities do not have a history of discrimination, are not immutable, and do not
lack political power. They cannot be afforded the same protection under the Fourteenth
Amendment as racial minorities or women, or even white men for that matter.
But as Evan Gerstmann writes in his book The Constitutional Underclass: Gays,
Lesbians, and the Failure of Class-Based Equal Protection, the Supreme Court has failed to
52
This chapter is focused on sexuality and the level of protection it receives under the law. For that
reason, I am not including transgender in this chapter, as that would begin to shift focus to gender, which
has already been addressed in the previous chapter.
provide an adequate answer as to why the LGBQ community is not protected as a suspect or
quasi-suspect class. Gerstmann argues that the “class-based approach” by the Supreme Court has
denied justice to the LGBQ community, and analyzes how this status that has been bestowed
upon the queer community influenced the outcome of cases such as Romer v. Evans.53 In regards
to the status of the queer community within equal protection under the law, Gerstmann writes,
“Gays and lesbians are told that they must remain at the bottom of the constitutional hierarchy
because they are too politically powerful to require heightened scrutiny. In order for this
assertion to make sense, we would have to believe that gays and lesbians are more powerful as a
group than are women, or, even more implausibly, than are the white students who were recently
given the protection of heightened scrutiny in their challenges to the University of Michigan’s
affirmative action policies.”
Furthermore, rational basis becomes even more complicated when the Court struggles to
protect marginalized groups it does not want to grant suspect status to, but rational basis is an
insufficient answer. For a host of reasons, Gerstmann notes, the Court is resistant to adding
groups to the existing list of those that qualify for suspect classification. When this happens, we
see results such as rational basis “with teeth.” This unofficial test can be seen in cases like Reed
v. Reed before gender became a quasi-suspect classification. The test is regarded unofficial by
legal scholars since the Court used all of the terms of traditional rational basis, yet clearly held
the state in question to a higher form of scrutiny that was not quite strict or intermediate.
54
This chapter reviews the cases of Romer v. Evans, Lawrence v. Texas, and Obergefell v.
Hodges55 as a way to track how the Court has viewed sexuality over time. Although Lawrence
and Obergefell dealt with Due Process and Equal Protection claims, the Court in both cases
53
517 U.S. 620 (1996).
54
539 U.S. 558 (2003).
55
576 U.S. (2015).
found violations of Due Process but not any violations of Equal Protection. Despite this, these
cases are important in order to contextualize where the LGBQ community stands in cases of
discrimination; they are examples of how the Court further complicates class-based protection by
choosing to view the wide spectrum of sexuality as a simple binary consisting of gay or straight.
Romer v. Evans
Amendment 2 of the Colorado State Constitution was enacted by voters in order to halt
and prevent any government protection of the gay and lesbian community. Even within the
language of the law, we see an implication of the binary that the law recognizes. Certain cities
within Colorado had enacted laws that granted sexual orientation the same protection as race and
gender from discrimination. After Amendment 2 was passed, Richard Evans, an employee for
the municipal government of Denver, along with other affected parties, sued Governor Roy
Romer and the state government. Evans claimed the Amendment was a violation of the Equal
Protection Clause and brought the suit to the Colorado Supreme Court, which found the
Amendment unconstitutional. The review of the Colorado Supreme Court was held under strict
scrutiny, as the Court found that a fundamental right was being violated, and so triggered the
highest level of scrutiny. Colorado State appealed and the case was heard before the Supreme
Court.
Under the test of rational basis, the Court reviewed the suit and Justice Kennedy delivered
the opinion of the Court, a six to three decision. Guided by Justice Harlan’s dissent in Plessy,
Justice Kennedy wrote, “...We cannot accept the view that Amendment 2’s prohibition on
specific legal protections does no more than deprive homosexuals of special rights. To the
contrary, the amendment imposes a special disability upon those persons alone. Homosexuals are
forbidden the safeguards that others enjoy or may seek without constraint.
The Fourteenth Amendment’s promise that no person shall be denied the equal protection
of the laws must coexist with the practical necessity that most legislation classifies for one
purpose or another, with resulting disadvantage to various groups or person. We have attempted
to reconcile the principle with the reality by stating that, if a law neither burdens a fundamental
right nor targets a suspect class, we will uphold the legislative classification so long as it bears a
rational relation to some legitimate end.
Amendment 2 fails, indeed defies, even this conventional inquiry. First, the amendment
has the peculiar property of imposing a broad and undifferentiated disability on a single named
group, an exceptional and, as we shall explain, invalid form of legislation. Second, its sheer
breadth is so discontinuous with the reasons offered, for it that the amendment seems
inexplicable by anything but animus toward the class that it affects; it lacks a rational
relationship to legitimate state interests…. It is at once too narrow and too broad. It identifies
persons by a single trait and then denies them protection across the board…. Amendment 2… in
making a general announcement that gays and lesbians shall not have any particular protections
from the law, inflicts on them immediate, continuing, and real injuries that outrun and belie any
legitimate justifications that may be claimed for it….We must conclude that Amendment 2
classifies homosexuals not to further a proper legislative end but to make them unequal to
everyone else.”
The language used by Justice Kennedy, such as the repeated use of the word
“homosexual,” projects the notion of the gay-straight binary which the Court follows. This
language fails to address possible discrimination against any other sexuality on the spectrum that
falls in between gay and straight, which sets up sexual orientation discrimination to be addressed
with limited means. While this case may seem like a victory for the queer community, it did little
to address the status of gays, lesbians, bisexuals, and others in the eyes of the Supreme Court as it
applies to the Equal Protection Clause. Not only did the Court’s use of rational basis kept the
queer community at the bottom of the equal protection totem pole, it used it as a way to reinforce
the gay-straight binary. Whether or not this was an intentional act is difficult to determine, but it
is clear from this case that the Court struggles to grasp the diversity of sexuality. Gerstmann
writes, “Romer… [did not grant] gays and lesbians any affirmative constitutional protection
against discrimination. Romer held that, when gays and lesbians manage to convince state and
local legislatures to pass protective laws, these protections cannot be voided wholesale via a state
constitutional amendment.” The way in which the Supreme Court deems the queer community to
not qualify for suspect or quasi-suspect status, due to having supposed political power, the Court
is saying that men who benefit from quasi-suspect classification or whites who benefit from
suspect classification do in fact lack political power, which is why they are given a certain level
of suspectness. Many would agree that this is problematic and lacks common sense.
Gerstmann argues that the Court utilizes a “class/classification switch” in order to justify
the shaky reasoning. “If racial minorities are a suspect class,” Gerstmann writes, “then race is a
suspect classification. Women are a quasi-suspect class, but gender is a quasi-suspect
classification. When gays seek to move up in the equal protection hierarchy, the courts tell them
they are not a suspect class because they are not politically powerless. But when whites seek
protection against affirmative action programs, courts do not ask them to prove that they are
politically powerless (obviously they are not). Instead, courts subtly switch terminology; they
hold that race is a suspect classification and thereby protect whites from racial preferences…. By
switching between the terms suspect class and suspect classification, the Supreme Court can
require some groups to show that they are politically powerless but allow other, far more
politically powerful groups to benefit from strong constitutional protection.”
Romer was celebrated as a victory for the queer community under the Equal Protection
Clause, yet it did little in the grand scheme of things to propel the queer community up the ladder
of Equal Protection or to recognize the queer community as a whole. Lawrence v. Texas, while a
victory for Due Process and not Equal Protection, is another example of how the Court limits
sexuality to a gay-straight binary, restraining itself from addressing all sexualities equally.
Lawrence v. Texas
On the night in question, Houston police officers entered the residence of John Lawrence
due to a 911 call reporting a “weapons disturbance.” When the police searched the home, they
found Lawrence engaged in sexual relations with another man, Tyron Garner. Texas law
specifically prohibited “homosexual conduct,” reinforcing the gay-straight binary, barring
sodomy specifically in gay and lesbian relationships. Lawrence and his partner Garner
challenged the law, claiming it violated both the Equal Protection and Due Process clauses of the
Fourteenth Amendment. Texas courts sided with the state, citing Bowers v. Hardwick.56 The case
was appealed to the Supreme Court, where Justice Kennedy delivered the opinion of the Court, a
decision that was split six to three. In this decision, the Court found that the Texas law was a
violation of Due Process, but was not, however, a violation of Equal Protection. By ignoring the
law as it would stand under Equal Protection, the Court did not have to address the status of the
queer community as it pertained to discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.
Justice Kennedy wrote, “We conclude the case should be resolved by determining
whether the petitioners were free as adults to engage in the private conduct in the exercise of
56
478 U.S. 186 (1986).
their liberty under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution…”
The idea of consenting adults is the key element to Justice Kennedy’s reasoning; unlike
reasoning under Equal Protection, this school of thought bypasses sexuality all together and
addresses consenting adults as a group, not broken down by sexual orientation. This choice by
the Court to only hold the law accountable under Due Process as opposed to Equal Protection
halts the advancement of LGBQ rights and recognition under the law since it does not address
where the queer community outside the gay-straight binary.57 Justice O’Connor wrote a
concurring opinion in which she did address Equal Protection, stating, “Texas treats the same
conduct differently based solely on the participants. Those harmed by this law are people who
have a same sex sexual orientation and thus are more likely to engage in behavior prohibited by
[the state]. The Texas statute makes homosexuals unequal in the eyes of the law by making
particular conduct and only that conduct subject to criminal sanction.... Texas argues, however,
that the sodomy law does not discriminate against homosexual persons... It is instead directed
toward gay persons as a class.”
In his critique of the Lawrence decision, Reinheimer writes, “While the majority,
concurring, and dissenting opinions provide different perspectives on how the statute in question
operated, whom it affected, and its constitutional standing, all of the opinions left several major
issues and concepts unaddressed. Notably, the Court declined to invalidate the statute on equal
protection grounds, although certiorari was granted on whether the Texas statute violated the
Equal Protection Clause, and equality arguments were made during litigation. More specifically,
the statute's facial classification-sex went almost completely unmentioned.” However, ignoring
57
Reinheimer, J. (2008). What Lawrence Should Have Said: Reconstructing an Equality Approach.
California Law Review. Vol. 96, No. 2 pp. 505-551.
Equal Protection also failed to remedy the assumption that sexuality is binary as it was
reinforced in Romer.
The same issue would come up again the matter of Obergefell v. Hodges in 2015. Similar
questions were brought before the Court, demanding that the Court determine if a state law
banning same-sex marriage was a violation of both Due Process and Equal Protection. Once
again, the Court would push aside the issue of Equal Protection and the queer community would
prevail under Due Process.
Obergefell v. Hodges
Ohio law only recognized marriages between one man and one woman; officiants in Ohio
could not marry same-sex couples and marriage licenses given to same-sex couples from other
states were void. James Obergefell and John Arthur were in a happy relationship for just over
twenty years when Arthur was diagnosed with terminal amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS.
The couple wanted to marry before Arthur was set to pass, and so they traveled to Maryland and
were wed on July 11, 2013. That was a few months before Arthur died. Before his death, Arthur
and Obergefell filed suit against Ohio, claiming its ban on same-sex marriage was a violation of
Due Process and Equal Protection. The couple wanted Arthur’s marriage to Obergefell to appear
on the death certificate. While the district court ruled in favor of the couple, the Ohio State
Supreme Court reversed the decision. When the case reached the Supreme Court, Justice
Kennedy once again delivered the opinion of the Court, this time in a five to four decision.
Justice Kennedy wrote, “Under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment,
no state shall ‘deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.’ The
fundamental liberties protected by this Clause include most of the rights enumerated in the Bill
of Rights. In addition these liberties extend to certain personal choices central to individual
dignity and autonomy…. The generations that wrote and ratified the Bill of Rights and the
Fourteenth Amendment did not presume to know the extent of freedom in all of its dimensions,
and so they entrusted to future generations a charter protecting the right of all persons to enjoy
liberty as we learn its meaning.”
Once again, the petitioners have asked the Court to review whether state law violates Due
Process and the Equal Protection Clause, but here the Court has seen fit to centralize its answer
in response to Due Process. Some legal scholars see this case as an advancement from Lawrence;
their analyses indicate that the Court did answer the question of Equal Protection, but placed Due
Process ahead of this answer.58 Others believe Justice Kennedy’s opinion was deeply
problematic because it did not make Equal Protection the forefront of his argument, setting up a
long term problem for the Court and future questions it may have to answer.59 I would argue that
either way, the reasoning would have been flawed, even if Justice Kennedy included an
addressment to Equal Protection. The binary that the Court deflects onto its interpretation of
Equal Protection is highly limiting and leaves many questions unanswered, questions that may
not be all too appropriate to be answered by the Court. Huntington writes, “A substantive due
process analysis required the Court to define marriage and explain its social importance. This
meant the Court had to choose between competing images—social fronts—of marriage. If it had
used an equal protection analysis, the Court would not have had to decide whether marriage is
traditional or marriage is more plural. Instead, the Court would have espoused a thinner notion of
marriage—that, whatever its essential nature, marriage must be available on equal grounds
unless the state can convincingly argue otherwise. An equal protection analysis also would have
58
Yoshino, K. (2015). A New Birth of Freedom?: Obergefell v. Hodges. Harvard Law Review. Vol. 129.
No. 1
59
Huntington, C. (2015). Obergefell’s Conservatism: Reifying Familial Fronts. Fordham Law Review. Vol.
84, No. 23.
obviated the need for Justice Kennedy’s paean to marriage. There are two lamentable
consequences of the Court’s framing. It unnecessarily disrespects people who in good faith have
a different view of the social front of marriage. And it reifies marriage as a key element in the
social front of family, further marginalizing nonmarital families.” One might also argue that this
reasoning not only perpetuates a thin notion of marriage, but also a thin notion of sexuality.
The use of Due Process within the Court’s reasoning is highly limiting for future cases
that involve discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. Failure to acknowledge this
discrimination by standard of the Equal Protection Clause maintains the gay-straight binary and
significantly weakens the chance of the queer community in its entirety to be better protected
under the Fourteenth Amendment. This is all in spite of the fact that, as mentioned by
Gerstmann, men are able to utilize intermediate scrutiny and whites are able to utilize strict
scrutiny. While strict scrutiny and intermediate scrutiny have their failures in protecting certain
groups, rational basis does little to protect minorities in sexual orientation. Furthermore, the
Court does little to protect the queer community from discrimination, and this is exemplified in
the aforementioned cases. The actions of only utilizing the rational basis test or not using Equal
Protection at all in cases of discrimination against the LGBQ community serves only to keep the
queer community in the margins of the law while simultaneously only recognizing the gay-
straight binary. This is a major failure of Equal Protection as it is interpreted by the Supreme
Court.
CONCLUSION
The makeup of the United States is incredibly diverse by standards of race, gender,
sexuality, and other identity markers. In recent years, we have witnessed marginalized groups
gain ground in the fight against oppressive systems. After Virginia was decided, women were
admitted to the prestigious school of Virginia Military Institute in 1996; marriage equality for
same-sex couples was finally won in Obergefell in 2015; and affirmative action was protected in
Fisher in 2016. While each of these cases is a victory, there are limitations and downfalls due to
the Supreme Court’s method of interpreting equal protection. This is because the Court relies on
binary notions to interpret race, gender, and sexuality. When the Supreme Court decides the
level of scrutiny to apply based on who is being discriminated against, the Court is in fact not
protecting all citizens equally under the law as the Equal Protection Clause calls for. Past
decisions imply that certain identities are binary, and we can see that this leaves cracks in the
foundation of Equal Protection when it is being protected by the Court. The Equal Protection
Clause states, “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the
jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. No
state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens
of the United States; nor 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.” For the Supreme Court to determine who is more suspect than another through the
context of binaries is not only harmful, but outside the scope of the Court’s power. It is not the
duty of the Supreme Court to make such determinations as to rank classes based on who appears
to have more political power, is more immutable, or has more of a history of discrimination.
Furthermore, it is not the duty of the Court to determine what constitutes identity within race,
gender, or sexuality. Not only does the hierarchy of scrutiny fail to protect all equally under the
law; the standards of strict scrutiny, intermediate scrutiny, and rational basis fail to protect
individuals who do not fall into the narrowly defined categories the Court has established over
the course of time. The Court cannot adequately protect multiracial individuals, transgender
individuals, and all queer individuals when there are such rigid standards for race, gender, The
Failures of Equal Protection 53 and sexual orientation classifications. It becomes far too messy
for the Court to have to interpret when already it should not be attempting to determine who is
more politically powerful by social and historical context. If the Court continues to use this
model of the three-tiered test, it will continue to drive a wedge in equal protection for all under
the law. The three-tiered test model cannot continue if marginalized groups are to achieve
equality under the law. The test outright labels certain groups more suspect based on perceived
political powerlessness. Justice Harlan in his dissent in Plessy wrote, “...the Constitution neither
knows nor tolerates classes among citizens.” If the Supreme Court dismantles and rids itself of
the test, then it will need to replace it with new guidelines to follow in Equal Protection cases. In
his book, Gerstmann writes, “If the Courts were to concentrate on the issue of what rights should
be protected for all people without attempting to divide people into separate classes based upon
the Court’s estimate of complex historical and social facts, it would be a great advancement
toward a fairer vision of constitutional equality.” In the last chapter, Gerstmann advocates for
such a model that would examine not who was being discriminated against, but rather what right
was being violated. Much of the last chapter relies on J.H. Wilkinson’s “The Supreme Court, the
Equal Protection Clause, and the Three Faces of Constitutional Equality,” in which Wilkinson
sponsors the same model. I would further this argument that by abandoning the current methods,
the Court would also be able to get rid of the binary standards, which would in turn open Equal
Protection to all identities. The cons outweigh the pros in the existing three-tiered test model.
Far too many are at risk of falling through the cracks of Equal Protection. In order see better
results in protecting all citizens equally, all citizens need to be held to the same standard of
review equally. The model proposed by Wilkinson and Gerstmann may be the better alternative
to the existing model. Until the Supreme Court abandons the three-tiered test, equal protection
for all will continue to fail.

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CASE LAW
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Loving v. Virginia, 388 U.S. 1 (1967). Levy v.
Louisiana, 391 U.S. 68 (1968). Graham v.
Richardson, 403 U.S. 365 (1971). Reed v.
Reed, 404 U.S. 71 (1971).
San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriguez, 411 U.S. 1 (1973).
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Craig v. Boren, 429 U.S. 190 (1976).
Regents of the University of California v. Bakke, 438 U.S. 265 (1978).
Michael M. v. Superior Court of Sonoma County, 450 U.S. 464 (1981).
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Bowers v. Hardwick, 478 U.S. 186 (1986).
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The Failures of Equal Protection: An Examination of the Supreme Court’s Three-Tiered

Test in Equal Protection Claims

Portland State University

The Equal Protection Clause

Reconstruction Amendments, Eric Foner (1999) notes, “The Reconstruction amendments

states the following:

Court uses the three-tiered test, with varying levels of scrutiny.

a correspondingly more searching judicial inquiry.’”

the Court in addressing marginalized groups and their qualifications.

Rational Basis Test

qualify as a suspect or quasi-suspect class.

substantial relationship to an important government interest.9 Issues surrounding gender10 and

to this standard of political powerlessness. Certainly cisgender women can be considered

rigorous as strict scrutiny.

constitute political powerlessness, immutability, and history of discrimination. Cornell University

approach in which a presumption of constitutionality is shed in favor more exacting judicial

based affirmative action.” (p. 4).

was now a suspect classification.”

Chapter One: Race and the Supreme Court

the compelling interest be ‘narrowly tailored.’”

before coining strict scrutiny, such as in Plessy v. Ferguson.22

individuals grew with the rights of people of color.

forcibly removed, Tourgee could move the suit forward.

accommodations were, supposedly, equal.

America, which is clearly not a one size fits all solution.

Court's racial narrative, passing simultaneously constitutes a violation of white supremacist

which the institutions of segregation depended.”26

Golub examines Tourgee’s argument to the Court, highlighting the attorney’s

an individual's race may be a product of being assigned to a white or a colored car.”

of mixed-race people, anti-miscegenation laws sought to legislate against such disruptions. In

against the destabilizing potential of passing in Tourgee's defense.”

despite someone’s ability to “pass” as white or black? Or would it be based on appearance,

arrested the two for breaking the state’s anti-miscegenation law.

Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

more than the other for violating Virginia law.

discrimination in the States.”

not outweigh the protections of the Fourteenth Amendment.

own justification, as measures designed to maintain White Supremacy. We have consistently

classifications violates the central meaning of the Equal Protection Clause….”

Bakke and Fisher

disadvantaged placement by reserving seats within admissions to universities for them.

finally to the Supreme Court.

consideration of race permissible when a University chooses to admit students?34

allowed and may consider race in admissions decisions.

[Bakke], echoing the courts below, labels it a racial quota.”

are not accorded the same protection, then it is not equal.”

preconditions to a holding that a particular classification is invidious. These characteristics may

applied, why should they matter at all?

disregard of individual rights as guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment.”

diversity in a student population is a compelling government interest, diversity cannot just be

Fisher the option of appealing to the Supreme Court.

admissions decisions to undergraduate programs in universities. Justice Kennedy delivered the

of narrow tailoring, not evidence of unconstitutionality.”

States is becoming more of a blurred line as time passes.

In her article Political Attitudes and Ideologies of Multiracial Americans: The