CONSTITUTIONAL LAW-EQUAL PROTECTION-DISPARITY OF PRIVILEGE AND DISCRIMINATION

Authors

Abstract

The equal protection clause of the fourteenth amendment provides that no person or class of persons shall be denied the same protection of the laws that others in the same place and under like circumstances enjoy. But it has been said that "equality and not identity of privileges and rights is what is guaranteed to the citizen" by the fourteenth amendment. People v. Gallagher, 93 N. Y. 438, 45 Am. Rep. 232. Any law which in terms provides for identity of privileges and rights, but which operates in such a manner as to produce political or economic inequality. because of the peculiar situation to which the law is applied, is unconstitutional. It has been held unconstitutional to require the peoples of the black and white races to support their own schools because in operation such a law discriminated against the black race. Claybrook v. City of Owensboro, 16 Fed. 297; Puitt v. Commissioners, 94 N. C. 709. And in Buchanan v. Warley, 245 U. S. 60, 38 Sup. Ct. 16, a city ordinance was declared unconstitutional which prohibited the members of either race from moving into and occupying as a residence any house upon any block upon which the greater number of houses were occupied by persons of the other race. The exact basis for the decision is uncertain, but the underlying thought of the court seems to be that, though in terms the statute treats both races alike, in fact and in reality the colored race is heavily discriminated against. See 31 Harv. L. Rev. 475.

Recommended Citation

CONSTITUTIONAL LAW-EQUAL PROTECTION-DISPARITY OF PRIVILEGE AND DISCRIMINATION, 27 Mich. L. Rev. 562 (1929).
Available at: https://repository.law.umich.edu/mlr/vol27/iss5/6