About | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline

60 UCLA L. Rev. Discourse 2 (2012)

handle is hein.journals/ucladis60 and id is 1 raw text is: 







Marriage This Term: On Liberty                                      i        o,
and the New         Equal Protection
Katie R. Eyer


ABSTRACT

The story of equal protection's demise is a familiar one. It has been decades since any
new group has been afforded heightened scrutiny. Even for established protected groups,
retrenchment in applicable standards has devitalized meaningful equal protection coverage.
As a result, scholars such as Kenji Yoshino have contended that we are at the end of
equality doctrine as we have known it-that we are, in effect, in a post-equal protection
era. In this new era, there are minimal opportunities for securing protections under the
Equal Protection Clause, and the liberty protections of the Due Process Clause have
superseded equality as the primary engine of constitutional change. Yoshino names this
new era the new equal protection and suggests that subordinated groups focus their
efforts on liberty-rather than equality-in seeking civil rights protections.

this Essay suggests that reports of equal protection's demise and of liberty's ascendancy-
may be premature. Using the LGB marriage rights movement as a focal point-and in
particular the six cases pending certiorari review at the Supreme Court this term-this
Essay explores the possibility that full equal protection inclusion for new groups remains
plausible, and that, indeed, the LGB rights movement may be on the cusp of securing
such inclusion. the Essay discusses the implications of this possibility for Yoshino's
framework and, in particular, the strategic risks that may attach to relying on liberty-
based arguments for a group that is on the cusp of achieving formal equality.


AUTHOR

Katie R. Eyer is an Assistant Professor at Rutgers School of Law-Camden.

Many thanks to Serena Mayeri for helpful conversations about this topic, and to Hunter
Hayes, Kristen johnson, Deanna Maxfield, Stan Molever, and the rest of the UCLA Law
Review staff for their editorial suggestions.


60 UCLA L. REV. Disc. 2 (2012)

What Is HeinOnline?

HeinOnline is a subscription-based resource containing thousands of academic and legal journals from inception; complete coverage of government documents such as U.S. Statutes at Large, U.S. Code, Federal Register, Code of Federal Regulations, U.S. Reports, and much more. Documents are image-based, fully searchable PDFs with the authority of print combined with the accessibility of a user-friendly and powerful database. For more information, request a quote or trial for your organization below.



Short-term subscription options include 24 hours, 48 hours, or 1 week to HeinOnline.

Contact us for annual subscription options:

Already a HeinOnline Subscriber?

profiles profiles most