Part Two - Individual Rights · Module 10
Equal Protection: A Framework for Analysis; Rational Basis; Classifications Based on Race to Brown
The three-question EP framework, rational basis and its occasional bite, and the road from Dred Scott through Plessy to Brown.
Topics
The three-question framework for equal protection analysis. The rational basis test: legitimate purpose, reasonable relationship, tolerance for under- and over-inclusiveness. Race discrimination before the Civil War Amendments. Strict scrutiny for race and national origin. Facial racial classifications and separate-but-equal.
Reading list
0 of 12 readings published · the rest are in preparation and will appear here as they are edited
- Note Railway Express Agency, Inc. v. New York
- Note New York City Transit Authority v. Beazer
- Note U.S. Department of Agriculture v. Moreno
- Opinion City of Cleburne v. Cleburne Living Center, Inc.
- Opinion Romer v. Evans
- Opinion (edited) Dred Scott v. Sandford
- Note Strauder v. West Virginia
- Note Plessy v. Ferguson
- Note Korematsu v. United States
- Opinion Loving v. Virginia
- Opinion Brown v. Board of Education
- Note Bolling v. Sharpe
- Current case Talbott v. United States, No. 25-5087 (D.C. Cir. June 1, 2026) (the level of scrutiny owed a classification defended as a military judgment).
Also assigned
Canvas The Federalist No. 10 (Madison), "The Same Subject Continued: The Union as a Safeguard Against Domestic Faction and Insurrection." You read footnote four of Carolene Products in Module 2; this is the argument it answers. Madison's cure for faction is structural — an extended republic large enough that no single interest can command a majority — and it is a cure that works by making minorities safe without any court doing anything. Stone's cure is judicial. Decide whether Stone is completing Madison's argument or conceding that it failed, and notice which kinds of minority Madison's mechanism was never going to protect.
How to read this list
A case named without a marker is assigned as an opinion and is to be read in its entirety. Opinion (edited) means the Professor has cut it for length; the text on this site is the assigned text. Note means the case is not assigned as an opinion at all — its holding, its facts to the extent they matter, and its place in the doctrinal line are given in a note written for this course, and you are responsible for that note exactly as you are responsible for an assigned opinion. Most modules close with a Current case, a recent decision chosen because it shows the doctrine you have just read being applied at its live edge; current cases are assigned as opinions. You are responsible for all assigned required materials, including the notes, questions, problems and commentary that accompany the cases, whether or not we discuss them in class.