Frontiero v. Richardson

Week 12 — Sex Discrimination

Facts

Under federal law, men in the U.S. Air Force automatically received increased benefits for their wives.
Women in the USAF, by contrast, had to apply and prove dependency to receive equivalent benefits for their husbands.
The government claimed this was a matter of administrative convenience, presuming that most women were dependent on their husbands.

Whether a federal sex-based classification justified solely by administrative convenience could withstand heightened constitutional scrutiny.

The classification was struck down. A plurality applied strict scrutiny.

Sex, much like race, is an immutable characteristic, and classifications based on sex are "inherently suspect."
Therefore, sex classifications should trigger strict scrutiny.
The government failed to prove its administrative-convenience rationale, and administrative convenience is not a valid justification for a sex classification.

Frontiero is the case where a plurality of the Court applied strict scrutiny to sex classifications. The Court did not have a majority for that level of scrutiny — that issue was finally resolved in Craig v. Boren with intermediate scrutiny.
Reminder: This case involves the EPC of the Fifth Amendment because the federal government is the state actor (the 14th Amendment only applies to States and state actors).
See also Reed v. Reed (1971) — the first case striking down gender discrimination, decided under rational basis.