United States v. Virginia

SCOTUSCase
Litigants=United States v. Virginia
ArgueDate=January 17
ArgueYear=1996
DecideDate=June 26
DecideYear=1996
FullName=United States, Petitioner v. Virginia, et al.
USVol=518
USPage=515
Citation=116 S. Ct. 2264; 135 L. Ed. 2d 735; 1996 U.S. LEXIS 4259; 64 U.S.L.W. 4638; 96 Cal. Daily Op. Service 4694; 96 Daily Journal DAR 7573; 10 Fla. L. Weekly Fed. S 93
Prior=Judgment for defendants, 766 F. Supp. 1407 (W.D. Va. 1991) vacated, 976 F.2d 890 (4th Cir. 1992), certiorari denied, 508 U.S. 946 (1993, on remand, judgment for defendants, 852 F. Supp. 471 (W.D. Va. 1994), aff'd, 44 F.3d 1229 (4th Cir. 1995), motion for rehearing en banc denied, 52 F.3d 90 (4th Cir. 1995), certiorari granted ___ U.S. ____ (1995)
Subsequent=
Holding=State of Virginia's exclusion of women from the Virginia Military Institute violated Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
SCOTUS=1994-2005
Majority=Ginsburg
JoinMajority=Stevens, O'Connor, Kennedy, Souter, Breyer
Concurrence=Rehnquist
Dissent=Scalia
NotParticipating=Thomas
LawsApplied=U.S. Const. amend. XIV""'United States v. Virginia""', ussc|518|515|1996, is a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States struck down the Virginia Military Institute's long-standing male-only admission policy in a 7-1 decision. (Justice Clarence Thomas recused himself from the case, presumably because his son was enrolled at VMI at the time.)

Writing for the majority, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg stated that because VMI failed to show "exceedingly persuasive justification" for its sex-biased admissions policy, it violated the Fourteenth Amendment's equal protection clause. In an attempt to satisfy equal protection requirements, the state of Virginia had proposed a so-called "separate but equal" parallel program for women, called the Virginia Women's Institute for Leadership (VWIL), located at Mary Baldwin College, a private liberal arts women's college.

However, Justice Ginsburg held that the VWIL would not provide women with the same type of rigorous military training, facilities, courses, faculty, financial opportunities, and/or alumni reputation and connections that VMI affords male cadets, a decision evocative of "Sweatt v. Painter", when the Court ruled in 1946 that segregated law schools in Texas were unconstitutional, since a newly-formed black law school clearly did not provide the same benefits to its students as the state's prestigious and long-maintained white law school.

Justice Rehnquist wrote a concurrence agreeing to strike down the male-only admissions policy of the Virginia Military Institute, as violative of the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause. [ [http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=US&vol=000&invol=u20026 "United States v. Virginia"] , 518 U.S. 515 (1996)] [http://supreme.justia.com/us/518/515/case.html] However, he declined to join the majority opinion's bases for using the Fourteenth Amendment, writing: "Had Virginia made a genuine effort to devote comparable public resources to a facility for women, and followed through on such a plan, it might well have avoided an equal protection violation." [http://supreme.justia.com/us/518/515/case.html] This rationale supported separate but equal facilities separated on the basis of gender: "it is not the 'exclusion of women' that violates the Equal Protection Clause, but the maintenance of an all-men school without providing any -- much less a comparable -- institution for women... It would be a sufficient remedy, I think, if the two institutions offered the same quality of education and were of the same overall caliber." [http://supreme.justia.com/us/518/515/case.html]

Justice Scalia's lone dissent argued that the standard applied by the majority was closer to a strict scrutiny standard than the intermediate scrutiny standard applied to previous cases involving equal protection based on sex. Notably, however the opinion for the Court eschewed either standard; its language did not comport with the "important governmental interest" formula used in prior intermediate scrutiny cases. Scalia argued that "if the question of the applicable standard of review for sex-based classifications were to be regarded as an appropriate subject for reconsideration, the stronger argument would be not for elevating the standard to strict scrutiny, but for reducing it to rational-basis review."

With the VMI decision, the high court effectively struck down any law which, as Justice Ginsburg wrote, "denies to women, simply because they are women, full citizenship stature — equal opportunity to aspire, achieve, participate in and contribute to society."

Following the ruling, VMI contemplated going private to exempt itself from the 14th Amendment, and thus this ruling. The Department of Defense warned the school that it would withdraw all ROTC programs from the school if this privatization took place. As a result of the DOD action, Congress amended 10 USC 2111a, to prohibit the military from withdrawing or diminishing any ROTC program at one of the six senior military colleges, including VMI. However, VMI's Board of Visitors had already voted 8-7 to admit women and did not revisit the issue after the law was amended.

VMI was the last all-male public school in the United States.

ee also

* "Mississippi University for Women v. Hogan"

Further reading

*cite journal |last=Bowsher |first=David K. |authorlink= |coauthors= |year=1998 |month= |title=Cracking the Code of "United States v. Virginia" |journal=Duke Law Journal |volume=48 |issue=2 |pages=305–339 |doi=10.2307/1373108 |url= |accessdate= |quote=
*cite journal |last=Stobaugh |first=Heather L. |authorlink= |coauthors= |year=2002 |month= |title=The Aftermath of "United States v. Virginia": Why Five Justices are Pulling in the Reins on the ‘Exceedingly Persuasive Justification’ |journal=SMU Law Review |volume=55 |issue= |pages=1755–1779 |issn=10661271 |url= |accessdate= |quote=

External links

*caselaw source
case="United States v. Virginia", 518 U.S. 515 (1996)
enfacto=http://www.enfacto.com/case/U.S./518/515/
findlaw=http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?navby=CASE&court=US&vol=518&page=515
other_source1=LII
other_url1=http://supct.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/94-1941.ZS.html