Also known as: strict scrutiny · strict scrutiny test · strict scrutiny standard
Written by attorneys — see sources below.
The most demanding standard of judicial review, requiring a law to be narrowly tailored to serve a compelling government interest. It applies when government action burdens a fundamental right or classifies persons on the basis of race or another suspect category. Failure to satisfy either prong renders the measure invalid.
Sylvia Santos, a Santeria practitioner, seeks to perform animal sacrifices central to her faith. A city ordinance bans the precise method she uses while permitting other forms of animal killing. The court subjects the ordinance to strict scrutiny because it targets religious conduct and invalidates it after finding no compelling interest narrowly served by the ban.
Sterling Dynamics, a minority-owned firm, challenges a municipal program reserving a percentage of public contracts for businesses owned by members of designated racial groups. The city offers only generalized evidence of past societal discrimination rather than specific findings tied to its own contracting history. The court applies strict scrutiny and strikes down the set-aside for lack of narrow tailoring to identified discrimination.
Sasha Stone operates a religiously affiliated foster agency that declines to certify same-sex couples on doctrinal grounds. A city rule bars agencies from rejecting applicants on that basis yet permits officials to grant individualized exemptions in other contexts. The court applies strict scrutiny because the policy is not generally applicable and invalidates enforcement against the agency.
Simon Stern seeks to register a trademark containing a term some find offensive. A federal statute prohibits registration of marks deemed disparaging. The court treats the bar as a viewpoint-based restriction on private speech and subjects it to strict scrutiny, holding the prohibition unconstitutional.
Stella Shapiro burns a cross on private property to express racial animus. A city ordinance criminalizes cross burning only when done to intimidate on the basis of race. The court subjects the content-based distinction within the category of fighting words to strict scrutiny and invalidates the ordinance.
In the predawn hours of June 21, 1990, petitioner R.A.V., then a juvenile, and several other teenagers assembled a crudely made cross by taping together broken chair legs and burned the cross inside the fenced yard of a black family that lived across the street from the house where R.A.V. was staying. Although this conduct could have been punished under several Minnesota statutes carrying significant penalties, the City of St. Paul chose to charge R.A.V. under the St. Paul Bias-Motivated Crime Ordinance. The ordinance provides that whoever places on public or private property a symbol, object, appellation, characterization or graffiti, including but not limited to a burning cross or Nazi swastika, which one knows or has reasonable grounds to know arouses anger, alarm or resentment in others on the basis of race, color, creed, religion or gender commits disorderly conduct and shall be guilty of a misdemeanor. R.A.V. moved to dismiss the charge on the ground that the ordinance was substantially overbroad and impermissibly content-based and therefore facially invalid under the First Amendment, and the trial court granted the motion. The Minnesota Supreme Court reversed, construing the ordinance to reach only fighting words and concluding that it was not impermissibly content-based. This Court granted certiorari.
Sarah Sullivan, a married woman, seeks contraceptive advice from her physician. A state statute criminalizes the use of contraceptives by married persons. The court applies strict scrutiny to the law because it burdens a fundamental liberty interest in marital privacy and invalidates the prohibition.
Estelle Griswold served as Executive Director of the Planned Parenthood League of Connecticut. Dr. C. Lee Buxton served as the League's Medical Director and was a professor at Yale Medical School. Together they opened and operated a center in New Haven that was open from November 1 to November 10, 1961. At the center they gave information, instruction, and medical advice to married persons as to the means of preventing conception. They examined the wife and prescribed the best contraceptive device or material for her use. Fees were usually charged, although some couples were serviced free. The statutes involved were sections 53-32 and 54-196 of the General Statutes of Connecticut (1958 rev.). Section 53-32 made it a crime to use any drug, medicinal article or instrument for the purpose of preventing conception. Section 54-196 punished accessories as principals. The appellants were found guilty as accessories and fined $100 each. The Appellate Division of the Circuit Court affirmed the convictions. The Supreme Court of Errors of Connecticut affirmed that judgment in State v. Griswold, 151 Conn. 544, 200 A. 2d 479. The United States Supreme Court noted probable jurisdiction. The appellants asserted standing to raise the constitutional rights of the married persons with whom they had a professional relationship. A criminal conviction for serving married couples removes doubts about case or controversy. The rights of husband and wife would be diluted unless considered in a suit involving those who have this kind of confidential relation to them.
A state policy that expressly excludes applicants whose founding teams are predominantly from a specified ethnic group is a facial ethnic classification. Such classifications are inherently suspect and subject to strict scrutiny. The state must demonstrate that the classification is narrowly tailored to achieve a compelling governmental interest.
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…law restricting marriage to opposite-sex couples constituted a classification on the basis of sex and was therefore subject to strict scrutiny under the Hawaii Constitution. Baehr v. Lewin , 74 Haw. 530, 852 P. 2d 44. Although this decision did not mandate that same-sex marriage be allowed, some States were concerned by its…
…agree with the result reached by the Court but would rest the decision on the ground that the statute fails to satisfy the strict scrutiny test applicable to infringements of fundamental rights. The statute as applied to married couples is an arbitrary and unreasonable interference with the right of marital privacy. Dissenting…
…Process Clause. IV For very similar reasons, the equal protection claim must fail, since it is not to be judged by the strict scrutiny standard employed when a fundamental interest or suspect classification is involved, see, e. g. , Dunn v. Blumstein , 405 U. S. 330 (1972), and Korematsu v. United States , 323 U. S. 214 (1944),…
…which was handed down just a month ago. In Burson , seven of the eight participating Members of the Court agreed that the strict scrutiny standard applied in a case involving a First Amendment challenge to a content-based statute. See id. , at 198 (plurality opinion); id. , at 217 (Stevens, J., dissenting). The statute at issue…
…urge us to hold that classifications based on illegitimacy are "suspect," so that any justifications must survive "strict scrutiny." We considered and rejected a similar argument last Term in Mathews v. Lucas , 427 U. S. 495 (1976). As we recognized in Lucas , illegitimacy is analogous in many respects to the…
A statute that restricts the sale of violent video games to minors is a content-based regulation of protected speech and is subject to strict scrutiny. The law is unconstitutional if it is underinclusive and overinclusive relative to the asserted interest and attempts to create a new category of unprotected speech.
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State durational residency requirements for welfare eligibility violate the constitutional right to travel and the Equal Protection Clause. States may not use residency requirements to deter the migration of indigent persons. A state purpose of protecting its treasury by discouraging entry of those who might need assistance is not a constitutionally permissible governmental objective.
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Content discrimination within a particular category of even otherwise unprotected expression merits First Amendment protection and is subject to strict scrutiny review. An ordinance that discriminates between classes of fighting words based on speech content fails strict scrutiny when content-neutral alternatives are available.
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