Gender Discrimination in the Court

    Before class on Wednesday, we read a Supreme Court petition for a writ of certiorari, the National Coalition for Men v. Selective Service System. Despite my worries that it would be too dense and complicated to understand, I actually found it quite interesting. The basis of this petition is that the selective service system violates the due process clause for liberty as well as the equal protection clause in the 14th amendment. The selective service system was implemented a very long time ago, and as time has progressed, so have the traditional American gender roles it was built on. In class, Mr. Satow referred to this effect as a "stool". The base of the stool is the male only selective service system, and the legs that hold it up are the reasons that it was implemented as men only. These reasons consist of women not being allowed combat roles, the idea of traditional American family, among other factors, caused by restrictive gender roles at the time. The National Coalition for Men's argument is that these legs holding up the Selective Service System are now gone. Recently, the change has been made where women are now allowed to serve in combat roles within the military. The idea that women shouldn't be drafted becuase they need to take care of the family is a discriminatory and archaic stereotype and "the court ultimately justified one sex-based discrimination by reference to another"(5). They claim that the change to an all gender draft would promote equality and fairness.

    However, in Mr. Satow's presentation, we learned that the government is allowed to discriminate if certain conditions are met. These conditions are known as intermediate and strict scrutiny. Strict scrutiny applies to demographics such as age, sex, etc. An example of a federal law that adheres to these conditions is no purchasing alcohol under the age of 21. Under intermediate scrutiny, the government must be able to prove that the law in question directly relates to an important governmental interest. An important concept we discussed was how in order to promote equality, there must be some discrimination. At first glance, this concept makes no sense, however, the example of abolishing slavery provides understandable context. Through this criteria used by the court to promote equality and fairness, gender discrimination is minimized. However, that is not to say that it is not still an important issue in our society.