This gender-based classification disadvantaged male parents and privileged female parents in their fundamental familial relationship to their child. Each such child remained illegitimate as to her male parent, only. Following a sweep of legislative changes in almost every state in the early 19th century all nonmarital children were legitimated as to their mothers. For all these reasons, exacting constitutional scrutiny is mandated under the Equal Protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.Īn additional ground for heightening scrutiny of illegitimacy-based discriminatory statutes occurs whenever such statutes involve sex discrimination (as they commonly do). In applying increasingly exacting intermediate scrutiny, the courts have noted that, like African Americans, illegitimate persons are a stigmatized minority, are vastly outnumbered politically, and are the target of long-standing and continuing invidious legal discrimination. Like race or gender, the court has stressed that an illegitimate person's status of birth is a condition over which she has no control, and it has no bearing on her ability or willingness to contribute to society. Rationally, imposing legal burdens on an illegitimate person in order to express disapproval of the conduct of her parents is illogical, unjust, and contrary to the fundamental principle that legal burdens should have some relationship to individual wrongdoing. The courts have found such scrutiny necessary for a number of reasons. Restrictions based on illegitimacy are also subjected to intermediate scrutiny in the Equal Protection context. For example the Court applied similar exacting intermediate scrutiny when ruling on sex-based classifications in the education environment in both J.E.B. As such, the Court applied intermediate scrutiny in a way that is closer to strict scrutiny and in recent decisions the Court has preferred the term "exacting scrutiny" when referring to the intermediate level of Equal Protection analysis. Hogan in 1982, the United States Supreme Court ruled that the burden is on the proponent of the discrimination to establish an "exceedingly persuasive justification" for sex-based classification to be valid. 190 (1976), which was the first case in the United States Supreme Court which determined that statutory or administrative sex-based classifications were subject to an intermediate standard of judicial review. In the context of sex-based classifications, intermediate scrutiny applies to Constitutional challenges of equal protection and discrimination.Īn example of a court using intermediate scrutiny came in Craig v. Judicially-crafted ( common law) rules are also valid only if they conform to the requirements of Equal Protection. Equal Protection analysis also applies to both legislative and executive action regardless if the action is of a substantive or procedural nature. Although the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause applies only to state and local governments, the United States Supreme Court has implied an Equal Protection limitation on the federal government through a process known as "reverse incorporation." As the Fourteenth Amendment applies directly to the states, the incorporation process was unnecessary to hold this restriction against state and local governments. Laws subject to Equal Protection scrutinyĬonstitutional Equal Protection analysis applies not only to challenges against the federal government, but also to state and local governments. 1 Laws subject to Equal Protection scrutiny.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |