''Reed v. Reed'', 404 U.S. 71 (1971), was a
landmark decision
Landmark court decisions, in present-day common law legal systems, establish precedents that determine a significant new legal principle or concept, or otherwise substantially affect the interpretation of existing law. "Leading case" is commonly u ...
of the
Supreme Court of the United States
The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point o ...
holding that the administrators of
estates cannot be named in a way that discriminates between sexes. In ''Reed v. Reed'' the Supreme Court ruled for the first time that the
Equal Protection Clause
The Equal Protection Clause is part of the first section of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. The clause, which took effect in 1868, provides "''nor shall any State ... deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal ...
of the
Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution
The Fourteenth Amendment (Amendment XIV) to the United States Constitution was adopted on July 9, 1868, as one of the Reconstruction Amendments. Often considered as one of the most consequential amendments, it addresses citizenship rights and ...
prohibited differential treatment based on sex.
The case
Sally and Cecil Reed were a separated married couple who were in conflict over which of them would be designated as administrator of the estate of their deceased son. Each filed a petition with the
Probate Court
A probate court (sometimes called a surrogate court) is a court that has competence in a jurisdiction to deal with matters of probate and the Administration of an estate on death, administration of estates. In some jurisdictions, such courts ma ...
of
Ada County, Idaho
Ada County is located in the southwestern part of Idaho, United States. As of the 2021 United States census estimate, the county had a population of 511,931, making it by far the state's most populous county; it is home to 26.8% of the state's ...
, asking to be named.
[.] Idaho Code specified that "males must be preferred to females" in appointing administrators of estates and the court appointed Cecil as administrator of the estate, valued at less than $1,000. Sally Reed was represented at the Supreme Court by
Idaho
Idaho ( ) is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. To the north, it shares a small portion of the Canada–United States border with the province of British Columbia. It borders the states of Montana and Wyom ...
lawyer
Allen Derr
Allen Richard Derr (April 5, 1928 – June 10, 2013) was an American lawyer who successfully argued '' Reed v. Reed'', a landmark United States Supreme Court decision issued in 1971 that strengthened anti-discrimination protections for women.
...
, who argued that the
Fourteenth Amendment forbids discrimination based on sex.
After a series of appeals by both Sally and Cecil Reed, the Supreme Court considered the case and delivered a unanimous decision that held the Idaho Code's preference in favor of males was arbitrary and unconstitutional.
The Supreme Court ruled for the first time in ''Reed v. Reed'' that the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment prohibited differential treatment based on sex.
Because the Idaho Code made a distinction based on sex, the court reasoned that "it thus establishes a classification subject to scrutiny under the Equal Protection Clause" and using the generic standard of scrutiny—ordinary or
rational basis review
In U.S. constitutional law, rational basis review is the normal standard of review that courts apply when considering constitutional questions, including due process or equal protection questions under the Fifth Amendment or Fourteenth Amendment ...
—asked "whether a difference in the sex of competing applicants for letters of administration bears a rational relationship to a state objective."
Chief Justice
Burger's opinion said:
Before the Supreme Court decided the case, Idaho amended its statutes to eliminate the mandatory preference for males, effective July 1, 1972.
[
''Reed v. Reed'' was the first major Supreme Court case that addressed that discrimination based on gender was unconstitutional because it denies equal protection. The director for the ACLU, Mel Wulf, and ]Ruth Bader Ginsburg
Joan Ruth Bader Ginsburg ( ; ; March 15, 1933September 18, 2020) was an American lawyer and jurist who served as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1993 until her death in 2020. She was nominated by President ...
wrote Sally Reed's brief. They recognized Pauli Murray
Anna Pauline "Pauli" Murray (November 20, 1910 – July 1, 1985) was an American civil rights activist who became a lawyer, gender equality advocate, Episcopal priest, and author. Drawn to the ministry, in 1977 she became one of the first women ...
and Dorothy Kenyon
Dorothy Kenyon (February 17, 1888 – February 12, 1972) was a New York (state), New York attorney at law, attorney, judge, feminist and political activist in support of civil liberties. During the era of McCarthyism, McCarthyite persecution, she ...
as co-authors of the brief, giving them credit even though they did not help on it because Ginsburg wanted to acknowledge the debt she owed them for their feminist arguments that had created a basis for her arguments.
Those who brought the case had hoped for a broader decision that would have deemed all classifications based on sex "suspect", a category the Supreme Court reserved for race. A suspect classification would be held to a more exacting standard of scrutiny known as strict scrutiny
In U.S. constitutional law, when a law infringes upon a fundamental constitutional right, the court may apply the strict scrutiny standard. Strict scrutiny holds the challenged law as presumptively invalid unless the government can demonstrate th ...
. The ACLU
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is a nonprofit organization founded in 1920 "to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to every person in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States". T ...
established its Women's Rights Project under Ginsburg to develop cases to persuade the court to treat sex-based distinctions that way.
Hundreds of laws were changed after the ''Reed v. Reed'' ruling. "Congress went through all of the provisions of the U.S. Code and changed almost all that classified overtly on the basis of gender. So Congress and the Court were in sync." This court case created the opportunity to analyze laws that dealt with sex-based classifications.
''Phillips v. Martin Marietta'' reached the Supreme Court as the first case about Title VII gender discrimination in 1971, the same year ''Reed v. Reed'' was decided.
As noted by Nina Pillard
Cornelia Thayer Livingston Pillard (born March 4, 1961), known professionally as Nina Pillard, is a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Before becoming a judge, Pillard was a ten ...
, ''Reed'' created a basis to analyze sex-based discrimination, "so when we see people concluding in policy or in law that there needs to be a line between the treatment of men and the treatment of women because men are a certain way or women like certain things, or don't like certain things, that's the thing that raises the constitutional red flag under equal protection."
A plaque serves as a memorial to the case at the site of Sally Reed's former home (now the location of an Idaho Angler store) at the intersection of S. Vista Ave. and W. Dorian St. in Boise, Idaho.
See also
* ''Craig v. Boren
''Craig v. Boren'', 429 U.S. 190 (1976), was a List of landmark court decisions in the United States, landmark decision of the US Supreme Court ruling that statutory or administrative sex classifications were subject to intermediate scrutiny under ...
''
* ''Frontiero v. Richardson __NOTOC__
''Frontiero v. Richardson'', 411 U.S. 677 (1973), was a landmark United States Supreme Court case which decided that benefits given by the United States military to the family of service members cannot be given out differently because of ...
''
* ''Moritz v. Commissioner
''Charles E. Moritz v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue'', 469 F.2d 466 (1972), was a case before the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit in which the Court held that discrimination on the basis of sex constitutes a violation of ...
''
References
External links
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{{US14thAmendment
United States equal protection case law
History of women's rights in the United States
United States Supreme Court cases
Legal history of Idaho
1971 in United States case law
1971 in Idaho
American Civil Liberties Union litigation
United States gender discrimination case law
United States Supreme Court cases of the Burger Court