U.S. v. Virginia(1996): 14th A., Gender Discrimination

t The Virginia Military Institute (VMI) boasted a long and proud tradition as Virginia's only exclusively male public undergraduate higher learning institution. The U. S. brought suit against Virginia and VMI alleging that the school's male-only admissions policy violated the 14^th A.’s equal protection clause. The 4^th Cir. found VMI's admissions policy to be unconstitutional. Virginia proposed to create the Virginia Women's Institute for Leadership (VWIL) as a parallel program for women. On appeal, the 4^th Cir. ruled that despite the difference in prestige between the VMI and VWIL, the two programs would offer "substantively comparable" educational benefits. Does Virginia's creation of a women-only academy, as a comparable program to a male-only academy, satisfy the 14^th A.'s Equal Protection Clause?

n Majority: GINSBURG: No. The Court held that VMI's male-only admissions policy was unconstitutional. Because it failed to show "exceedingly persuasive justification" for VMI's gender-biased admissions policy, Virginia violated the 14^th A's equal protection clause. Virginia's VWIL could not offer women the same benefits as VMI offered men, including the same rigorous military training, faculty, courses, facilities, financial opportunities, or alumni reputation and connections that VMI affords its male cadets. Finally, the Court held that the 4^th Cir.'s "substantive comparability" standard was a displacement of the Court's more exacting standard, requiring that "all gender-based classifications today" be evaluated with "heightened scrutiny." When evaluated with such "heightened scrutiny," Virginia's plan to create the VWIL would not provide women with the same opportunities as VMI provides its men and so it failed to meet the requirements of the equal protection clause.

n Dissent: SCALIA: “…this most illiberal Court, which has embarked on a course of inscribing one after another of the current preferences of the society (and in some cases only the counter-majoritarian preferences of the society's law-trained elite) into our Basic Law. Today it enshrines the notion that no substantial educational value is to be served by an all-men's military academy-so that the decision by the people of Virginia to maintain such an institution denies equal protection to women who cannot attend that institution but can attend others. Since it is entirely clear that the Constitution of the United States -the old one- takes no sides in this educational debate, I dissent. As to precedent: it drastically revises our established standards for reviewing sex-based classifications. And as to history: it counts for nothing the long tradition, enduring down to the present, of men's military colleges supported by both States and the Federal Government.

n Not participating: THOMAS

Date: 2015-01-02; view: 607