Fourteenth Amendment Commons^™

The Respectable Dignity Of Obergefell V. Hodges, Yuvraj Joshi

Yuvraj Joshi

In declaring state laws that restrict same-sex marriage unconstitutional, Justice Kennedy invoked “dignity” nine times—to no one’s surprise. References in Obergefell to “dignity” are in important respects the culmination of Justice Kennedy’s elevation of the concept, dating back to the Supreme Court’s 1992 decision in Planned Parenthood v. Casey. In Casey, “dignity” expressed respect for a woman’s freedom to make choices about her pregnancy. Casey laid the foundation for Lawrence v. Texas, which similarly respected the freedom of choice of homosexual persons. Yet, starting in United States v. Windsor and continuing in Obergefell, the narrative began to change. Dignity veered …

The High Price Of Poverty: A Study Of How The Majority Of Current Court System Procedures For Collecting Court Costs And Fees, As Well As Fines, Have Failed To Adhere To Established Precedent And The Constitutional Guarantees They Advocate., Trevor J. Calligan

Trevor J Calligan

No abstract provided.

(Un)Equal Protection: Why Gender Equality Depends On Discrimination, Keith Cunningham-Parmeter

Northwestern University Law Review

Most accounts of the Supreme Court’s equal protection jurisprudence describe the Court’s firm opposition to sex discrimination. But while the Court famously invalidated several sex-based laws at the end of the twentieth century, it also issued many other, less-celebrated decisions that sanctioned sex-specific classifications in some circumstances. Examining these long-ignored cases that approved of sex discrimination, this Article explains how the Court’s rulings in this area have often rejected the principle of formal equality in favor of broader antisubordination concerns. Outlining a new model of equal protection that authorizes certain forms of sex discrimination, (Un)Equal Protection advocates for one particular …

Administrative Equal Protection: Federalism, The Fourteenth Amendment, And The Rights Of The Poor, Karen M. Tani

All Faculty Scholarship

This Article intervenes in a burgeoning literature on “administrative constitutionalism,” the phenomenon of federal agencies — rather than courts — assuming significant responsibility for elaborating the meaning of the U.S. Constitution. Drawing on original historical research, I document and analyze what I call “administrative equal protection”: interpretations of the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause in a key federal agency at a time when the Clause’s meaning was fiercely contested. These interpretations are particularly important because of their interplay with cooperative federalism — specifically, with states’ ability to exercise their traditional police power after accepting federal money.

The Article’s argument is …