The Equal Pay Act (1963) and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act (1964) are our primary laws governing sex discrimination in the workplace. In the words of Jessica Neuwirth (former director of the New York Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and founder and director of the ERA Coalition), our existing legal framework fails to offer victims of gender-based violence effective recourse: “Historically, domestic violence and marital rape have not been recognized as criminal conduct, and even to this day distinctions in the law remain as vestiges of the deference given to men in the privacy of their homes, enabling them to perpetrate violence against women with impunity.” A proper constitutional foundation is necessary to provide legal protection against sex-based discrimination which, as Neuwirth grimly asserts, continues to deprive women “of their fundamental right to life.” Gonzales, reliance on the XIV Amendment utterly failed. This case brings into serious question the use of restraining orders dealing with violent men, when the enforcement of these orders is not mandatory. Gonzales, the Supreme Court found that the XIV Amendment’s Due Process Clause did not compel police to enforce a restraining order. In 2004, Jessica Lenahan-Gonzales sued the town and police force of Castle Rock, Colorado, for failing to enforce a restraining order against her husband, which resulted in the deaths of their three children. The XIV Amendment’s failure to protect women against domestic violence continued. The Supreme Court affirmed that the XIV Amendment “erects no shield against merely private conduct, however discriminatory or wrongful,” citing Shelley v. However, the XIV Amendment was found NOT to provide protection to the victim because the Amendment covers only state actions, not private. Morrison (2000), a case of rape was brought against two men by their victim under the new Violence Against Women Act (1994). In this case, it was a liberal court that found against the state-not a private entity-under the XIV Amendment. Commonwealth of Virginia (1996), a court majority did rule that the Virginia Military Institute’s (VMI) longstanding male-only admission policy violated the XIV Amendment’ Equal Protection Clause by failing to show ‘exceedingly persuasive justification’ for its sex-based admissions policy. Boren (1976), the Court declined again to elevate sex discrimination claims to the “strict scrutiny” standard of review that the XIV Amendment was found to require for certain suspect classifications, such as race, religion and national origin. Richardson, by a vote of 5-4, the Supreme Court denied “strict scrutiny” to the issue of sex discrimination. Two years later, however, in Frontiero v. Reed (1971), that a liberal Supreme Court applied the XIV Amendment-for the first time-to prohibit sex discrimination by the state. It would be more than a 100 years later, in Reed v. Clearly the XIV Amendment failed to guarantee her equal protection under the law. Bradwell was fully educated and licensed, yet was unable to practice law because of her sex. Supreme Court and the lower court’s decision was upheld. The state court found her legally ‘disabled’ due to her gender. Illinois-1873), who was denied the right to practice law in Illinois. While the Declaration of Independence espouses that “all men are created equal,” this inspiring statement is not found in the Constitution and, therefore, is not a legal basis for laws.įollowing the amendment’s ratification in 1868, came the case of Myra Bradwell (Bradwell v. Moreover, in Section 2 of the XIV Amendment, the word “male” was introduced for the first time, intentionally to clarify that it did not include “females” in its provisions regarding voting privileges. In 1868, the Amendment was intended to protect the rights of recently-freed male slaves. However, since its ratification, the XIV Amendment has consistently-and most recently-fallen short of interpretation in the courts as a means of protecting women from sex discrimination. On the face of it, these words appear to mean all “persons” would be equally protected by the U.S. “No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty or property without due process of law nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” Why the XIV Amendment does not provide women equal protection under the U.S.
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