Also known as: rational levels of judicial review · rational basis review
Written by attorneys — see sources below.
A deferential standard of judicial review under which a law or classification is upheld if rationally related to a legitimate government interest.
The state enacts a rule requiring all police officers to retire at age fifty. Robert Rivera, a fit fifty-one-year-old officer, sues claiming the rule violates equal protection. The court applies rational basis review and upholds the rule because the age limit bears a rational connection to maintaining a physically capable force.
The President issues an order barring entry of pilots from several majority-Muslim countries after intelligence reports flag security risks. Angelica, a foreign national denied training, sues under the Establishment Clause. The court defers to the executive and upholds the order because it states a national security purpose rationally connected to the restrictions.
Congress bans possession of firearms in school zones without requiring proof of interstate commerce effects. A student charged under the statute moves to dismiss. The court strikes the law because the prohibition exceeds Congress's commerce power even under deferential review of legislative judgments.
In March 1992, Alfonso Lopez, Jr., a twelfth-grade student at Edison High School in San Antonio, Texas, arrived at school carrying a concealed .38-caliber handgun and five bullets. Acting on an anonymous tip, school authorities confronted Lopez, who admitted possessing the weapon. Local police arrested him and charged him under Texas law with firearm possession on school premises. The following day, state charges were dismissed after federal agents charged Lopez with violating the Gun-Free School Zones Act of 1990. A federal grand jury indicted him on one count of knowing possession of a firearm at a school zone. Lopez moved to dismiss the indictment, arguing that the statute exceeded Congress's power to legislate control over public schools. The district court denied the motion, concluding that the statute was a constitutional exercise of Congress's power to regulate activities affecting commerce because the business of schools affects interstate commerce. After a bench trial, the court found Lopez guilty and sentenced him to six months' imprisonment and two years of supervised release. Lopez appealed to the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, which reversed the conviction, holding that the statute was beyond Congress's power under the Commerce Clause. The Supreme Court granted certiorari to review the case.
View caseA city adopts a rule limiting new firefighter hires to applicants under age thirty-five. A thirty-eight-year-old applicant sues claiming the age cutoff violates equal protection. The court applies rational basis review and upholds the rule because the cutoff is rationally related to ensuring physical fitness for the job.
In July 2013 the Texas Legislature enacted House Bill 2. The bill contained an admitting-privileges requirement for physicians performing abortions and a surgical-center requirement for abortion facilities. Before the law took effect a group of Texas abortion providers filed the Abbott case seeking facial invalidation of the admitting-privileges provision. The district court initially enjoined the provision but the Fifth Circuit vacated the injunction and later upheld the requirement on the basis of evidence presented before enforcement. On April 6 2014 petitioners a group of abortion providers that included some Abbott plaintiffs filed this suit in federal district court. They sought as-applied relief against the admitting-privileges requirement for facilities in McAllen and El Paso and a statewide injunction against the surgical-center requirement claiming violations of the Fourteenth Amendment. The district court held a four-day bench trial and received stipulations expert depositions and testimony. It found that the number of facilities providing abortions dropped in half from about 40 to about 20 after the admitting-privileges requirement began to be enforced. It found that the number of women of reproductive age living more than 50 miles from a clinic doubled. The number living more than 100 miles away increased by 150 percent. The number living more than 150 miles away increased by more than 350 percent. The number living more than 200 miles away increased by about 2,800 percent. It found that the number of facilities would drop to seven or eight if the surgical-center provision took effect. It found that before H. B. 2's passage abortion was an extremely safe procedure with very low rates of complications and virtually no deaths. It found that abortion was safer than many more common procedures not subject to the same level of regulation. It found that the cost of compliance with the surgical-center requirement would most likely exceed 1.5 million dollars to 3 million dollars per clinic. On the basis of these findings the district court enjoined enforcement of both provisions. The Fifth Circuit reversed in significant part holding that res judicata barred the challenges and that both requirements were constitutional. The case reached the Supreme Court.
View caseA school district assigns students to schools based on race to achieve racial balance. Parents of affected children sue claiming equal protection violations. The court applies strict scrutiny and invalidates the plan because the racial classifications fail narrow tailoring even though rational basis would not suffice.
In the late 1990s the Seattle School District No. 1 adopted a student assignment plan for its ten regular public high schools. Incoming ninth graders ranked preferences among schools. The district applied a series of tiebreakers when schools were oversubscribed. The second tiebreaker classified students as white or nonwhite. It selected students whose race would bring an integration-positive school within ten percentage points of the district-wide balance of 41 percent white and 59 percent nonwhite. The plan affected assignments at five oversubscribed schools in the 2000-2001 school year. Petitioner Parents Involved in Community Schools filed suit in the Western District of Washington in July 2000 alleging violations of the Equal Protection Clause. Jefferson County Public Schools had been under a 1975 federal desegregation decree. The decree was dissolved in 2000 after a finding of unitary status. The district adopted a voluntary assignment plan in 2001. The plan required all nonmagnet schools to maintain black enrollment between 15 and 50 percent. The plan grouped elementary schools into clusters. It assigned kindergartners and new students within clusters according to space and racial guidelines. It denied transfer requests that would push a school outside the guidelines. Approximately 34 percent of the district's 97,000 students were black. When Crystal Meredith moved into the district in August 2002 she sought to enroll her son Joshua in kindergarten at Bloom Elementary one mile from their home. The district denied the intercluster transfer from Young Elementary because it would adversely affect desegregation compliance at Young which was then 46.8 percent black. Meredith filed suit in the Western District of Kentucky alleging an Equal Protection violation. The Seattle District Court granted summary judgment to the district in 2001. The Ninth Circuit en banc affirmed the federal constitutional ruling in 2005. The District Court found that Jefferson County had asserted a compelling interest in maintaining racially diverse schools, and that the assignment plan was in all relevant respects narrowly tailored to serve that compelling interest. The Sixth Circuit affirmed in a per curiam opinion relying upon the reasoning of the District Court. The Supreme Court granted certiorari in both cases in 2006.
View caseCongress amends the Age Discrimination in Employment Act to allow private damages suits against states. State employees sue for age-based demotions. The court holds that Congress lacked power under Section Five because age classifications receive only rational basis review and the remedy is not congruent and proportional.
In 1967 Congress enacted the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, which initially applied only to private employers. In 1974 Congress amended the Act through the Fair Labor Standards Amendments to extend its substantive requirements to the States. Congress redefined the term employer to include a State or political subdivision of a State and any agency or instrumentality of a State or a political subdivision of a State. The same legislation also amended the incorporated Fair Labor Standards Act enforcement provision to authorize suits against any employer including a public agency in federal or state court. In December 1994 Roderick MacPherson and Marvin Narz, associate professors ages 57 and 58 at the University of Montevallo in Alabama, filed suit alleging age discrimination, retaliation for filing charges with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and disparate impact from an evaluation system. In April 1995 J. Daniel Kimel, Jr., and other current and former faculty and librarians over age 40 at Florida State University and Florida International University filed suit against the Florida Board of Regents alleging that the failure to allocate previously agreed market-adjustment salary funds had a disparate impact on employees with longer service records. In May 1996 Wellington Dickson filed suit against the Florida Department of Corrections alleging failure to promote him because of his age and in retaliation for grievances concerning age discrimination. The District Court in the MacPherson case granted the university's motion to dismiss on Eleventh Amendment grounds. The District Courts in the Kimel and Dickson cases denied the state defendants' motions to dismiss. The United States intervened in all three cases. The Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit consolidated the appeals and held that the ADEA does not abrogate the States' Eleventh Amendment immunity. The Supreme Court granted certiorari to resolve a conflict among the Courts of Appeals.
View caseRational basis review applies to classifications that do not involve suspect classes or fundamental rights. Courts uphold the law if any rational relationship exists to a legitimate government purpose. Federal alienage distinctions and age classifications receive this deferential standard.
No. The inquiry focuses on whether the stated purpose is legitimate and the classification is rationally related to it. Extrinsic statements suggesting bias do not invalidate the measure when the text supplies an independent rational basis.
Congress may enforce the Fourteenth Amendment only through congruent and proportional remedies. When a classification receives rational basis review, Congress must identify a pattern of unconstitutional state conduct before imposing damages liability on states.
…(1996); Nordlinger v. Hahn , 505 U. S. 1, 11-12 (1992). Laws such as economic or tax legislation that are scrutinized under rational basis review normally pass constitutional muster, since "the Constitution presumes that even improvident decisions will eventually be rectified by the democratic processes." Cleburne v. Cleburne Living…