The Legal Standard Is Intermediate Scrutiny

In mid-1999, a student by the name of B.J. Durham transferred schools as a result of his mother’s divorce and financial struggles. B.J. was a cross-country/track star at his previous school, Park Tudor Private High School, and was rumored to be moving for athletically-motivated reasons. Because of the hearsay, B.J. was not granted full-eligibility by the IHSAA but partial. B.J., the plaintiff in this case, was also denied access to the Hardship Exception which would’ve granted him athletic eligibility in full. B.J. and his family took their case to court. The court issued a permanent injunction against the IHSAA’s decision, to which the IHSAA later appealed. The court stood on their decision,

Sixty-two years ago, the Supreme Court ruled the “separate but equal” doctrine unconstitutional. The decision from the Plessy v. Ferguson case was lawfully denounced by the Brown v. Board of Education. The Brown case, which was initiated by the members of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), served as a stimulus for challenging segregation in all areas of society, especially in public educational institutions. Among the support for the desegregation in school systems, there was a young yet compelling voice who was heard by numerous ears in the rural city in Farmville, Alabama. The virtuous and determined Barbara Johns, who was only a high school student then led her tiny, hovel-like school’s student body and the Farmville community to file a lawsuit in the hope of terminating the inequality in regards to the educational system.

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

In February of 1992, in the Supreme Court further (Franklin v. Gwinnett County Public Schools) held that victims might be awarded monetary damages in sex discrimination cases. The case involved a high school woman who said she was sexually harassed and abused by a teacher. She filed for damages in Federal District Court, which dismissed the complaint, saying Title IX does not authorize an award of damages. The Court of Appeals agreed. But the U.S. Supreme Court held that compensatory and punitive damages

The district court’s decision to dismiss this case is based on the Plaintiffs failure to prove theory of purposeful discrimination, which is denied under Alexander v. Sandoval where the Supreme Court ruled that even if a federally funded entity knowingly adopts a policy that creates disparate impact, Title VI still affords no remedy and also because Proposition 16 is a facially neutral policy that happened to create a racially disparate impact, it holds no bearing to Title VI. The court ultimately found that Proposition 16 was created to improve ALL student athlete graduation rights. As for Pryor’s ADA claim, it too was dismissed because Pryor lacked the standing to remedy her loss of eligibility due to the fact the NCAA may still grant her the relief she seeks.

SANTA FE INDEPENDENT SCHOOL DISTRICT v. JANE DOE INDIVIDUALLY AND AS NEXT FRIEND FOR HER MINOR CHILDREN, ET AL.

This case started with Linda and Olivier Brown. , Oliver Brown wanted his daughter to attend the nearest school to her neighborhood. The Board of Education made it difficult for him to do this. The Board of Education would not allow her to attend this school because of her race. Linda father did not agree. Being separate was not equal. Linda’s father knew that the white schools were not equal to the white schools; they had more updated equipment, which were in better condition, than colored schools. Separation by color is not equal treatment. Linda Brown’s father wanted the best for her, so he wanted the best-educated school for her. After the principal refused, Oliver went to of the NAACP. National On 1951, more African American parents who children were denied access into white schools, joined to help Mr. Brown and the NAACP start a conclusion in the segregation of schools. Out of all the families now involved in the

During 1978, Alan Bakke was denied acceptance into the Medical School at the University of California. Bakke had a higher grade point average and higher test scores than other students who got accepted. Under the circumstances, Bakke stated he was denied acceptance because of his race. Not only did Bakke get denied because of his race, was a white male. Immediately he noticed and took the case to court. The Fourteenth Amendment of the US Constitution stated Bakkes rights being the Equal Protection Clause. (Bakke v. University of California)

Susan, a young teenager, wanted to attend a better equipped school closer to her family home. This wish, combined with her father’s civil rights involvement, contributed to her family’s decision to file a court case to gain access to an all white school to which she had originally been denied access. The Iowa Supreme Court’s decision regarding Clark versus Board of Directors was the first successful school desegregation case in the United States.

Frontiero v. Richardson is a court case between Lunitentant Sharron Frontiero who was denied dependency because she couldn’t prove her husband was more than half dependent. However male members of the military do not have to prove that their wives are dependant there are just given compensation. Sharron then went to District court to sue the military for violating the Due Process Clause of the 5th amendment, but the court ruled in favor of Richardson. Then the case was appealed by Ruth Bader Ginsburg to be taken to the Supreme Court.

Legal Question: The legal issue presented in this case ultimately questioned the University of Michigan’s admission policy which sought a more diverse student body. The court addressed whether the University of Michigan’s use of racial preferences in the admission process violated

Abigail Fisher and Rachel Multer Michalewicz were just two young women from Texas trying to get into their dream school. In 2008 the young women applied at the University of Texas. The two women, both white, filed suit, alleging that the University had discriminated against them on the basis of their race in violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The Equal Protection Clause being a clause that allows no state to deny any person within its jurisdiction “the equal protection of the law”.

In the Regents of the University of California v. Bakke (1978) case, Allan Bakke, a white applicant, tried applying to medical school twice and was denied, even though his GPA, and test scores were better than others who were recently admitted. According to the court, they believed that “no applicant may be rejected because of his race, in favor of another who is less qualified, as measured by standards applied without regard to race”. Because of this, the shut down the system that discriminated against other races. In the Grutter case, Justice Sandra Day O’Connor said that “Equal Protection Clause does not prohibit the Law School's narrowly tailored use of race in admissions decisions to further a compelling interest in obtaining the educational

The case of Schuette v. Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action was presented before the Supreme Court of the United States; the case questioned that whether a state violated the Equal Protection Clause of 14th Amendment by maintaining a ban on the racial and sex preferences on the admissions in the public universities in the constitution of the state (Bernstein). The arguments on these cases started on 15th October, 2013 on an appeal for the Sixth Circuit from the United States Court of Appeal, which had established the rule in 2012 regarding Michigan ban, which was approved by the voters of the state in the year 2006. The Sixth Circuit emphasized that the Michigan ban was unconstitutional. But, the ban on the state was upheld, the Sixth

The case of Dothard v. Rawlinson presented two separate factors, the first was that of discrimination against gender based upon height and weight, the second was discrimination against women impartially (Cornell University Law School, n.d.). The court upheld that limiting hiring based on height and weight could not be a substantial judgment of strength. This ruling paved a new road for several individuals to enter into a career in law enforcement that had previously been restricted from doing so. The statistics presented in the Dothard v. Rawlinson case displayed that over 40% of females were automatically eliminated from the application pool due to the height and weight restrictions, consequently, less that 1% of male applicants were affected