exceedingly persuasive justifications

Helen B. Feeney, a Massachusetts resident, entered the workforce in 1948 and held a variety of jobs in the private sector for the next fourteen years. She first entered the state civil service system in 1963 after competing successfully for a Senior Clerk Stenographer position in the Massachusetts Civil Defense Agency. She worked there for four years and was promoted in 1967 to Federal Funds and Personnel Coordinator in the same agency. The agency and her job were eliminated in 1975. During her twelve years of public employment, Feeney took and passed multiple open competitive civil service examinations. She received the second-highest score on a 1971 examination for a position with the Board of Dental Examiners and the third-highest score on a 1973 test for an Administrative Assistant position with a mental health center. Despite these strong performances, the veterans' preference placed her behind multiple male veterans on the eligible lists, some with lower scores, and she was never certified for appointment. The Massachusetts veterans' preference statute, Mass. Gen. Laws Ann., ch. 31, § 23, applies to all positions in the state's classified civil service, which constitute approximately 60 percent of the public jobs in the state. It requires that disabled veterans, veterans, and surviving spouses and surviving parents of veterans who achieve passing scores be ranked above all other candidates on eligible lists. The preference originated in 1884 as a tie-breaking measure for Civil War veterans and blossomed into an absolute preference in 1895 when the state exempted veterans from all merit selection requirements. In 1919 the formula was modified to provide a priority in eligibility rather than an absolute preference in hiring, and it has since been extended to cover veterans of later wars. At the time this litigation began, over 98 percent of the veterans in Massachusetts were male. During the decade between 1963 and 1973, 47,005 new permanent appointments were made in the classified official service. Of the women appointed, 1.8 percent were veterans, while 54 percent of the men had veteran status. Feeney sued the Personnel Administrator of Massachusetts and other state officials under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, alleging that the absolute preference unconstitutionally denied women equal protection of the laws. A three-judge District Court ruled in her favor in 1976. After this Court vacated the judgment and remanded for reconsideration in light of Washington v. Davis, the District Court reaffirmed its conclusion in 1978, and the Attorney General appealed directly to this Court.

Tuan Anh Nguyen was born on September 11, 1969, in Saigon, Vietnam, to a Vietnamese mother and Joseph Boulais, a United States citizen employed by a corporation in Vietnam. Boulais and Nguyen's mother were not married. After their relationship ended, Nguyen lived for a time with the family of Boulais's new Vietnamese girlfriend. In June 1975, when Nguyen was almost six years old, he came to the United States with his father. He became a lawful permanent resident and was raised in Texas by Boulais. In 1992, at age 22, Nguyen pleaded guilty in a Texas state court to two counts of sexual assault on a child and was sentenced to eight years in prison on each count. Three years later, the Immigration and Naturalization Service initiated deportation proceedings against him as an alien convicted of two crimes involving moral turpitude and an aggravated felony. At his deportation hearing Nguyen testified that he was a citizen of Vietnam. The Immigration Judge found him deportable. Nguyen appealed to the Board of Immigration Appeals. In 1998, while the appeal was pending, Boulais obtained an order of parentage from a Texas court based on DNA testing that showed a 99.98 percent probability of paternity; Nguyen was then 28 years old. The Board dismissed the appeal because Nguyen had failed to establish compliance with 8 U.S.C. §1409(a). Nguyen and Boulais appealed to the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, which rejected their constitutional challenge to §1409(a). The Supreme Court granted certiorari.

Jose Morales was born in Puerto Rico in 1900 and acquired U.S. citizenship at birth. After living in Puerto Rico for nearly two decades, he left his childhood home on February 27, 1919, twenty days short of his nineteenth birthday, to take up employment in the Dominican Republic. He never returned to the United States. In 1959, at age nineteen, Jose fathered respondent Luis Ramon Morales-Santana with a Dominican woman to whom he was not married. Jose acknowledged paternity several years after the birth. He married the mother in 1970, after which his name was added to the child's birth certificate. Luis moved to the United States at age thirteen and has resided in this country most of his life. In 2000, following convictions for felonies including attempted murder, he was placed in removal proceedings. He claimed derivative U.S. citizenship through his father, but an immigration judge and the Board of Immigration Appeals rejected the claim because Jose had not satisfied the ten-year physical-presence requirement applicable to unwed citizen fathers. The Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit reversed the Board of Immigration Appeals, holding that the gender-based distinction violated equal protection and that Morales-Santana was entitled to citizenship. The Supreme Court granted certiorari.

Mario Liberta and Denise Liberta married in 1978. Shortly after the birth of their son in October 1978, Mario began beating Denise. In early 1980, Denise brought a proceeding in the Family Court in Erie County seeking protection from the defendant. On April 30, 1980, the Family Court issued a temporary order of protection requiring the defendant to move out and remain away from the family home and to stay away from Denise, while permitting weekend visits with their son. On the weekend of March 21, 1981, Mario did not visit his son. On Tuesday, March 24, 1981, he called Denise to request a visit that day. Denise agreed to allow him to pick up her and their son and take them to his motel after he assured her that a friend would be present at all times. The defendant and his friend picked up Denise and their son and drove to the motel. Upon arrival at the motel the friend left. Mario then attacked Denise, threatened to kill her, and forced her to perform fellatio and engage in sexual intercourse while their son was in the room. The defendant forced Denise to tell their son to watch what he was doing to her. After the incident, Denise went to her parents’ home, then to a hospital for treatment of scratches on her neck and bruises on her head and back. She also went to the police station and swore out a felony complaint the next day. On July 15, 1981, the defendant was indicted for rape in the first degree and sodomy in the first degree. The defendant moved to dismiss the indictment. The trial court granted the motion and dismissed the indictment. On appeal by the People, the Appellate Division reversed, reinstated the indictment, and remanded for trial. The defendant was convicted of both charges, and the Appellate Division affirmed the conviction. The defendant appealed to the Court of Appeals.

In 1884, the Mississippi Legislature created the Mississippi Industrial Institute and College for the Education of White Girls of the State of Mississippi, now the oldest state-supported all-female college in the United States and known today as Mississippi University for Women (MUW). The school has limited its enrollment to women since its founding. In 1971, MUW established a School of Nursing initially offering a 2-year associate degree. Three years later the school added a 4-year baccalaureate program in nursing and today also offers a graduate program. Joe Hogan is a registered nurse who does not hold a baccalaureate degree in nursing. Since 1974 he has worked as a nursing supervisor in a medical center in Columbus, the city where MUW is located. In 1979 Hogan applied for admission to the MUW School of Nursing's baccalaureate program. Although otherwise qualified, he was denied admission solely because of his sex. School officials informed him that he could audit courses but could not enroll for credit. Hogan filed an action in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Mississippi claiming that the single-sex admissions policy violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. He sought injunctive and declaratory relief as well as compensatory damages. Following a hearing, the District Court denied preliminary injunctive relief. When Hogan offered no further evidence, the District Court entered summary judgment in favor of the State. The Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit reversed, holding that the admissions policy discriminates on the basis of gender. On rehearing the State contended that Congress in enacting section 901(a)(5) of Title IX expressly authorized MUW to continue its single-sex admissions policy. The Court of Appeals rejected that argument. The Supreme Court granted certiorari.