Justice Scalia said in 2010 that the equal protection provisions of the Constitution do not protect women. Until 1971, courts ruled that in fact the Fourteenth Amendment did not give women any protection. Reed v. Reed, the first successful case, started a change. By 1976, the Supreme Court ruled in Craig v. Boren that laws that were based on sex would have “intermediate scrutiny” when challenged. The analysis of sex discrimination cases was slowly inching toward “strict scrutiny,” like race and color discrimination, until 1996 when the U.S. v. Virginia decision made it clear that litigation and the Fourteenth Amendment will not bring equality to women under the Constitution. (Read the rest of the My Turn column in the Arizona Republic on Feb. 9, 2018 at link below.)
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