Craig v. Boren
Craig v. Boren is a landmark Supreme Court case that addressed the constitutionality of an Oklahoma law discriminating based on sex in the sale of beer. Under the law, women aged eighteen could purchase beer with 3.2% alcohol, while men had to be twenty-one. This case was brought forth by Curtis Craig and a licensed vendor, challenging the discriminatory age requirement. The legal debate centered around whether the law should be assessed using a rational basis test or the stricter scrutiny typically applied to racial classifications. Ultimately, the Supreme Court ruled in a 7-2 decision that the law was unconstitutional, establishing a precedent for an intermediate level of scrutiny for gender-based classifications. Justice William J. Brennan, Jr., writing for the majority, emphasized that laws distinguishing by gender must serve significant governmental objectives and be closely related to those objectives. This case has had a lasting impact on how gender discrimination is evaluated in the United States legal system.
Craig v. Boren
Date: December 20, 1976
Citation: 429 U.S. 190
Issue: Sex discrimination
Significance: The Supreme Court adopted a heightened level of judicial scrutiny when dealing with gender-based classifications alleged to be discriminatory.
Oklahoma law permitted eighteen-year-old women to purchase beer with 3.2 percent alcohol but required men to be twenty-one years old for the same privilege. Curtis Craig and a licensed vendor challenged the law. The state had statistical evidence demonstrating a reasonable basis for the law. The Supreme Court had recognized since 1971 that the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment applied to classifications based on sex. The issue in the Craig case was whether the law should be evaluated according to the rational basis test or the very demanding standard of strict scrutiny, as used in classifications based on race.
By a vote of seven to two, the Court found that the Oklahoma law was unconstitutional. Writing for the majority, Justice William J. Brennan, Jr., demanded that any statute classifying by gender “must serve important governmental objectives and must be substantially related to these objectives.” Although the justices were badly divided, Craig established the intermediate level of scrutiny for determining whether particular gender distinctions are constitutional, and the compromise has continued ever since. Apparently, the decision did not apply to cases involving affirmative action programs.