Legal Discrimination?

 Mr. Satow's presentation on Monday brought up the interesting debate pertaining to intent vs. impact while looking at different laws and political policies. The fourteenth amendment was implemented in order to protect the rights of enslaved persons. It outlined the ideas that citizenship could not be taken away, and that every individual has the right to both due process, and equal protection. Although every citizen is entitled to “equal protection” of the laws, Mr. Satow highlighted the subtle yet important differences between equity and equality. Although the amendment was written in regards to slavery, everybody should be entitled to these rights along with exemption of discrimination.

By nature, laws classify and group people. When laws become unjust is when these classifications are considered “arbitrary and capricious.” People are protected by any laws that may discriminate against their race, national origin, religion, or status as legal aliens, however gender and sex are excluded from this list… but why?

Governments may create laws which discriminate against a group of people, as long as they demonstrate a “compelling governmental interest.” One example in which states claimed that their case had a compelling interest was during the case of The United States vs. Virginia. The Virginia Military Institute (VMI) is a historically all male school, where they claim to build leaders in both a military and day-to-day environment. The school came into some scrutiny after a woman wanted to attend, and was denied any chance of attending the institution. VMI argued that there was a compelling interest for single sex education in order for young men to be properly disciplined. The supreme court led by Ruth Bader Ginsburg deemed VMI’s pledge to single sex education unconstitutional, because women were not provided an female-only alternative; requiring VMI to convert to a co-ed institution. Obviously single-sex education is still prevalent and available in our country, so making the distinction of women not having the same particular option is important. 

As governors celebrate “50 years of women at Govs,” I wondered about the larger history revolving around women at our academy. While reading an article I found online, I learned more about the earliest women to attend Govs. Govs first introduced co-education in the late 1800’s, however it was not long before they decided to dismiss all female students and revert back to an all male school in 1904. It is questioned whether any of these pioneering women received diplomas from Governors, and their contributions to the academy are seldom recognized.