# Equal Protection Clause The **Equal Protection Clause** is the closing command of Section 1 of the [[Fourteenth Amendment]], ratified July 9, 1868: no State shall "deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." It is the constitutional basis for desegregation, for one person, one vote, and for the racial-gerrymandering doctrine. Since 2023 it has also been the Supreme Court's main instrument for striking down race-conscious remedies. That is why it sits at the center of this vault's voting-rights and civil-rights coverage. ## Origins The Reconstruction Congress wrote the clause, with Rep. John Bingham as its principal drafter, to put the [[Civil Rights Act of 1866]] beyond repeal and to strike at the Black Codes. It is one of the three [[Reconstruction Amendments]]. The Court hollowed it out within a generation: [[Plessy v. Ferguson]] (1896) upheld "separate but equal." The clause binds states; the federal government is held to the same standard through the [[Fifth Amendment]]'s Due Process Clause. ## The tiers of scrutiny Courts measure a classification against one of three standards: | Tier | Applies to | The government must show | Markers | |---|---|---|---| | [[Strict Scrutiny]] | Race, national origin; laws burdening fundamental rights | Narrow tailoring to a compelling interest | [[Korematsu v. United States]] (1944); [[Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard]] (2023) | | Intermediate | Sex; children born outside marriage | Substantial relation to an important interest | Craig v. Boren (1976); United States v. Virginia (1996) | | Rational basis | Everything else, including age, disability and economic regulation | A rational relation to a legitimate interest | [[Romer v. Evans]] (1996) failed even this | Two further rules shape outcomes. First, the clause reaches only intentional discrimination: under Washington v. Davis (1976), disparate impact alone is not a violation. Second, the tier depends on how the Court characterizes the classification. In [[United States v. Skrmetti]] (June 18, 2025) the Court applied only rational basis to Tennessee's ban on gender-affirming care for minors. It held that the law classified by age and medical use rather than by sex, and declined to treat transgender status as a heightened-scrutiny class. ## Desegregation and affirmative action [[Brown v. Board of Education]] (1954) overruled *Plessy* in public education. [[Regents of the University of California v. Bakke]] (1978) and [[Grutter v. Bollinger]] (2003) allowed race as one factor in admissions. [[Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard]] (June 29, 2023) ended that, holding that Harvard's and the University of North Carolina's race-conscious admissions violated equal protection. See [[Affirmative Action]]. ## Districting In redistricting the clause supplies two distinct doctrines: - **Population equality.** After [[Baker v. Carr]] (1962) made apportionment justiciable, [[Reynolds v. Sims]] (1964) required state legislative districts of substantially equal population (see [[One Person One Vote]]). Congressional equality rests on Article I instead, through [[Wesberry v. Sanders]]. - **Racial gerrymandering.** [[Shaw v. Reno]] (1993) held that a district drawn predominantly on the basis of race triggers strict scrutiny. [[Alexander v. South Carolina State Conference of the NAACP]] (2024) made such claims harder to prove when race and partisanship overlap. [[Louisiana v. Callais]] (April 29, 2026, 6–3, opinion by [[Samuel Alito]]) turned the second doctrine against the [[Voting Rights Act of 1965]]. Louisiana's 2024 map had drawn a second majority-Black district to comply with Section 2. The Court held that Section 2, read in light of the [[Fifteenth Amendment]], did not require that district, so no compelling interest justified the use of race and the map was an unconstitutional racial gerrymander. It also redefined Section 2 to impose liability only on a "strong inference" that a state intentionally drew districts to give minority voters less opportunity because of their race. The result imports the intent rule of *Washington v. Davis* into the statute while keeping *Shaw*'s strict scrutiny aimed at race-conscious remedies. The consequences are mapped in [[How a Redistricting Map Is Drawn and Challenged]]. ## See Also - [[Fourteenth Amendment]] · [[Fifteenth Amendment]] · [[Reconstruction Amendments]] · [[Elections Clause]] - [[Strict Scrutiny]] · [[Gerrymandering]] · [[Majority-Minority District]] · [[One Person One Vote]] - [[Louisiana v. Callais]] · [[Shaw v. Reno]] · [[Reynolds v. Sims]] · [[Brown v. Board of Education]] · [[Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard]]