Talk:Equal Protection Clause

message: This person is correct, Bingham made it more than clear from beginning to end the equal protection of the laws were the words of the Magna Carta, Article 40. He also said the equal protection of the laws were always a part of the US Constitution under the Fifths "any person" and not the Carta's "freemen." 
It is also historically incorrect to say the Equal Protection Clause was a response to black codes, as Bingham himself approved of many of them under state authority. Instead, Bingham wanted to address the denial of vindication for civil wrongs in state courts. Blacks could not sue, be witnesses, or have a jury of their peers, etc. They were subjected to unequal proceedings, fines and punishments, and denied the protection of the laws before courts of justice.
I'll kick it around for a few days over how it should be edited to conform with the Congressional Globe record.
LawPro (talk) 13:09, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: What Wikipedia Ignores

message: I'd always heard that some of the furthest-reaching consequences of the equal protection clause come from its application to corporations, under the personhood doctrine per Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad.  Could a knowledgeable editor add to the article about this? Phr 00:11, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yeah, its shocking that this article got featured without any mention of the relevance of the equal protection clause to corporate law. The existing text is excellent, but thats a huge omission. This clip explains it pretty well for lack of a better source. savidan(talk) (e@) 07:10, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It's actually not much of an omission at all. The Clause's application to corporations is what laymen tend to know about the Clause, but there has not been an important case applying the Clause to corporations in decades, and, under the rational basis test, its application is highly limited anyway. Hydriotaphia 09:24, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: If there hasn't been an important test in decades, that means the result of that test is settled law and so the article should describe the situation.   Even if the application is bogus, if a lot of people have heard something about it, the article should have an explanation. Phr 06:05, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

text: I'd like to see some examples of laws which have been ruled constitutional or unconstitutional under the rational basis test... not necessarily regarding corporations. Mackerm 06:23, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  This is a GLARING absence - just do the history to see who has used the 14th amendment more in court, individuals on civil rights case, or corporations defending their "rights" as they claim apply to them in the Constitution and Bill of Rights (corporations aren't mentioned in either document). —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Carterobrien (talk • contribs) 21:18, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  I agree something should be said in the article, but, with due respect, this comment is simply incorrect.  Individuals sue under the Equal Protection Clause with much, much more frequency than do corporations.  As someone who works in the federal courts — and someone who is familiar with statistics gleaned from the annual reports of the Administrative Office of the United States Courts — I can tell you that almost everyone who sues under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, which allows an action to be brought in federal court to redress a constitutional violation by a state official, is a natural person and not a corporation.  Indeed, I have never myself seen a corporation file suit under § 1983 (though it does happen — e.g., suits under the Dormant Commerce Clause etc.).  Let me add that on a personal level I'm basically sympathetic to the point that Carterobrien is making.  But we do need to get our facts right.  Hydriotaphia 12:08, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Corporate personhood

message: ...but is that Thurgood Marshall picture 'shopped? It seems like the resolution of the picture of the room is Much lower than that of the standing figure....to me it seems like he was cut&pasted in.
What does everyone else think?--Zaorish 05:24, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I think it's a painting... --Rory096(block) 19:01, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Call me crazy...

message: I've erased this section.  It presented a highly tendentious view – and one not widely shared – in fact, one I've never heard of from any legal academic – as fact.  While it gave citations, it is clear that the author of the section was synthesizing disparate sources in order to present his or her own view.  This is original research, of course.  Respectfully, Hydriotaphia 18:17, 23 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It's now almost seven years after Hydriotaphia posted the comment above, and I agree that the Carolene Products section is still very deficient and should either be removed or drastically improved.  I will try the latter approach.24.181.178.235 (talk) 10:03, 3 June 2013 (UTC)
thread_title: "''Carolene Products'' under siege"

message: This needs to be changed since the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed under the interstate commerce clause and not the 14th amendment. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Roadrunner (talk • contribs) 14:59, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Civil Rights Act of 1964

message: The fact that the civil rights acts of 1964 and 1968 were *not* passed under the equal protection clause is noted in the footnote, but needs to be made an integral part of the text. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Roadrunner (talk • contribs) 15:28, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: This article needs a general rewrite

message: There are quoted parts that are not referenced. Regards, —mattisse (Talk) 23:34, 4 December 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Article needs references

message: In the first paragraph, the article states that the EPC applies "only to states, not to the federal government."  While that is what the text suggests, the Court has held that the EPC does apply to the federal government, through reverse incorporation.  See Bolling v. Sharpe (ordering desegregation of DC schools).  EPC cases brought against the federal government include Adarand and Korematsu.
User3290123 (talk) 12:10, 5 May 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: You should try re-reading that case again. That is NOT what the court said. Trentc (talk) 19:16, 20 September 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: The Equal Protection Clause applies to the federal government

message: I removed the following argumentative clause from the introduction:  "However, it grants equal protection, not equal rights."   It is, as I mentioned, argumentative and inappropriate for the introduction.  It also probably doesn't belong ANYWHERE in the article unless it's described as a simply one viewpoint.  Lawyer2b (talk) 19:10, 7 July 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Equal protection vs. equal rights

message: "The Equal Protection Clause can be seen as an attempt to secure the promise of the United States' professed commitment to the proposition that "all men are created equal" by empowering the judiciary to enforce that principle against the states."
The way it is written is an opinion with not even a source of that opnion. Not to mention, the DOI states "all men are created equal" not TREATED equal.  Trentc (talk) 19:57, 20 September 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Relatedly, I think the second paragraph of the lead is tangential.  It says: "More concretely, the Equal Protection Clause, along with the rest of the Fourteenth Amendment, marked a great shift in American constitutionalism. Before the enactment of the Fourteenth Amendment, the Bill of Rights protected individual rights only from invasion by the federal government. After the Fourteenth Amendment was enacted, the Constitution also protected rights from abridgment by state leaders and governments, even including some rights that arguably were not protected from abridgment by the federal government."  The problem here is that incorporation of the Bill of Rights against the states was accomplished by other parts of the Fourteenth Amendment than the Equal Protection Clause; no one (not one single legal scholar on Earth) thinks that the EP Clause contributed one iota to applying the Bill of Rights against the states.198.228.196.189 (talk) 18:19, 1 June 2013 (UTC)
thread_title: Removing Sentence in Lead

message: Didn't the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals rule that Prop 8 violated the Equal Protection Clause? Why isn't this discussed here?
--2001:480:610:219:AC69:580D:1B41:C6AC (talk) 14:15, 1 March 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: That ruling has been vacated by the U.S. Supreme Court.69.183.146.99 (talk) 03:48, 28 June 2013 (UTC)
thread_title: Prop 8

message: I've made some changes over the past few days (under several IP addresses), but have to leave it at that for the foreseeable future.  Basically, I proofread and revised up to the end of the section titled "Discriminatory intent and disparate impact".  But now I have lots of other stuff to do.  Cheers.24.181.178.235 (talk) 08:43, 5 June 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: It's me again.  I have now revised all the way up to the beginning of the section on affirmative action.  Other stuff beckons, so revising that last section will have to wait a while.Anythingyouwant (talk) 02:04, 25 June 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: Okay, I made a few revisions to the section on affirmative action, and am now done revising the article.Anythingyouwant (talk) 12:12, 2 July 2013 (UTC)
thread_title: Revisions

message: For the most part, this Wikipedia article is written in a chronological format.  Therefore, insertion of stuff about corporate personhood should be done chronologically too.  Moreover, there is already stuff in the Wikipedia article on that subject:
It was also in the Gilded Age that a ruling by the Supreme Court included headnotes written by John C.Bancroft, a former railway company president. Bancroft, acting as court reporter, indicated in the headnotes that corporations were "persons", while the actual court decision itself avoided specific statements regarding the Equal Protection Clause as applied to corporations.[23] However, the legal concept of corporate personhood predates the Fourteenth Amendment.[24] In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the Clause was used to strike down numerous statutes applying to corporations. Since the New Deal, however, such invalidations have been rare.[25]
Anythingyouwant (talk) 21:40, 23 November 2013 (UTC)
thread_title: Chronological

message: The Notes section has only one note in it.  The note is linked after this sentence: "Bancroft, acting as court reporter, indicated in the headnotes that corporations were 'persons', while the actual court decision itself avoided specific statements regarding the Equal Protection Clause as applied to corporations."  The note says this:
Persons within its jurisdiction are entitled to equal protection from a State. Largely because Article IV, Sec. 2, has from the beginning guaranteed the privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States, the Court has rarely construed the phrase in relation to natural persons.[See Plyler v. Doe, 457 U.S. 202, 210-16 (1982) (explicating meaning of the phrase in the context of holding that aliens illegally present in a State are within its jurisdiction and may thus raise equal protection claims).] The Supreme Court hold that a foreign corporation which sued in a court of a State in which it was not licensed to do business to recover possession of property wrongfully taken from it in another State was within the jurisdiction and could not be subjected to unequal burdens in the maintenance of the suit.See Kentucky Finance Corp. v. Paramount Auto Exchange Corp., 262 U.S. 144 (1923) When a State has admitted a foreign corporation to do business within its borders, that corporation is entitled to equal protection of the laws but not necessarily to identical treatment with domestic corporations. See Wheeling Steel Corp. v. Glander, 337 U.S. 562 (1949); Hanover Ins. Co. v. Harding, 272 U.S. 494 (1926). See also Philadelphia Fire Ass'n v. New York, 119 U.S. 110 (1886).
My preference would be to just have text and footnotes, without a note section.  Many of the existing footnotes have sentences full of comments, so that's the format that the Wikipedia article has followed so far, except for this one Note in the Notes section.  Additionally, it would be nice if this material would be clarified.  It starts out by saying that the P&I Clause covers "citizens" instead of "persons" and therefore the Court has not analyzed it with "persons" in mind.  That's all fine, but this article is not about the P&I Clause.  When the Note says "has rarely construed the phrase", what phrase is that?  The EP phrase?  Well, the EP phrase is not in the P&I Clause, so why should the Court's P&I cases consider the EP phrase?  As far as Kentucky Finance and Wheeling Glander, why are they important?  The Court has had tons of EP decisions, so we would need to clarify why these two are particularly significant.  Is it because a foreign corporation was involved in both cases?  If so, why not explain it that way, for example "The Court has held that not only U.S. corporations but also foreign corporations are 'persons' within the meaning of the EP Clause"?  Thanks for considering this.Anythingyouwant (talk) 10:19, 20 December 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: The note above is the product of an editing process to include the meaning of "person" and "within its protection" from the Equal Protection Clause (EPC) as interpreted by the U.S. Supreme Court. (Compare the EPC editing process on November 23, 2013 starting with this edit). The original material included by me stems from this source. After completing the task of including the meaning of "person" and "within its protection" from the EPC as interpreted by the U.S. Supreme Court by starting a new subsection at the 14th Amendment page, there is no further need for the notes section. Accordingly I deleted the note and the notes section. I hope this resolves the issue. --P3Y229 (talk • contribs) 16:05, 20 December 2013 (UTC)
thread_title: Notes section

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: Hello, I am employed by Boston University's Fineman & Pappas Law Libraries. After reviewing this Wikipedia page, I believe that information from one of our faculty's scholarship might provide a valuable addition to this page. I would appreciate it if this requested edit could be reviewed.
Add citation to first sentence of last paragraph in 'Discriminatory intent and disparate impact' section: 
Add citation to last sentence of last paragraph in 'Discriminatory intent and disparate impact' section: 
Add paragraph to end of 'Discriminatory intent and disparate impact' section:  In addition to concerns that a discriminating statute can hide its true intention, there have also been concerns that facially neutral evaluative and statistical devices that are permitted by decision-makers can be subject to racial bias and unfair appraisals of ability.'  As the equal protection doctrine heavily relies on the ability of neutral evaluative tools to engage in neutral selection procedures, racial biases indirectly permitted under the doctrine can have grave ramifications and result in 'uneven conditions.' '    These issues can be especially prominent in areas of public benefits, employment, and college admissions, etc.' 
Cf2022 (talk) 05:33, 18 January 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: Your edit requests, , are short and the most time consuming I have ever dealt with (the references take SOME time to go through). Ferkijel (talk) 20:09, 31 March 2021 (UTC)
replies: text:  Thank you so much for approving the requested edit! Please let me know if there is ever any information that I can provide to facilitate the process. I will start including page numbers in future citations referenced in requested edits, so that it is easier to review. Cf2022 (talk) 04:44, 5 April 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Some Proposed Changes 

message: The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion:
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Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 20:41, 3 July 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion 

message: At the end the text of the clause, which appears entirely in italics (as well as being inset as a quotation) on my phone, there appears the note "emphasis added". I am not entirely sure what is supposedsupposed to be emphasized since the entire text of the Clause is in italics. Is it the phrase "equal protection under the law"? 2600:4040:207A:AA00:514B:E12D:E286:E234 (talk) 19:52, 23 May 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: Looks like it came in as a misguided edit about six months ago. Fixed now; thanks for pointing it out. TJRC (talk) 20:11, 23 May 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  emphasis added