The Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution was adopted on July 9, 1868, as one of the Reconstruction Amendments. Usually considered one of the most consequential amendments, it addresses citizenship rights and equal protection under the law and was proposed in response to issues related to former slaves following the American Civil War. The amendment was bitterly contested, particularly by the states of the defeated Confederacy, which were forced to ratify it in order to regain representation in Congress. The amendment, particularly its first section, is one of the most litigated parts of the Constitution, forming the basis for landmark Supreme Court decisions such as Brown v. Board of Education (1954) regarding racial segregation, Roe v. Wade (1973) regarding abortion, Bush v. Gore (2000) regarding the 2000 presidential election, and Obergefell v. Hodges (2015) regarding same-sex marriage. The amendment limits the actions of all state and local officials, and also those acting on behalf of such officials.
Abington School District v. Schempp, 374 U.S. 203 (1963), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court decided 8–1 in favor of the respondent, Edward Schempp, on behalf of his son Ellery Schempp, and declared that school-sponsored Bible reading and the recitation of the Lord's Prayer in public schools in the United States was unconstitutional.
Loving v. Virginia, 388 U.S. 1 (1967), was a landmark civil rights decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in which the Court ruled that laws banning interracial marriage violate the Equal Protection and Due Process Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The case involved Mildred Loving, a woman of color, and her white husband Richard Loving, who in 1958 were sentenced to a year in prison for marrying each other. Their marriage violated Virginia's Racial Integrity Act of 1924, which criminalized marriage between people classified as "white" and people classified as "colored". The Lovings appealed their conviction to the Supreme Court of Virginia, which upheld it. They then appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which agreed to hear their case.
Everson v. Board of Education, 330 U.S. 1 (1947), was a landmark decision of the United States Supreme Court that applied the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to state law. Prior to this decision, the clause, which states, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion", imposed limits only on the federal government, while many states continued to grant certain religious denominations legislative or effective privileges.
Kramer v. Union Free School District No. 15, 395 U.S. 621 (1969), was a United States Supreme Court decision in which the Court struck down a longstanding New York State statute requiring that to be eligible to vote in certain school district elections, an individual must either own or rent taxable real property within the school district, be the spouse of a property owner or lessor, or be the parent or guardian of a child attending a public school in the district. By a 5-to-3 vote, the court held that these voting requirements violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.
The Equal Protection Clause is part of the first section of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. The clause, which took effect in 1868, provides "nor shall any State ... deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." It mandates that individuals in similar situations be treated equally by the law.
Browder v. Gayle, 142 F. Supp. 707 (1956), was a case heard before a three-judge panel of the United States District Court for the Middle District of Alabama on Montgomery and Alabama state bus segregation laws. The panel consisted of Middle District of Alabama Judge Frank Minis Johnson, Northern District of Alabama Judge Seybourn Harris Lynne, and Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Richard Rives. The main plaintiffs in the case were Aurelia Browder, Claudette Colvin, Susie McDonald, and Mary Louise Smith. Jeanetta Reese had originally been a plaintiff in the case, but intimidation by segregationists caused her to withdraw in February. She falsely claimed she had not agreed to the lawsuit, which led to an unsuccessful attempt to disbar Fred Gray for supposedly improperly representing her.
Sherbert v. Verner, 374 U.S. 398 (1963), was a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States held that the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment required the government to demonstrate both a compelling interest and that the law in question was narrowly tailored before it denied unemployment compensation to someone who was fired because her job requirements substantially conflicted with her religion.
Braunfeld v. Brown, 366 U.S. 599 (1961), was a landmark case on the issue of religious and economic liberty decided by the United States Supreme Court. In a 6–3 decision, the Court held that a Pennsylvania blue law forbidding the sale of various retail products on Sunday was not an unconstitutional interference with religion as described in the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.
Calder v. Bull, 3 U.S. 386 (1798), is a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court decided four important points of constitutional law.
Street v. New York, 394 U.S. 576 (1969), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held that a New York state law making it a crime "publicly [to] mutilate, deface, defile, or defy, trample upon, or cast contempt upon either by words or act [any flag of the United States]" was, in part, unconstitutional because it prohibited speech against the flag. The Court left for a later day the question of whether it is constitutional or unconstitutional to prohibit, without reference to the utterance of words, the burning of the flag.
Reno v. Condon, 528 U.S. 141 (2000), was a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States upheld the Driver's Privacy Protection Act of 1994 (DPPA) against a Tenth Amendment challenge.
Citizens for Equal Protection v. Bruning, 455 F.3d 859, was a federal lawsuit filed in the United States District Court for the District of Nebraska and decided on appeal by the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit. It challenged the federal constitutionality of Nebraska Initiative Measure 416, a 2000 ballot initiative that amended the Nebraska Constitution to prohibit the recognition of same-sex marriages, civil unions, and other same-sex relationships.
Washington v. Confederated Bands and Tribes of the Yakima Indian Nation, 439 U.S. 463 (1979), was a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States held that the State of Washington's imposition of partial jurisdiction over certain actions on an Indian reservation, when not requested by the tribe, was valid under Public Law 280.
Mueller v. Allen, 463 U.S. 388 (1983), was a United States Supreme Court case examining the constitutionality of a state tax deduction granted to taxpaying parents for school-related expenses, including expenses incurred from private secular and religious schools. The plaintiffs claimed that a Minnesota statute, allowing tax deductions for both public and private school expenses, had the effect of subsidizing religious instruction since parents who paid tuition to religious schools received a larger deduction than parents of public school students, who incurred no tuition expenses.
Elgin v. Department of the Treasury, 567 U.S. 1 (2012), was a United States Supreme Court case where the Court ruled that the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978 (CSRA) gives exclusive jurisdiction for claims under the Act to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. Additionally, the Court held that the Act bars federal district courts from ruling on matters related to the act including adverse employment actions of the federal departments, and allows the Merit Systems Protection Board to hear constitutional arguments for wrongful employee severance and adverse employment actions. It was a 6–3 decision, with the majority opinion delivered by Justice Clarence Thomas. The case greatly limited the recourse of federal employees to the courts for adverse employment practices, allowing such recourse only to a few, specific courts as aforementioned.
Metropolitan Life Insurance Co. v. Ward, 470 U.S. 869 (1985), was a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States held that a state cannot tax out-of-state insurance companies at a greater rate than domestic insurance companies under the Privileges and Immunities Clause of Article Four of the United States Constitution.
Barr v. American Assn. of Political Consultants, Inc., 591 U.S. ___ (2020), was a United States Supreme Court case involving the use of robocalls made to cell phones, a practice that had been banned by the Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1991 (TCPA), but which exemptions had been made by a 2015 amendment for government debt collection. The case was brought by the American Association of Political Consultants, an industry trade group, and others that desired to use robocalls to make political ads, challenging the exemption unconstitutionally favored debt collection speech over political speech. The Supreme Court, in a complex plurality decision, ruled on July 6, 2020, that the 2015 amendment to the TCPA did unconstitutionally favor debt collection speech over political speech and violated the First Amendment.
Logan v. Zimmerman Brush Co., 455 U.S. 422, is a unanimous 1982 decision of the U.S. Supreme Court concerning the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The Court held that the petitioner was entitled to have his discrimination complaint adjudged by Illinois's Fair Employment Practices Commission (FEPC), which had dismissed it for its own failure to meet a deadline. The decision reversed the Illinois Supreme Court's holding to the contrary two years prior.
