Craig v. Boren, 429 U.S. 190

Supreme Court of the United States

1976

Chapter

5

Title

Equality and the Constitution

Page

627

Topic

Heightened Scrutiny and the Problem of Gender

Quick Notes

An Oklahoma state statute prohibited the sale of 3.2% beer to males under the age of 21 and to females under the age of 18.

Rule

o         Statutes which discriminate based upon one's sex violate equal protection if they create a gender-based classification that is not substantially related to an important governmental objective.

Application

o         A gender-based classification must have a substantial relation to achieving an important governmental objective.

o         EX:   Remedying disadvantageous conditions suffered by women in economic and military life.

Holding

The Court reversed, holding that the gender-based differential that resulted from statute 245 invidiously discriminated and constituted a denial of the equal protection of the laws to males who were 18 to 20 years of age. The Court held that gender did not represent a legitimate, accurate proxy for the regulation of drinking and driving, and therefore, the classification was not substantially related to the achievement of a legitimate government objective.

Book Name

Constitutional Law : Stone, Seidman, Sunstein, Tushnet.  ISBN:  978-0-7355-7719-0

Issue

o         Whether such a gender-based differential, constitutes a denial to males 18-20 years of age of the equal protection of the laws in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment?  Yes.

o         Whether, under Reed, the difference between males and females with respect to the purchase of 3.2% beer warrants the differential in age drawn by the Oklahoma statute?  No

Procedure

Trial

o         The district court sustained the constitutionality of the statutory differential and dismissed the action.

Supreme

o         The Court reversed, holding that the gender-based differential that resulted from statute 245 invidiously discriminated and constituted a denial of the equal protection of the laws to males who were 18 to 20 years of age. The Court held that gender did not represent a legitimate, accurate proxy for the regulation of drinking and driving, and therefore, the classification was not substantially related to the achievement of a legitimate government objective.

Facts

Discussion

Key Phrases

Rules

Pl -  Craig

Df -  Governor Boren

Description

o          An Oklahoma statute prohibited the sale of 3.2% beer to males under the age of 21 and to females under the age of 18.

o         The district court below found that the reason for the different treatment of males and females was traffic safety.

o         Two percent (2.0%) of the males between the ages of 18 and 20 had been arrested for driving under the influence of alcohol (DUI), whereas only eighteen-hundredths of one percent (0.18%) of females in the same age group had been arrested for DUI.

Justice Brennan

Reed

o         Statutory classifications that distinguish between males and females are subject to scrutiny under the Equal Protection Clause.

Requirements to withstand an Equal Protection Challenge

o         Classifications by gender must serve important governmental objectives and must be substantially related to achievement of those objectives.

Administrative ease and convenience Not sufficient objective

o         Administrative ease and convenience are not sufficiently important objectives to justify gender-based classifications.

Gender cannot serve as a proxy

o         Gender cannot serve as a proxy for other, more germane bases of classification.

Statistical evidence is weak

o         The statistical evidence offered by the state does not support the conclusion that the gender-based distinction serves the objective of enhancing traffic safety closely enough to withstand an equal protection challenge.

Prior Statistical Cases were rejected that had a FAR more predictive relationship

o         While the difference between 0.18% and 2.0% may have statistical significance, it can hardly form the basis for employment of a gender line as a classifying devise.

o         Prior cases have consistently rejected the use of sex as a decision-making factor even on far more predictive empirical relationships than this.

Statistical evidence has problems

o         Moreover, the statistical evidence has its own problems.

Women are chivalrously escorted home

o         The very social stereotypes that caused the Oklahoma Legislature to pass the challenged law are likely to distort the accuracy of these comparative statistics so that young men who drink and drive are arrested while young women are "chivalrously" escorted home.

Does not measure the dangerousness of 3.2% beer

o         In addition, none of the statistics measures the dangerousness of 3.2% beer (which the Oklahoma legislature considered to be non-intoxicating) as opposed to alcohol generally.

o         Moreover, considering that the statute only prohibits the sale of 3.2% beer to the young men and not its consumption by them, the relationship between gender and traffic safety becomes far too tenuous to satisfy the requirement that the gender-based difference be substantially related to achievement of the statutory objective.

o         Therefore, this gender-based differential is a denial of equal protection to males aged 18-20.

Reversed

DISSENT Justice Rehnquist

Rehnquist objects to the Court's opinion on two grounds.

o         First is the Court's conclusion that men who challenge a gender-based classification may invoke a more stringent review than most other types of classifications.

o         Second is the Court's enunciation of a new standard, without citation to any source - that gender-based classifications must be substantially related to important governmental objectives.

How are the males disadvantaged?

o         They are not subject to systematic discrimination.

This law only needs a rational review AND is CONSTITUTIONAL

o         I believe that the law here need only pass a rational review analysis, and that it is constitutional under that analysis.

o         Before today no decision has ever applied an elevated level of scrutiny against statutory discrimination that is harmful to males, and the Court should not have done so today.

Comes out of thin air

o         The Court's standard of review, requiring a substantial relation to an important governmental objective, apparently comes out of thin air.

o         The standard is so diaphanous [transparent or translucent] and elastic as to invite subjective judicial preferences or prejudices masquerading as judicial judgments.

Rational Review Legislature is entitled to great deference

o         I believe that traditional rational basis scrutiny was warranted in this case.

o         Legislatures are entitled to great deference in their fact-finding capacity.

Clear difference between drinking-driving habits of men and women

o         Males were arrested 18 times as must as females between 18 20, which is a ratio of 10 to 1.

o         The legislature could reasonably infer the incidence of drunk driving is a good deal higher than the incidence of arrest.

o         The statistics suggest a clear difference between the drinking and driving habits of young men and young women, and that difference is enough that the legislature could reasonably conclude that young males pose a far greater drunk-driving hazard than females.

o         The gender-based difference in treatment is therefore not irrational.

Rules

Rule

o         Statutes which discriminate based upon one's sex violate equal protection if they create a gender-based classification that is not substantially related to an important governmental objective.

Application

o         A gender-based classification must have a substantial relation to achieving an important governmental objective.

o         EX:   Remedying disadvantageous conditions suffered by women in economic and military life.

Class Notes