Also known as: animus
Written by attorneys — see sources below.
Evidence of bias or hostility toward a protected class that may reveal improper motivation behind a policy or decision. Such evidence is weighed against any facially legitimate justification offered for the challenged action.
The President issues an order barring entry of engineers from several Muslim-majority countries and cites cybersecurity risks. Domestic firms and affected applicants sue, pointing to earlier campaign statements questioning Muslim loyalty. The court applies rational basis review and upholds the order because the stated security purpose is legitimate and rationally related to the restrictions.
A city enacts ordinances that prohibit ritual animal sacrifice while permitting other forms of animal killing. A Santeria church challenges the measures as targeting its religious practices. The court finds that the ordinances were enacted with discriminatory animus toward the church and invalidates them under the Free Exercise Clause.
In April 1987 the Church of the Lukumi Babalu Aye, Inc., a not-for-profit corporation organized under Florida law in 1973 whose president is Ernesto Pichardo, leased land in Hialeah, Florida, and announced plans to build a house of worship, school, cultural center, and museum at which members would practice Santeria. Santeria originated in nineteenth-century Cuba as a fusion of Yoruba traditions and Roman Catholicism. It centers on animal sacrifice performed by cutting the carotid arteries, after which the animals are usually cooked and eaten except in healing and death rituals. The announcement prompted the Hialeah City Council to convene an emergency public session on June 9, 1987. At that session residents and council members voiced strong opposition to Santeria practices. The council then adopted Resolution 87-66 declaring opposition to religious acts inconsistent with public morals, peace, or safety and passed Ordinance 87-40 incorporating Florida's animal-cruelty statute that criminalizes unnecessary or cruel killing of animals. After the Florida attorney general issued an opinion that ritual animal sacrifice other than for food consumption violated state law, the council in August 1987 adopted Resolution 87-90 opposing ritual animal sacrifice. In September 1987 the council enacted three further ordinances. Ordinance 87-52 barred possession of animals with intent to use them for ritual sacrifice except by licensed food establishments. Ordinance 87-71 directly prohibited any person from sacrificing an animal within city limits. Ordinance 87-72 restricted slaughter of animals to properly zoned slaughterhouse premises while exempting small-scale commercial hog and cattle operations. The Church and Pichardo filed suit against the city and its officials in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. They alleged that the ordinances violated their rights under the Free Exercise Clause. After granting summary judgment to the individual defendants on immunity grounds, the district court conducted a nine-day bench trial on the remaining claims and entered judgment for the city. The Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit affirmed in a one-paragraph per curiam opinion. The Supreme Court granted certiorari.
View caseA town enforces a sign ordinance that treats directional signs for ideological messages more favorably than signs for political or religious events. A church challenges the distinctions. The court applies strict scrutiny to the content-based distinctions and strikes down the ordinance.
The Town of Gilbert, Arizona, maintains a comprehensive Sign Code that categorizes outdoor signs by the type of information they convey and imposes different restrictions on each category. Ideological signs communicating messages or ideas for noncommercial purposes may be up to 20 square feet and displayed without time limits. Political signs designed to influence elections may be up to 32 square feet and displayed up to 60 days before a primary and 15 days after a general election. Temporary directional signs relating to qualifying events, such as meetings of nonprofit groups, are limited to 6 square feet, may be displayed no more than 12 hours before and 1 hour after the event, and are restricted in placement. Petitioners Good News Community Church and its pastor Clyde Reed are small nondenominational churches that hold services at various temporary locations in the Town. To advertise their services, the Church posts 15 to 20 temporary signs around the Town early on Saturday mornings displaying the Church name and the time and location of the next service, removing them around midday on Sunday. The Town's Sign Code compliance manager cited the Church twice for violating the time limits on temporary directional signs and for failing to include an event date on the signs. Town officials confiscated one sign, which Reed retrieved from municipal offices. Reed contacted the compliance department to reach an accommodation, but the manager informed the Church there would be no leniency and promised to punish future violations. The Churches filed suit in the United States District Court for the District of Arizona, alleging the Sign Code violated the First Amendment, and sought a preliminary injunction. The District Court denied the motion. The Ninth Circuit affirmed, concluding the Sign Code was content neutral. The Supreme Court granted certiorari.
View caseA city terminates a trust that had required a park to be used only by white persons after the Supreme Court declares the racial restriction unenforceable. Black residents challenge the termination as reflecting discriminatory animus. The Court upholds the termination because the city acted to eliminate the unconstitutional restriction rather than to perpetuate racial exclusion.
In 1911, United States Senator Augustus O. Bacon executed a will that devised a tract of land to the Mayor and Council of the City of Macon for use as a park and pleasure ground exclusively for white people, with control vested in a Board of Managers composed entirely of white persons, and the will expressed the Senator's view that the two races should be forever separate while providing that the property under no circumstances was to be devoted to any other purpose. The city accepted the trust and initially operated the park on a segregated basis, but after it began allowing Negroes to use the park, members of the Board of Managers sued in state court to remove the city as trustee and appoint new trustees, prompting Negro citizens to intervene in the proceedings. Following the city's resignation as trustee, the Georgia courts appointed private trustees, but in Evans v. Newton the United States Supreme Court held that the park must be operated without racial discrimination, leading the Georgia Supreme Court to determine that the purpose of the trust had become impossible to fulfill and to remand the case for further proceedings. The trial court declined to apply the cy pres doctrine, ruled that the trust had failed, and determined that the property had reverted to Senator Bacon's heirs, a decision affirmed by the Supreme Court of Georgia; petitioners, the Negro citizens of Macon who had sought integration of the park, challenged the termination of the trust, and the United States Supreme Court granted certiorari to review the case.
View caseA village requires a property owner to connect to the municipal water system while allowing similarly situated neighbors to maintain private wells. The owner sues claiming discriminatory animus. The Court recognizes a class-of-one equal protection claim where the differential treatment lacks a rational basis.
Respondent Grace Olech and her late husband Thaddeus asked petitioner Village of Willowbrook (Village) to connect their property to the municipal water supply. The Village at first conditioned the connection on the Olechs granting the Village a 33-foot easement. The Olechs objected, claiming that the Village only required a 15-foot easement from other property owners seeking access to the water supply. After a 3-month delay, the Village relented and agreed to provide water service with only a 15-foot easement. Olech sued the Village, claiming that the Village's demand of an additional 18-foot easement violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. She asserted that the 33-foot easement demand was "irrational and wholly arbitrary." She further claimed that the Village's demand was actually motivated by ill will resulting from the Olechs' previous filing of an unrelated, successful lawsuit against the Village. She also alleged that the Village acted either with the intent to deprive Olech of her rights or in reckless disregard of her rights. The District Court dismissed the lawsuit pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6) for failure to state a cognizable claim under the Equal Protection Clause. Relying on Circuit precedent, the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit reversed. The Supreme Court granted certiorari.
View caseAn employee alleges that her supervisor's racial slurs and hostile treatment during contract formation constitute discriminatory animus. She sues under section 1981. The Court holds that section 1981 reaches only conduct impairing the right to make and enforce contracts and does not extend to post-formation harassment.
Brenda Patterson, a black woman, began her employment with McLean Credit Union in May 1972 as a teller and file coordinator in North Carolina. She remained in that position until July 1982, when the credit union laid her off. After her termination, Patterson commenced an action in the United States District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina, alleging that McLean Credit Union had harassed her, failed to promote her to an intermediate accounting clerk position, and discharged her, all because of her race, in violation of 42 U.S.C. § 1981. She also asserted a state-law claim for intentional infliction of emotional distress under North Carolina tort law. The District Court ruled that a claim for racial harassment is not actionable under § 1981 and declined to submit that portion of the case to the jury. The jury received and deliberated upon Patterson's § 1981 claims alleging discrimination in her discharge and the failure to promote her, returning verdicts for the employer on both claims. The District Court directed a verdict for the employer on the state tort claim, concluding that the employer's conduct did not rise to the level of outrageousness required under North Carolina law. In the Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, Patterson challenged the District Court's refusal to submit her § 1981 racial harassment claim to the jury. She also argued that the District Court had erred in instructing the jury that she must show she was better qualified than the white employee promoted in her place. The Court of Appeals affirmed the District Court's judgment in full, holding that racial harassment does not abridge the right to make and enforce contracts under § 1981, while upholding the jury instruction on the promotion claim. The Supreme Court granted certiorari to decide whether Patterson's racial harassment claim is actionable under § 1981 and whether the jury instruction on her promotion claim was erroneous. After oral argument on these issues, the Court requested the parties to brief and argue an additional question whether or not the interpretation of 42 U.S.C. § 1981 adopted by this Court in Runyon v. McCrary, 427 U.S. 160 (1976), should be reconsidered.
View caseNo. In immigration and foreign affairs, courts apply at most rational basis review. An order survives if it states a legitimate national security purpose that is rationally related to the restrictions, even when statements suggest animus.
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Evidence that a juror relied on racial stereotypes or animus during deliberations is admissible to determine whether a criminal defendant's right to an impartial jury was violated. The animus must have been a significant motivating factor in the vote to convict.
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No. A state may exclude devotional theology degrees from a generally available scholarship program without violating the Free Exercise Clause. The modest burden reflects a permissible decision not to fund clerical training and does not exhibit animus.
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…Clause protects intimate personal choices. Lawrence v. Texas , 539 U. S. 558. The Court has also invalidated laws based on the animus toward a class of people. See Romer v. Evans , 517 U. S. 620. Against this background, the legal question of same-sex marriage must be addressed. Pp. 10–15. (2) The nature of marriage is…