Equal Protection Clause Analysis

The 14th Amendment of the United States Constitution attempted to guarantee “equal protection of the laws” to all people in the jurisdiction of the United States. This means that no person shall be discriminated under the law. This Equal Protection clause does not require identical treatment in all circumstances. Equal protection of the laws, like due process, is a constitutional guarantee of fair treatment for all persons, regardless of sex, race, national origin, religion, or political views. It is rooted in the truth expressed in the Declaration of Independence that "all men are created equal." Many African Americans believe they were not protected under the Equal Protection clause, because there was still discrimination based on race under

The Equal Protection Clause derives from the Fourteenth Amendment, which specifies “no state shall deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws…” As a part of the Reconstruction Amendments, the aforementioned clause was meant to ensure racial equality in the Reconstruction Period and has been applied successfully against the affirmative action. Introduced in United States v. Carolene Products Co., the strict scrutiny has been applied to the cases, in which a fundamental constitutional rights have been infringed or a government action applies to a suspect classification (i.e. race, religion, national background). Specifically, in regards to Bakke v. Regents of University of California, the Supreme Court (“the Court”) concluded that, considering that the University of California, Davis received several Caucasian applicants for its special admission program in 1973 and 1974 and that none of the applicants received the admission to the program since the start, the program unfairly administered in favor of minority races and, therefore, violated the rights of the white applicants under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Furthermore, from Hopwood v. State of Texas, the Fifth Circuit Court ruled under strict scrutiny that, the affirmative action imposed by the University of Texas School of Law (“the law school”) violates the Fourteenth Amendment since neither the law school nor the University of Texas system has proved a proof of

law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.") allows other amendments

The fourteenth amendment is also known as equal protection clause. Under the fourteenth amendment, the U.S. Constitution prohibits the states from denying a person that lives in the state the equal rights of the law (LII, 2017). The fourteenth amendment applies to education, especially those that are English language learners (ELL), this means that these students cannot be denied the same rights as non-English language learners. In the Supreme Court case of Lau v Nichols in 1974, this case involved a Chinese American student that attended the San Francisco Unified School District, this student was placed into a general education classroom despite the lack of being proficient in English (Wright, 2010). The school in which this student attended was found in violation, the school was giving ELL students the same material as all other students who speak proficient English and expected the Chinese American student to be able to comprehend the information that is being taught. School districts need to provide the same material, but in a modified form where the student’s will be able to access the information to learn it in the same manner as those non-English language learners.

The 14th amendment was established after the American Civil War. It addresses the equal protection and rights for everyone. In addition to equal protection under the law to all citizens, the amendment also prohibits citizens from being deprived of life, liberty, and property. Although our laws guarantee equal treatment for all citizens, we often judge people based on their color, religion, and gender.

The defendant offered two reasons why there should be any reason for such action. First, despite the fact that the defendant contends that Title VII includes color and one of the prohibited grounds of discrimination, has generally been interpreted this term to denote the same thing as race.

Rational basis review, in America legitimate regulation, speak of the evasion typical of evaluation that federal courts smear when in view of legitimate inquiries, together with due process or equivalent security queries underneath the 5th Amendment or 14th Amendment. Federal court relating rational base review pursue to regulate whether a regulation is "realistically interrelated" to an "appropriate" supervision concern, whether actual or theoretical. The advanced stages of examination are midway scrutiny and strict examination. Delicate scrutiny is practical where a disbelieving classification is convoluted, or a central right is occupied. In U.S Federal Court jurisprudence, the natural surroundings of the interest at teething troubles defines

Great post Caitlyn! I like how you pointed out the 5th amendment too. Both are for equal protection, but the 5th amendment focuses on the Federal Government, while the 14thamendment concentrates on the state governments. However, discrimination still may happen even though the sole purpose of the 14th and 5th amendment was to ensure equality. For instance, I don’t believe women are emphasized in that amendment, since it is mainly focused on race, ethnicity and religion. It is mentioned on multiple sources that in order for women to claim discrimination, one must have legal protection and sufficient evidence that is decidedly persuasive. The 14th amendment has helped women in the past, but realistically the amendment does not guarantee that

The reader will either love or hate this book, to people with collectivist ideals it will seem ignorant and boring, to people with capitalist ideals it will seem genius and insightful. It’s anti-communist propaganda; it misleads the people who don’t read to learn, the people who don’t fully understand communism, capitalism, or economics in general. Anthem leads people to believe that communism is inherently authoritarian, when in reality there are different ideologies within the leftist community. Equality 7-2521 is oppressed by a world council, a council that doesn’t allow individuality. He disobeys laws by studying secretly and creating a light bulb, he tries to present it to the council but they threaten him so he runs away

He believe in equality". It showed that when Clarence Thomas issued a opinion in Adarand constructors v. Pena holding that strict scrutiny applied to racial classifications. Clarence james wrote " i believe that there is a moral and constitutional equivalence; between law designed to subjugate a race and those that distribute benefits on the basis of race in order to foster some current notion or equality.... That these program may have been motivated,in part, by good intentions cannot provide refuge from the principal that under our constitution the government may not make distinction on the basis of race [ supreme coutreview 2017].

In recent decades, the Supreme Court has not granted certiorari for many gender-based discrimination cases, and consequently there has not been much jurisprudential progress lately regarding Equal Protection Clause claims. It is not uncommon for the Supreme Court to back off of certain issues that they feel are largely solved for the time being. Feeling that the existing precedent is satisfactory, the Court has not shown a desire to alter the test for gender-based claims and have settled on using an intermediate level of scrutiny for such cases, in between rational basis and strict scrutiny. Race and national origin are the only groups that are given strict scrutiny under the Supreme Court’s current Equal Protection Clause analysis.

One of the largest deciding factors in the Shelby County decision relied on the equal sovereignty doctrine. The majority’s opinion in Shelby County v. Holder stated that the VRA treated the sovereignty of the states differently by subjecting only certain states and districts to federal regulation (Litman 2016: 1209). The Court has historically has treated cases such as this with the rational basis test. This was the case for South Carolina v. Katzenbach (1966) and City of Rome v. United States (1980). Under these cases, it was decided that coverage formula was a rational tool to be used in order to counter voting discrimination measures. In order to determine the standard to review congressional acts based off of the Civil War Amendments, the

Where a gender-neutral alternative is available, the gender-discriminatory classification is not said to be the least intrusive means that the government can use, and therefore, the classification put forward by the government is not “necessary”. However, the government would be required to show that the means they use is necessary and narrowly tailored to advance its objectives only under strict scrutiny. Where the classification is not invidious, not selecting the least discriminatory means would not necessarily render the statute violative of equal protection. Rostker v. Goldberg, 453 U.S. 57, 101 S. Ct. 2646 (1981). As established supra, it is the intermediate scrutiny standard that applies to the present issue, and the City only needs to prove that its objective is important and the statutory classification is substantially related to that objective. It is not necessary for the City to pursue the least discriminatory means to pass the judicial review. The City will withstand intermediate

Article III of the Constitution vests all judicial power of the United States to the Supreme Court and inferior federal courts appointed by Congress (Hall & Feldmeier, 2012). This is not to say that their power is without limits but rather limits of justicability must exist. Justicability refers to the types of cases that the federal courts can and cannot arbitrate (“Justiciability,” 2015). In order for a case to be justiciable, the court may not merely offer an advisory opinion, the matter must involve adversarial parties, the final decision must not be reversible by another branch, the courts may only address facts present in the case, the issues may not be political in nature, the case must be ripe for a decision, the matter may not be moot, and the plaintiff must have standing. The fact pattern present in Cheri and Laura v. Stanton County Jail and Sherriff Robert bring forth violations to Constitutional rights and the appellees are seeking injunctive relief making this case justiciable under Article III of the Constitution.

(4) The State shall not discriminate directly or indirectly against any person on any ground, including race, sex, pregnancy, marital status, health status, ethnic or social origin, colour, age, disability, religion, conscience, belief, culture, dress, language or birth.