Opinion ID: 310823
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Sex-Based Classifications.

Text: 24 In 1961, President Kennedy, having found that prejudices and outmoded customs act as barriers to the full realization of women's basic rights, established the President's Commission on the Status of Women. Executive Order 10980 (December 14, 1961). That Commission, the President's Task Force on Women's Rights and Responsibilities, congressional hearings and critical studies have confirmed the serious nature of discrimination on account of sex. 1 25 In recent years, Congress and the Executive have acted to eliminate discrimination based on  'stereotyped characterizations of the sexes', Phillips v. Marietta Corp., 400 U.S. 542, 91 S.Ct. 496, 27 L.Ed.2d 613 (1971) (Marshall, J., concurring). See, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 2 the Equal Pay Act, 3 and Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972. 4 The jurisdiction of the Civil Rights Commission has been extended to include discrimination on the basis of sex. 5 Finally, Congress has passed the Equal Rights Amendment and transmitted it to the states. 26 In recent years, courts, too, have become sensitive to the problems of sex-based discrimination. In 1963, the Presidential Commission on the Status of Women recommended that: 27 Early and definitive court pronouncement, particularly by the United States Supreme Court, is urgently needed with regard to the validity under the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments of laws and official practices discriminating against women, to the end that the principle of equality becomes firmly established in constitutional doctrine. 28 There is no longer any doubt that sex-based classifications are subject to scrutiny by the courts under the Equal Protection Clause and will be struck down when they provide dissimilar treatment for men and women who are similarly situated with respect to the object of the classification. Reed v. Reed, 404 U.S. 71, 77, 92 S.Ct. 251, 30 L.Ed.2d 225 (1971). See, Moritz v. C.I.R., 469 F.2d 466 (10th Cir. 1972). Compare, Green v. Waterford Board of Education, 473 F.2d 629 (2nd Cir. 1973), and LaFleur v. Cleveland Board of Education, 465 F.2d 1184 (6th Cir. 1972), with Mrs. Susan Cohen v. Chesterfield County School Board et al., etc., 474 F.2d 395 (4th Cir. 1973) (en banc). Furthermore, discrimination on the basis of sex can no longer be justified by reliance on outdated images    of women as peculiarly delicate and impressionable creatures in need of protection from the rough and tumble of unvarnished humanity. Seidenberg v. McSorleys' Old Ale House, Inc., 317 F.Supp. 593, 606 (S.D.N.Y. 1970). 29 In Sail'er Inn v. Kirby, 5 Cal.3d 1, 95 Cal.Rptr. 329, 340, 485 P.2d 529, 540541 (Cal.1971) (en banc), the unanimous California Supreme Court succinctly summarized the nature of sexbased discrimination: 30 Sex, like race and lineage, is an immutable trait, a status into which the class members are locked by the accident of birth. What differentiates sex from nonsuspect statuses, such as intelligence or physical disability, and aligns it with the recognized suspect classifications is that the characteristic frequently bears no relation to ability to perform or contribute to society.    The result is that the whole class is relegated to an inferior legal status without regard to the capabilities or characteristics of its individual members.    Where the relation between characteristic and evil to be prevented is so tenuous, courts must look closely at classifications based on that characteristic lest outdated social stereotypes result in invidious laws or practices. 31 Another characteristic which underlies all suspect classifications is the stigma of inferiority and second class citizenship associated with them.    Women, like Negroes, aliens, and the poor have historically labored under severe legal and social disabilities. Like black citizens, they were, for many years, denied the right to vote and, until recently, the right to serve on juries in many states. They are excluded from or discriminated against in employment and educational opportunities. Married women in particular have been treated as inferior persons in numerous laws relating to property and independent business ownership and the right to make contracts. 32 Laws which disable women from full participation in the political, business and economic arenas are often characterized as 'protective' and beneficial. Those same laws applied to racial or ethnic minorities would readily be recognized as invidious and impermissible. The pedestal upon which women have been placed has all too often, upon closer inspection, been revealed as a cage. (Citations and footnotes omitted.) 33 In this case, it is unnecessary for this Court to determine whether classifications based on sex are suspect and, thus, can be justified only by a compelling state interest because the High School League's rule cannot be justified even under the standard applied to test nonsuspect classifications. See, Eisenstadt v. Baird, 405 U.S. 438, 92 S.Ct. 1029, 31 L.Ed.2d 349, 359 n. 8 (1972). 34