Court Opinion

ID: 9414454
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 00:23:21.466188+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:16:43.080330
License: Public Domain

CARL E. STEWART, Circuit Judge,
with whom KING, HIGGINBOTHAM, WIENER, and DENNIS, Circuit Judges,
join dissenting from the denial of rehearing en banc:
I dissent from the court’s denial of rehearing en banc in this case involving the rights of alien law school graduates to be admitted to practice law in the State of Louisiana. For the reasons more fully detailed in my dissenting opinion from the panel majority’s holding,1 I reject the panel majority’s creation of a new classification of “nonimmigrant aliens,” a distinction the Supreme Court has never drawn when discussing the alien suspect class, and its application of rational basis review to laws targeting this class. The matter at issue is clearly enbancworthy because of the far reaching consequences of the panel’s holding. I continue to maintain that the plaintiffs in this case, who are lawfully admitted aliens residing in the United States, are part of the alien suspect class and that, therefore, laws that discriminate against them are inherently suspect and should be subjected to strict scrutiny. ' Accordingly, I dissent from the full court’s failure to vacate the panel opinion and hear the case anew. Moreover, I fully concur in the persuasive opinion dissenting from the denial of rehearing en bane penned by Judge Higginbotham.

. LeClerc v. Webb, 419 F.3d 405, 426-31 (Stewart, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part).