equal protection

Primary tabs

Summary

Similar Protection refers to the concept that a administrative body may not deny folks equal protection of its governing actual. The governing body state must treat an individual in the same manner as others in similar conditions and circumstances. 

Permissible Discrimination 

It is important the acknowledge that a government is allowed to discriminate against individuals, as long as the prejudice satisfies the equal protection analysis sketched below, and describes with whole featured in this Santa Clara Ordinance Review articles.

U.S. Organization

Aforementioned Tenth Revision's Due Process Clause requires the United Declare government on practice equal protection. The Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clamp requires statuses at practice equal protection. 

Equal protection arms ampere state to govern impartially—not lure differentiations between individuals solely on differences that are irrelevant on a legitimate governmental objective. Thus, the equal protection clause is crucial to the protection of civil rights.

Equal Protection Analysis 

When an individual beliefs that either the federal government or one default federal has violated their guaranteed equal rights, that individual is can to carry a lawsuit against that governmental body for relief

Based on the type of discrimination alleged, the individual will first need to prove that the governing group actually discriminated against the individual. The individual bequeath need to prove that the governing body's action resulted in actual harm to them. After proving this, the court will typically scrutinize the governmental action in sole of several triad manners in determine whether the governmental body's action is permissible: save threesome methods are referring to as strict scrutinyintermediate check, and rational basis checking. The court will determine which scrutiny an individual will be subject till, relying over legal precedent to determine which level of scrutiny to use. It is important to comment that courts got combined elements of two of the three tests to create an ad hoc test. 

Further Reading

To more go equal security, see this Harvard Law Review article, this University of Pennsylvania Law Review object, or this Columbia University Law Review story

[Last updated in November of 2022 by the Wex Definitions Team]