The most commonly used - and frequently litigated - phrase in the amendment is 'equal protection of the laws', which figures prominently in a wide variety of landmark cases, including Brown v. These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'equal protection.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. The Fourteenth Amendment addresses many aspects of citizenship and the rights of citizens. Kristen Taketa, San Diego Union-Tribune, 3 Sep. 2022 The plaintiffs allege that the defendant schools failed to provide sufficient distance learning and violated the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment.

New York Times, 26 June 2021 But the Supreme Court has held that the equal protection guarantee bans only intentional race discrimination by governmental bodies and officials.Īlexis Karteron, The Conversation, 1 June 2021 Several states and non-Native families seeking to adopt sued, arguing the preferential treatment violates the 14th Amendment's equal protection clause. The Supreme Court has also used the Equal Protection Clause to prohibit discrimination on other bases besides race.

However, the equal protection doctrine has expanded. Board of Education, which struck down school segregation. Perhaps its most famous application occurred in the 1954 Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit objected and said the relief program’s approach was too blunt and ran afoul of the Constitution’s equal protection guarantee. The Equal Protection Clause initially was intended to prevent government discrimination against African-Americans in the wake of the Civil War. The Equal Protection Clause initially was intended to prevent government discrimination against African-Americans in the wake of the Civil War. The test is a stringent one, and covers most claims advanced by prisoners. 2022 But a federal judge in Texas and a three-judge panel from the U.S. Equal protection forces a state to govern impartiallynot draw distinctions between individuals solely on differences that are irrelevant to a legitimate governmental objective. The Equal Protection Clause does not forbid all unequal treatment as stated above, only when the unequal treatment lacks a rational relationship to a legitimate governmental purpose is the Equal Protection Clause implicated. Raphael Romero Ruiz, The Arizona Republic, 14 Oct. 2021 The Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty claims that the White House is in violation of the equal protection clause. 20 In Obergefell, the Court concluded that state laws that distinguished between marriages between same- and opposite-sex married couples violated the Equal Protection. Washington Post, Citing uneven application of the restrictions, the group claims the state is violating equal protection laws afforded by the California Constitution, among other violations. Hodges, the 2015 case finding the right to same-sex marriage is protected by the Constitution, is the extent to which the Court is reconceptualizing equal protection analysis. 2022 The challengers say the law unfairly targets women in violation of equal protection laws. Recent Examples on the Web And all of these cases could tell us a lot about how the court is interpreting the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment.