Background Congressman John Bingham of Ohio was the principal framer of the Equal Protection Clause. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. The Equal Protection Clause is located at the end of Section 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment:Īll persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. Sharpe (1954) that the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment nonetheless requires equal protection under the laws of the federal government via reverse incorporation. While the Equal Protection Clause itself applies only to state and local governments, the Supreme Court held in Bolling v. Hodges which legalized same-sex marriages, along with many other decisions rejecting discrimination against, and bigotry towards, people belonging to various groups. The clause has also been the basis for Obergefell v. Board of Education (1954), the Supreme Court decision that helped to dismantle racial segregation.
The meaning of the Equal Protection Clause has been the subject of much debate, and inspired the well-known phrase " Equal Justice Under Law". As a whole, the Fourteenth Amendment marked a large shift in American constitutionalism, by applying substantially more constitutional restrictions against the states than had applied before the Civil War. Ī primary motivation for this clause was to validate the equality provisions contained in the Civil Rights Act of 1866, which guaranteed that all citizens would have the guaranteed right to equal protection by law. 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. The clause, which took effect in 1868, provides "nor shall any State.
The Equal Protection Clause is part of the first section of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.
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