Thread: 14th Amendment: Equal Protection Clause

From:http://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/index...ual_protection
(maybe it's time we all start demanding our equal protections?)

equal protection: an overview
The Equal Protection Clause of the 14th amendment of the U.S. Constitution prohibits states from denying any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. See U.S. Const. amend. XIV (http://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution ... ntxiv.html). In other words, the laws of a state must treat an individual in the same manner as others in similar conditions and circumstances. A violation would occur, for example, if a state prohibited an individual from entering into an employment contract because he or she was a member of a particular race. The equal protection clause is not intended to provide "equality" among individuals or classes but only "equal application" of the laws. The result, therefore, of a law is not relevant so long as there is no discrimination in its application. By denying states the ability to discriminate, the equal protection clause of the Constitution is crucial to the protection of civil rights. See Civil Rights and Discrimination (http://www.law.cornell.edu/topics/civil_rights.html).

Generally, the question of whether the equal protection clause has been violated arises when a state grants a particular class of individuals the right to engage in activity yet denies other individuals the same right. There is no clear rule for deciding when a classification is unconstitutional. The Supreme Court has dictated the application of different tests depending on the type of classification and its effect on fundamental rights. Traditionally, the Court finds a state classification constitutional if it has "a rational basis" to a "legitimate state purpose." The Supreme Court, however, has applied more stringent analysis in certain cases. It will "strictly scrutinize" a distinction when it embodies a "suspect classification." In order for a classification to be subject to strict scrutiny, it must be shown that the state law or its administration is meant to discriminate. Usually, if a purpose to discriminate is found the classification will be strictly scrutinized if it is based on race, national origin, or, in some situations, non U.S. citizenship (the suspect classes). In order for a classification to be found permissible under this test it must be proven, by the state, that there is a compelling interest to the law and that the classification is necessary to further that interest. The Court will also apply a strict scrutiny test if the classification interferes with fundamental rights such as first amendment rights, the right to privacy, or the right to travel. The Supreme Court also requires states to show more than a rational basis (though it does not apply the strictly scrutiny test) for classifications based on gender or a child's status as illegitimate.

The 14th amendment is not by its terms applicable to the federal government. Actions by the federal government, however, that classify individuals in a discriminatory manner will, under similar circumstances, violate the due process of the fifth amendment. See U.S. Const. amend. V (http://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution ... amendmentv).
menu of sources
Federal Material
Federal Constitution
Fourteenth Amendment (http://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution ... ntxiv.html)
Federal Judicial Decisions
U.S. Supreme Court:
Historic Equal Protection Decisions (http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/search ... lyhistoric)
Recent Equal Protection Decisions (http://supct.law.cornell.edu/supct/sear ... protection)
U.S. Circuit Courts of Appeals: Recent Equal Protection Decisions (http://www.law.cornell.edu/usca/search/ ... protection)
State Material
State Judicial Decisions
N.Y. Court of Appeals:
Recent Decisions on Equal Protection (http://www.law.cornell.edu/nyctap/searc ... iibulletin)
Commentary from liibulletin-ny (http://www.law.cornell.edu/nyctap/searc ... protection)
Appellate Decisions from Other States (http://www.law.cornell.edu/states/)
Other References
Useful Offnet (or Subscription - $) Sources
Good Starting Point in Print: John E. Nowak, Ronald Rotunda, Constitutional Law (http://west.thomson.com/product/22049662/product.asp), West Group (7th ed. 2004)
other topics
Category: Individual Rights Category: Constitutional Law
Retrieved from "http://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/index.php/Equal_protection"

...and here is the specific text from the 5th Amendment Due Process section referred to in the 14th amendment text: Congress can legally descriminate against us (basically):

Discrimination .--''Unlike the Fourteenth Amendment, the Fifth contains no equal protection clause and it provides no guaranty against discriminatory legislation by Congress.'' 66 At other times, however, the Court assumed that ''discrimination, if gross enough, is equivalent to confiscation and subject under the Fifth Amendment to challenge and annulment.'' 67 The theory that was to prevail seems first to have been enunciated by Chief Justice Taft, who observed that the due process and equal protection clauses are ''associated'' and that ''[i]t may be that they overlap, that a violation of one may involve at times the violation of the other, but the spheres of the protection they offer are not coterminous. . . . [Due process] tends to secure equality of law in the sense that it makes a required minimum of protection for every one's right of life, liberty and property, which the Congress or the legislature may not withhold. Our whole system of law is predicated on the general, fundamental principle of equality of application of the law.'' 68 Thus, in Bolling v. Sharpe, 69 a companion case to Brown v. Board of Education, 70 the Court held that segregation of pupils in the public schools of the District of Columbia violated the due process clause. ''The Fifth Amendment, which is applicable in the District of Columbia, does not contain an equal protection clause as does the Fourteenth Amendment which applies only to the states. But the concepts of equal protection and due process, both stemming from our American ideal of fairness, are not mutually exclusive. The 'equal protection of the laws' is a more explicit safeguard of prohibited unfairness than 'due process of law,' and, therefore, we do not imply that the two are always interchangeable phrases. But, as this Court has recognized, discrimination may be so unjustifiable as to be violative of due process.


''Although the Court has not assumed to define 'liberty' with any great precision, that term is not confined to mere freedom from bodily restraint. Liberty under law extends to the full range of conduct which the individual is free to pursue, and it cannot be restricted except for a proper governmental objective. Segregation in public education is not reasonably related to any proper governmental objective and thus it imposes on Negro children of the District of Columbia a burden that constitutes an arbitrary deprivation of their liberty in violation of the Due Process Clause.

''In view of our decision that the Constitution prohibits the states from maintaining racially segregated public schools, it would be unthinkable that the same Constitution would impose a lesser duty on the Federal Government.''

''Equal protection analysis in the Fifth Amendment area,'' the Court has said, ''is the same as that under the Fourteenth Amendment.'' 71 So saying, the court has applied much of its Fourteenth Amendment jurisprudence to strike down sex classifications in federal legislation, 72 reached classifications with an adverse impact upon illegitimates, 73 and invalidated some welfare assistance pro visions with some interesting exceptions. 74 However, almost all legislation involves some degree of classification among particular categories of persons, things, or events, and, just as the equal protection clause itself does not outlaw ''reasonable'' classifications, neither is the due process clause any more intolerant of the great variety of social and economic legislation typically containing what must be arbitrary line-drawing. 75 Thus, for example, the Court has sustained a law imposing greater punishment for an offense involving rights of property of the United States than for a like offense involving the rights of property of a private person. 76 A veterans' law which extended certain educational benefits to all veterans who had served ''on active duty'' and thereby excluded conscientious objectors from eligibility was held to be sustainable, it being rational for Congress to have determined that the disruption caused by military service was qualitatively and quantitatively different from that caused by alternative service, and for Congress to have so provided to make military service more attractive. 77


''The federal sovereign, like the States, must govern impartially. . . . [B]ut . . . there may be overriding national interests which justify selective federal legislation that would be unacceptable for an individual State.'' 78 The paramount federal power over immigration and naturalization is the principal example, although there are undoubtedly others, of the national government being able to classify upon some grounds--alienage, naturally, but also other suspect and quasi-suspect categories as well--that would result in invalidation were a state to enact them. The instances may be relatively few, but they do exist.