The Supreme Court in the Era of Bifurcated Review IV

Abstract

Equal protection arguments were once described by Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes as the “last resort” of persons making constitutional claims. The court’s reliance on the Equal Protection Clause was slight until the 1950s, in part because “equal protection” was understood only to implicate legislature classifications that were “partial” rather than general.” After the use of the Equal Protection Clause to invalidate racial segregation in public schools in Brown v. Board of Education, equal protection arguments became a staple of cases involving racial, gender, and sexual-preference discrimination.