Reed v. Reed, 404 U.S. 71 (1971)

"To give a mandatory preference to members of either sex
is to make the very kind of arbitrary legislative choice
forbidden by the Equal Protection Clause."

Ada County, Idaho, 1967. Richard Reed dies with no will. His parents, now separated, both ask to be administrators of the estate. The judge finds them equally qualified, so he chooses Mr. Reed. He had to. If all factors all equal, Idaho Law says: "males must be preferred to females."

Mrs. Reed says that's discrimination. And in 1971, so does the U.S. Supreme Court. "We have concluded," writes Chief Justice Warren Burger, "the arbitrary preference established in favor of males cannot stand in the face of the Fourteenth Amendment's command that no State deny the equal protection of the laws to any person. To give a mandatory preference to members of either sex is to make the very kind of arbitrary legislative choice forbidden by the Equal Protection Clause."

For more...

AMENDMENT 14 Due Process and Equal Protection of the Law

Passed by Congress June 13, 1866. Ratified July 9, 1868.

Section 1. All 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. 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. [^].

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