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Women and the Constitution
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 May 2020
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Since the drafting of the federal Constitution in 1787, the legal status of women in the United States has passed through four distinct phases and is on the brink of entering a fifth one. In this two-hundred-year period, there has been more change in the last twenty years than in the previous onehundred- and-eighty. Yet, a decade and a half ago scholarly classes about women and the Constitution could not be taught because too little primary research had been conducted in either the new social history with its subfield of women or the latest version of the new legal history with its subfield of sex discrimination.
Both subfields reflect the increased interest of historians and lawyers in interdisciplinary research techniques developed in this country and abroad since the 1960s.
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- Copyright © American Political Science Association 1985
References
Notes
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31 For example, see: Frontiero v. Richardson, 411 U.S. 677 (1973); Califano v. Goldfarb, 430 U.S. 199 (1977); Califano v. Westcott, 433 U.S. 76 (1979); Wengler v. Druggists Mutual Insurance Co., 446 U.S. 142 (1980). 446 U.S. 142 (1980).
32 Michael M. v. Superior Court, 450 U.S. 464 (1981); Rostker v. Goldberg, 453 U.S. 57 (1981).
33 The most famous of the “reverse discrimination” cases remains. Regents of University of California v. Bakke, 438 U.S. 265 (1978), even though this decision did not decide the issue because the Justices chose to argue on narrow statutory grounds that UC Davis had to admit Bakke to medical school because it had violated Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Acts, while also maintaining that race “may” be a factor in affirmative action programs at educational institutions. Most “reverse discrimination” cases have involved union seniority questions or voluntary affirmative action programs undertaken by cities or industries.
34 For example, see: Kahn v. Shevin, 416 351 (1974); Schlesinger v. Ballard, 419 U.S. 498 (1975); and Califano v. Webster. 97 S. Ct. 1192.
35 Personnel Administration of Massachusetts v. Feeney, 442 U.S. 256 (1979).
36 See Scales, , “Feminist Jurisprudence,” pp. 375–444Google Scholar for a detailed discussion of Supreme Court cases on pregnancy; and Williams, “The Equality Crisis,” for ways in the Pregnancy Discrimination Act (PDA) has been used not to treat women equally, but to give them special treatment.
37 ln 1984, for example, the Supreme Court ordered the U.S. Jaycees to admit women and said that law firms may not discriminate on the basis of sex which lawyers to promote as partners. See: Roberts, et al. v. United States Jaycees, 82 L. Ed. 2nd 462 (1984), and Hishon v. King and Spaulding, 81 L. Ed. 2nd 59 (1984). At the same time in Grove City College v. Bell, 79 L, Ed. 2nd 516 (1984). It gutted Title IX by deciding that individual units of educational institutions could discriminate and not endanger the federal aid received by other units, saying receipt of Basic Educational Opportunity Grants by some students did not require institution wide coverage under Title IX. Attempts last year to override this decision with provisions in a Civil Rights Restoration Act failed in Congress.
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