3 - Wyman v. James, 400 U.S. 309 (1971)

Summary

In Wyman v. James, the Supreme Court in 1971 upheld the constitutionality of home visits by social service caseworkers to verify the eligibility of welfare recipients. The case was a bitter blow to the welfare rights movement of the era and cemented a divide in privacy rights between the poor and the rich. The Supreme Court’s decision rested on distrust of the motives and morality of low-income mothers, particularly women of color, and it fueled the harmful “welfare queen” trope that continues to bedevil American social welfare policy. It also failed to restrain increasing forms of surveillance that impact not only poor people but all Americans. By contrast, Priscilla Ocen’s rewritten opinion contains a robust vision of privacy that does not discriminate based on race, gender, or income.