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Law and Gender

Equal protection

Akron Law Review

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Full-Text Articles in Law

The Reed Case: The Seed For Equal Protection From Sex-Based Discrimination, Or Polite Judicial Hedging?, John P. Murphy Jr. Aug 2015

The Reed Case: The Seed For Equal Protection From Sex-Based Discrimination, Or Polite Judicial Hedging?, John P. Murphy Jr.

Akron Law Review

Reed is yet another example of how the Equal Protection Clause may be used to strike down state statutes which embody arbitrary classifications that are neither fairly nor substantially related to the object of the statute, and which bring about the invidious discrimination that is repugnant to the Fourteenth Amendment. It must stressed that the outcome of Reed is clearly commendable in terms of justice. What is troublesome is the fact that one may contend that the Supreme Court hedged, perhaps avoided, an excellent opportunity in which to expand the constitutional scope of the Equal Protection Clause. Reed afforded the …


Standing; Assertion Of Jus Tertii; Sex Discrimination; Equal Protection; Twenty-First Amendment; Craig V. Boren, Anthony Sadowski Aug 2015

Standing; Assertion Of Jus Tertii; Sex Discrimination; Equal Protection; Twenty-First Amendment; Craig V. Boren, Anthony Sadowski

Akron Law Review

"A PPELLANTS brought an action in the United States District Court for the Western District of Oklahoma seeking declaratory and injunctive relief. The complaint charged that the operation of two Oklahoma statutes, which prohibited the sale of 3.2% beer to males under the age of 21 while allowing females over the age of 18 to purchase the commodity, violated the fourteenth amendment to the Federal Constitution. The three-judge court held that the gender-based classification did not violate the equal protection clause. In Craig v. Boren, on direct appeal, the United States Supreme Court reversed, finding that the gender-based classification could …


Equal Protection; Sex Discrimination; Veterans' Preference Statutes, Feeney V. Massachusetts, Eloise Taylor Jul 2015

Equal Protection; Sex Discrimination; Veterans' Preference Statutes, Feeney V. Massachusetts, Eloise Taylor

Akron Law Review

"Historically, the armed services have been predominantly male. The result has been that the operation of veterans' preferences has placed women as a class at a particular disadvantage in comparison to men when in or entering into civil service.' To nullify this stigma, the first successful challenge to veterans' preference, Feeney v. Massachusetts,' was litigated."


Equal Protection; State Alimony Statutes; Sex Discrimination; Orr V. Orr, David A. Detec, Jane L. Thomas-Moore Jul 2015

Equal Protection; State Alimony Statutes; Sex Discrimination; Orr V. Orr, David A. Detec, Jane L. Thomas-Moore

Akron Law Review

In Orr v. Orr the United States Supreme Court held unconstitutional the Alabama alimony statutes which provided that husbands, but not wives, may be required to pay alimony upon divorce. The Court's principal reason for so holding was the statutes' violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the fourteenth amendment on the basis of sex discrimination.


The Soldier And The Imbecile: How Holmes's Manliness Fated Carrie Buck, John Kang Jul 2015

The Soldier And The Imbecile: How Holmes's Manliness Fated Carrie Buck, John Kang

Akron Law Review

The Supreme Court case of Buck v. Bell, while never overturned, endures in infamy among those who know it. For in that case the Court had tacitly sanctioned what Adolph Hitler made unequivocally evil a few years after the Court’s adjudication: eugenics. However, the case was only partly about that. Indeed, I will argue in this essay that the Court’s opinion, written by Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, turned perhaps more significantly on the trope of manliness as an organizing theme. In a sense Holmes was filtering the facts of Buck through his own ordeals and triumphs with manliness, particularly as …