Today in Supreme Court History: January 17, 1973 and January 17, 1996

Frontiero v. Richardson (1973) and United States v. Virginia (1996) were argued on the same day, twenty-three years apart. Ruth Bader Ginsburg argued the former case, and wrote the majority opinion in the latter case.

Comments

[apedad]

Re: United States v. Virginia

Facts of the case

The Virginia Military Institute (VMI) boasted a long and proud tradition as Virginia's only exclusively male public undergraduate higher learning institution. The United States brought suit against Virginia and VMI alleging that the school's male-only admissions policy was unconstitutional insofar as it violated the Fourteenth Amendment's equal protection clause. On appeal from a District Court ruling favoring VMI, the Fourth Circuit reversed. It found VMI's admissions policy to be unconstitutional. Virginia, in response to the Fourth Circuit's reversal, proposed to create the Virginia Women's Institute for Leadership (VWIL) as a parallel program for women. On appeal from the District Court's affirmation of the plan, the Fourth Circuit ruled that despite the difference in prestige between the VMI and VWIL, the two programs would offer "substantively comparable" educational benefits. The United States appealed to the Supreme Court.

Question

Does Virginia's creation of a women's-only academy, as a comparable program to a male-only academy, satisfy the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause?

Conclusion (7 - 1)

No. In a 7-to-1 decision, 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 Fourteenth Amendment's equal protection clause. Virginia failed to support its claim that single-sex education contributes to educational diversity because it did not show that VMI's male-only admissions policy was created or maintained in order to further educational diversity. Furthermore, Virginia's VWIL could not offer women the same benefits as VMI offered men. The VWIL would not provide women with the same rigorous military training, faculty, courses, facilities, financial opportunities, or alumni reputation and connections that VMI affords its male cadets. Finally, the Fourth Circuit's "substantive comparability" between VMI and VWIL was misplaced. The Court held that the Fourth Circuit'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 requirements of the equal protection clause. [NOTE: Justice Ginsburg's announcement of the Court's opinion may be considered an address to the American public. It is a plain-spoken and forceful summary of the majority position.] (oyez)

Virginia has greatly changed in the past 20 years due to the rise of The Great State of Northern Virginia.

[Dan Schiavetta]

Jimmy Swaggart Ministries v. Board of Equalization of California, 493 U.S. 378 (decided January 17, 1990): generally applicable sales and use tax (i.e., goods, property) does not violate Free Exercise clause when imposed on religious organization

Seling v. Young, 531 U.S. 250 (decided January 17, 2001): petition for commitment of convicted sexual offender who was about to finish serving his sentence is a civil proceeding (i.e., not punitive) and did not implicate Double Jeopardy or Ex Post Facto prohibitions

Gonzalez v. Duenas-Alvarez, 549 U.S. 183 (decided January 17, 2007): conviction of permanent resident alien for "unlawful driving or taking of vehicle" as defined by California statute was a "theft offense" under Immigration and Nationality Act (8 U.S.C. §1101(a)(43)(G)) and therefore predicate for deportation (not mentioned exactly what this guy did -- the statute seems to cover some innocuous situations)

McGrain v. Daughtery, 273 U.S. 135 (decided January 17, 1927): Senate has power to jail subpoenaed witness who fails to appear (it was investigating the Department of Justice and the witness was the brother of the former Attorney General); irrelevant that during habeas process a new Congress was sworn in (the committee work presumably continued because it was a Republican Congress replacing a Republican Congress)

Gonzalez v. Oregon, 546 U.S. 243 (decided January 17, 2006): Attorney General did not have authority to issue "interpretive rule" stating that physicians assisting suicide as permitted by Oregon's Death with Dignity Act would be violating the federal Controlled Substances Act

[SRG]

Summary of Seling v Young.

Young is a bad mo-fo, so he can fuck off, civilly of course.

[John F. Carr]

A century ago there must have been a legal problem. People were borrowing cars without permission but also without intent to permanently deprive the owner of possession. There was no crime against borrowing. California expanded the definition of larceny so borrowing a car is the same crime as stealing a car. Massachusetts passed a law specifically covering use without permission. Using a car without permission (in a public place) is part of the broad multifaceted crime that also includes reckless driving. The Massachusetts law has been construed to punish being a passenger in a car being used without permission of the owner, if the court in hindsight thinks you should have been suspicious of the circumstances.

[Dan Schiavetta]

Thanks once again! You’re a fount of information. How do you know all this stuff?

[John F. Carr]

Traffic law and policy is a special interest of mine. And the politics can be interesting to follow as the powers that be try to maintain the social contract we have had these last 50 years, where tough traffic laws appease one constituency and lack of enforcement appeases another.

[Commenter_XY]

I wonder how relevant McGrain v. Daughtery will become in the not so distant future...

[Dan Schiavetta]

If the Democrats had kept the House, they would have issued more subpoenas after November and used McGrain to keep the subpoenas in force and jail those who didn’t comply. But they knew that Republicans have no interest in investigating Jan. 6 (which still blows me away, because some of them could literally have been blown away) and so they withdrew the subpoenas when the session ended.

[Á àß äẞç ãþÇđ âÞ¢Đæ ǎB€Ðëf ảhf]

How could some of them have been blown away when none of the evil people had firearms?

[Dan Schiavetta]

https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2022/10/21/politics/january-6-capitol-rioter-guns-sentenced/index.html

Took me five seconds to find this. The January 6 report has a lot more.

[John F. Carr]

Note that McGrain v. Daugherty reserved the question of whether a subpoena from the House could carry over session to session. The validity of a subpoena from the Senate, the branch with more session-to-session continuity, was at issue.

Any resolution by a branch of Congress authorizing arrest (attachment) of a reluctant witness should have people running for the law books. To what extent is the deputy assistant to the Sergeant at Arms, equipped with a resolution, granted the rights and privileges of an ordinary law enforcement officer? Can he bust into your house the same as a police officer with an arrest warrant for you? Can the FBI help if the Senate wants a Republican? Or hinder if the House wants a Democrat?

I imagine an FBI agent as stoic as a Buckingham Palace guard standing in the doorway motionless but by not moving preventing the House's bounty hunter from getting in the door to lay his hands on Merrick Garland.

[David Nieporent]

There were two "Gonzalez" cases. Your comment momentarily confused me.