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The Poor As A Suspect Class Under The Equal Protection Clause: An Open Constitutional Question, Henry Rose

Henry Rose

(Abstract) The Poor as a Suspect Class Under the Equal Protection Clause: An Open Constitutional Question Both judges and legal scholars assert that the United States Supreme Court has held that the poor are neither a quasi-suspect nor a suspect class under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. They further assert that this issue was decided by the Supreme Court in San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriguez, 411 U.S. 1 (1973). It is the thesis of this article that the Supreme Court has not yet decided whether the poor are a quasi-suspect …

Don't Tap, Don't Stare, And Keep Your Hands To Yourself! Critiquing The Legality Of Gay Sting Operations, Jordan Woods

Jordan Blair Woods

A (Trans) Gender-Inclusive Equal Protection Analysis Of Public Female Toplessness, Luke Boso

Luke A. Boso

Federal, state, and municipal laws have long regulated, and often blanketly prohibited, the exposure of female breasts in public venues for a variety of purported reasons. Generally worded to prohibit the exhibition of the “female breast with less than a fully opaque covering or any portion thereof below the top of the nipple,” nudity-regulating laws lack a similar provision for male breasts, and, in fact, exclude the male torso from coverage entirely.

Pursuant to the Supreme Court’s sex-based discrimination jurisprudence, advocates for topfree equality have repeatedly challenged these laws in court, arguing that they violate U.S. and state constitutions’ equal …

The Short, Puzzling(?) Life Of The Civil Union, John G. Culhane

John G. Culhane

In the battle for marriage equality, equal protection has proven to be a more successful strategy than fundamental rights. This outcome is perhaps surprising, given that civil unions arguably afford at least "formal" equality to same-sex couples. Yet the supreme courts of Connecticut and California have emphasized the denial of equality that the difference in names connotes - civil unions or domestic partnerships v. marriage - and therefore have moved dramatically towards real equality. These two courts were the first to declare that sexual orientation is a suspect (California) or quasi-suspect (Connecticut) classification, thereby radically changing the debate and the …

The Irrational Woman: Informed Consent And Abortion Decision-Making, Maya Manian

Maya Manian

In Gonzales v. Carhart, the Supreme Court upheld a federal ban on a type of second-trimester abortion that many physicians believe is safer for their patients. Carhart presented a watershed moment in abortion law, because it marks the Supreme Court’s first use of the anti-abortion movement’s “woman-protective” rationale to uphold a ban on abortion and the first time since Roe v. Wade that the Court denied women a health exception to an abortion restriction. The woman-protective rationale asserts that banning abortion promotes women’s mental health. According to Carhart, the State should make the final decisions about pregnant women’s healthcare, because …

The Usual Suspect Classifications: Criminals, Aliens And The Future Of Same-Sex Marriage, Michael A. Helfand

Michael A Helfand

In this Article, I argue for a new understanding of the immutability factor employed by courts in determining which classifications ought to receive suspect status under the Equal Protection Clause. Drawing on the process-based foundations of the Equal Protection Clause, this new understanding defines immutable traits not as traits that cannot be changed, but as traits that are in the words of the Supreme Court in Frontiero v. Richardson, mere "accident[s] of birth." In contrast, courts and scholars typically center the immutability inquiry on an individual’s technical ability to exit a particular class, which has led to inconsistencies in …