Some Civil Rights questions?

Question

What are the three levels in the Standards for Review that the federal courts use in looking at applying the 'equal protection clause' of the 14th Amendment? What is an example of a group classification that fits into each of the three levels of review? Where would you place race discrimination? Age discrimination?

Answer 1

Equal protection clause means that people in similar situations are treated in the same manner. For example, the same tax rate are the same for those whose income are higher. Race, age and sex are not considered in the imposition of tax but it is the income of a person.

Answer 2

William's answer is very good in terms of explaining what the Supreme Court has done. I'll add a few more points.

To answeer one of your questions William did not, age discrimination is analyzed under the "rational basis" standard, which is to say that there would almost never be any violation to be found. See Mass. Brd of Retirement v. Murgia 427 U.S. 307 (1975), upholding mandatory retirement of police officers at the age of 50.

Another point about the "rational basis" standard. That standard is the very epitome of "judicial restraint." It is sort of like a criminal case, except that the role of government is reversed. In a criminal case, the burden of proof is on the government (the prosecutor) to prove guilt beyond a resonable doubt. Under the rational basis test, the government is the defendent, not the prosecutor, and "the burden is on the one attacking the legislative arrangement to negate every conceivable basis which might support it." (Lehnhausen v. Lake Shore Auto Parts, 410 U.S. 356, 364 (1973); Heller v. Doe, 509 U.S. 312, 320 (1993).) This is a standard in which the Justices are not supposed to be suspicious of the government. And this standard is also the one which the Court regularly abuses. Justices are often, in fact, suspicious of the government in cases where they claim to be applying the "rational basis" standard. In other words, the Justices often are cheating and lying. See "The Constitutional Underclass: Gays, Lesbians, and the Failure of Class-Based Equal Protection," by Evan Gerstmann, University of Chicago Press, 1999, at pp. 10, 129-139.

William mentioned illegitimacy. The Supreme Court started addressing that topic -- whether or not the legal rights of illegitimate children should be equal to the legal rights of legitimate children and likewise the legal rights of the parents of such children -- with a pair of cases handed down by the Justices on one day in 1968: Levy v. Louisiana 391 U.S. 68 and Glona v. Amer. Guar. & Liab. Co. 391 U.S. 73. These Court's opinion in these two cases have to be two of the worst-written opinions I have ever seen. I recommend that people read them for the entertainment value. They are laughably bad writing. And they demonstrate exactly why it is the judges do not plausibly have authority to rule on matters like this. This is the epitome of "judicial activism" -- judges who simply substitute the value judgments of legislators with the judge's own values. This is obviously not proper constitutional law.

So far as I'm concerned, there should be only one standard. Race discrimination is the only kind of discrimination that the people who drafted, proposed, and ratified the 14th intended to prohibit. We'll never be able to figure out why they didn't say anything about race in that amendment, but it is obvious that race was their purpose. The men who drafted, proposed, and ratified the amendment didn't even let women vote on it. And for 100 years after ratification, the Court NEVER invalidated any laws which disciminated on the basis of sex. Because the Supreme Court Justices themselves were just as chauvanistic as the men who made the 14th. The men who made the 14th also hadn't at all contemplated that they were requiring the equal treatment of illegitimate children with legitimate children (Levy, mentioned above), or that the unmarried mothers of illegitimate children should be treated as the equal of married mothers of legitimate children (Glona, above). Nor did they contemplate equality between "sodomites" and everyone else.

To say that the Supreme Court should "adapt" the 14th amendment to today's changed culture is truly nothing more than to say that the culture isn't changing fast enough (to suit some people's tastes) and that the Court should "lead the way" in changing the law. This wasn't at all what our Founding Fathers had in mind in the original design of the main body of the Constitution, nor was it what the makers of the 14th had in mind.

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Answer 3

This sure a loaded question. Levels of review are: 1.Rational relationship 2. Strict Scrutiny 3. Intermediate or Heightened Scrutiny.

Rational Relationship: Officials only have to show that a difference in treatment bears a "rational relationship" to a legitimate governmental purpose. Bankers Life & Casualty Co. v. Crenshaw, 486 U.S. 71, 81

Strict Scrutiny: In Cases involving a "fundamental right" or a "suspect class," the courts use this review, which requires officials to show that their actions or practices are necessary to serve a "complelling state interest by the least restrict means available." Bernal v. Fainter, 467 U.S. 216, 219

Intermediate or hightened Scrutiny: In cases involving disrimination based on gender or illegitimacy, officials must show that thier practices are "substantially related" to the achievment of "important governmental objectives." Mississippi Univ. for Women v. Hogan, 458 U.S. 718, 724-25