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Dred v Sanford
1857: In Dred Scott v. Sanford, Dred Scott, a slave in Missouri, sued for his freedom on the grounds that he had lived for a time in a “free” territory. The Court ruled against him, saying that under the Constitution, he was his master’s property. -
14th amendment case
1873: In the first case to interpret the Fourteenth Amendment, the Supreme Court narrowly interpreted the newly passed amendment and its privileges and immunities clause, as only applying to a very limited number of federal rights of citizenship, such as the right to travel between states or use navigable waterways. The Fourteenth Amendment, the Court held, did not protect the much broader range of rights granted by the individual states. -
Civil rights cases
1883: In a series of cases known as the Civil Rights Cases, the Supreme Court held that the Civil Rights Act of 1875 was not constitutional under the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments. The Court established the state-action doctrine, thereby allowing segregation and discrimination by private actors. -
Yick Wo v. Hopkins
1886: In Yick Wo v. Hopkins, the Court ruled for the first time that a facially neutral law applied in a racially discriminatory manner violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. -
Plessy case
1896: In Plessy v. Ferguson, the Court upheld a Louisiana law requiring restaurants, hotels, hospitals, and other public places to serve African Americans in separate, but ostensibly equal, accommodations. In establishing the separate but equal” doctrine, the Court said that segregation is “universally recognized as within the competency of states in the exercise of their police powers.” -
Meyer v Nebraska
1923: In an important precedent for what would become the Latino civil rights movement, the Court struck down a state ban on foreign language instruction in private schools in Meyer v. Nebraska. The law had prohibited all pre-eighth grade foreign language instruction, but the Court said such a ban violated the Fourteenth Amendment. -
Korematsu v U.S
1944: In Korematsu v. U.S., the Supreme Court held that the internment of Japanese Americans during WWII was Constitutional. While extremely controversial, this case is the first time the Court invoked the concept of strict scrutiny in regard to racial discrimination, requiring a showing that the racial classification is narrowly tailored, in the least restrictive means to further a “compelling government interest. -
Shelley v Kraemer
1948: In Shelley v. Kraemer, the Court ruled that judicial enforcement of a racially restrictive property covenant is a violation of the Equal Protection clause of the 14th Amendment. -
Brown v Board of Education
1954: In Brown v. Board of Education, Chief Justice Earl Warren, reading his first major opinion from the bench, said: “We conclude, unanimously, that in the field of public education the doctrine of ‘separate but equal’ has no place. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal.” -
Frontiero v. Richardson
1973: In an important case for women, the Supreme Court struck down in Frontiero v. Richardson a law that classified benefits on the basis of gender, though could not agree on whether a strict scrutiny standard or a rational basis standard should apply.