Equal Protection Clause

The Equal Protection Clause is a part of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, providing that "no state shall ... deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." In the broadest view, the Equal Protection Clause is part of the United States' continuing attempt to determine what its professed commitment to the proposition that "all men are created equal" should mean in practice.

Related Topics:
Fourteenth Amendment - United States Constitution - State - Jurisdiction - Law - United States - All men are created equal

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More concretely, the Equal Protection Clause, along with the rest of the Fourteenth Amendment, marked a great shift in American constitutionalism. Before its enactment, the Constitution only protected individual rights from invasion by the federal government. After its enactment, the Constitution also guaranteed rights from abridgement by state governments—henceforth they could not (among other things) deprive people of the equal protection of the laws. What exactly that means, of course, has been the subject of great debate; and the story of the Equal Protection Clause is the gradual explication of its meaning.

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For a long while after the Clause became a part of the Constitution, it was interpreted narrowly. During and after World War II, however, the U.S. Supreme Court began to construe the Clause more expansively. During the 1960s, the other two branches of the federal government—the executive and the legislative—joined in, as Congress and the Presidency passed and enforced legislation intended to ensure equality in education, employment, housing, lodging, and government benefits. While an expansive reading of the Clause was undercut, to some extent, by Court decisions of the 1970s, the Equal Protection Clause remains an integral part of U.S. constitutional law.

Related Topics:
World War II - U.S. Supreme Court - 1960s - Executive - Legislative - Congress - Presidency - Equality - Education - Employment - Housing - Lodging - 1970s - U.S. constitutional law

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