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After Obergefell V. Hodges: The Continuing Battle Over Equal Rights For Sexual Minorities In The United States, Simone Chriss, Danaya C. Wright
After Obergefell V. Hodges: The Continuing Battle Over Equal Rights For Sexual Minorities In The United States, Simone Chriss, Danaya C. Wright
UF Law Faculty Publications
This article examines the pathbreaking U.S. Supreme Court decision in Obergefell v. Hodges that held same-sex marriage was a fundamental right that could not be denied by any state, despite the myriad same-sex marriage bans that had been passed in a majority of states. After explaining the constitutional jurisprudence of due process and equal protection, the article then examines the history of the same-sex marriage movement and the Obergefell decision. We conclude by discussing how the jurisprudential theory of the case, fundamental rights under the due process clause, narrows the scope of the case’s precedential value. Although gay rights activists …
Preventing Balkanization Or Facilitating Racial Domination: A Critique Of The New Equal Protection, Darren Lenard Hutchinson
Preventing Balkanization Or Facilitating Racial Domination: A Critique Of The New Equal Protection, Darren Lenard Hutchinson
UF Law Faculty Publications
The Supreme Court requires that equal protection plaintiffs prove defendants acted with discriminatory intent. The intent rule has insulated from judicial invalidation numerous policies that harmfully impact racial and ethnic minorities. Court doctrine also mandates that state actors generally remain colorblind. The colorblindness doctrine has led to the judicial invalidation of policies designed to ameliorate the conditions of racial inequality. Taken together, these two equality doctrines facilitate racial domination. The Court justifies this outcome on the ground that the Constitution does not protect “group rights.”
Constitutional law theorists have criticized these aspects of equal protection doctrine. Recently, however, some theorists …