Court Opinion

ID: 9426628
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:18:29.688973+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:23:01.982840
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Stevens,
concurring.
There is only one Equal Protection Clause. It requires every State to govern impartially. It does not direct the *212courts to apply one standard of review in some cases and a different standard in other cases. Whatever criticism may be leveled at a judicial opinion implying that there are at least three such standards applies with the same force to a double standard.
1 am inclined to believe that what has become known as the two-tiered analysis of equal protection claims does not describe a completely logical method of deciding cases, but rather is a method the Court has employed to explain decisions that actually apply a single standard in a reasonably consistent fashion. I also suspect that a careful explanation of the reasons motivating particular decisions may contribute more to an identification of that standard than an attempt to articulate it in all-encompassing terms. It may therefore be appropriate for me to state the principal reasons which persuaded me to join the Court’s opinion.
In this case, the classification is not as obnoxious as some the Court has condemned,1 nor as inoffensive as some the Court has accepted. It is objectionable because it is based on an accident of birth,2 because it is a mere remnant of the now almost universally rejected tradition of discriminating against males in this age bracket,3 and because, to the extent it reflects any physical difference between males and *213females, it is actually perverse.4 The question then is whether the traffic safety justification put forward by the State is sufficient to make an otherwise offensive classification acceptable.
The classification is not totally irrational. For the evidence does indicate that there are more males than females in this age bracket who drive and also more who drink. Nevertheless, there are several reasons why I regard the justification as unacceptable. It is difficult to believe that the statute was actually intended to cope with the problem of traffic safety,5 since it has only a minimal effect on access to a not very intoxicating beverage and does not prohibit its consumption.6 Moreover, the empirical data submitted by *214the State accentuate the unfairness of treating all 18-20-year-old males as inferior to their female counterparts. The legislation imposes a restraint on 100% of the males in the class allegedly because about 2% of them have probably violated one or more laws relating to the consumption of alcholic beverages.7 It is unlikely that this law will have a significant deterrent effect either on that 2% or on the law-abiding 98%. But even assuming some such slight benefit, it does not seem to me that an insult to all of the young men of the State can be justified by visiting the sins of the 2% on the 98%.

 Men as a general class have not been the victims of the kind of historic, pervasive discrimination that has disadvantaged other groups.

 “[S]ince sex, like race and national origin, is an immutable characteristic determined solely by the accident of birth, the imposition of special disabilities upon the members of a particular sex because of their sex would seem to violate ‘the basic concept of our system that legal burdens should bear some relationship to individual responsibility . . . ,’ Weber v. Aetna Casualty & Surety Co., 406 U. S. 164, 175.” Frontiero v. Richardson, 411 U. S. 677, 686.

 Apparently Oklahoma is the only State to permit this narrow discrimination to survive the elimination of the disparity between the age of majority for males and females.

 Because males are generally heavier than females, they have a greater capacity to consume alcohol without impairing their driving ability than do females.

 There is no legislative history to indicate that this was the purpose, and several features of the statutory scheme indicate the contrary. The statute exempts license holders who dispense 3.2% beer to their own children, and a related statute makes it unlawful for 18-year-old men (but not women) to work in establishments in which 3.2% beer accounts for over 25% of gross sales. Okla. Stat., Tit. 37, §§241, 243, 245 (1953 and Supp. 1976).
There is, of course, no way of knowing what actually motivated this discrimination, but I would not be surprised if it represented nothing more than the perpetuation of a stereotyped attitude about the relative maturity of the members of the two sexes in this age bracket. If so, the following comment is relevant:
“[A] traditional classification is more likely to be used without pausing to consider its justification than is a newly created classification. Habit, rather than analysis, makes it seem acceptable and natural to distinguish between male and female, alien and citizen, legitimate and illegitimate; for too much of our history there was the same inertia in distinguishing between black and white. But that sort of stereotyped reaction may have no rational relationship — other than pure prejudicial discrimination— to the stated purpose for which the classification is being made.” Mathews v. Lucas, 427 U. S. 495, 520-521 (Stevens, J., dissenting).

 It forbids the sale of 3.2% beer to 18-20-year-old men without forbidding possession, or preventing them from obtaining it from other sources, *214such as friends who are either older or female. Thus, the statute only slightly impedes access to 3.2% beer.

 The only direct evidence submitted by the State concerning use of beer by young drivers indicates that there is no substantial difference between the sexes. In a random roadside survey of drivers, 16.5% of the male drivers under 20 had consumed alcohol within two hours of the interview as opposed to 11.4% of the women. Over three-fourths of the nonabstainers in both groups expressed a preference for beer. And 14.6% of the men, as opposed to 11.5% of the women, had blood alcohol concentrations over .01%. See ante, at 203 n. 16.