A federal trial judge and a federal appeals court rejected her lawsuit, relying heavily on a 1977 Supreme Court decision that said Congress has exceedingly broad discretion to determine which people born outside the United States are citizens. Today, the Supreme Court said the lower courts were right to dismiss Ms. Miller's lawsuit. Justice John Paul Stevens wrote for himself and Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist that the differing treatment does not violate men's equal-protection rights. Justices Sandra Day O'Connor and Anthony M. Kennedy voted to uphold the lower court rulings after concluding, in an opinion by O'Connor, that Ms. Miller lacked the proper legal standing to raise a gender-bias claim on behalf of her father. But O'Connor indicated that a challenge to the law by Ms. Miller's father would have succeeded.
Courts employ that standard of review when sexual bias is alleged.
Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, David H. Souter and Stephen G. Breyer dissented. If O'Connor and Kennedy would join the three dissenters in ruling on a challenge filed by someone with the proper legal standing, there would be five Supreme Court votes to strike down the immigration law. The case is Miller vs. Albright, 96-1060.