Also known as: heightened solicitude · heightened scrutiny
Written by attorneys · grounded in primary & secondary sources — see below
An equal protection and substantive due process principle directing courts to subject state burdens on fundamental rights such as marital privacy to strict scrutiny. The principle requires narrow tailoring when core liberties are impaired.
Emma and Lucas, a married couple, face a state hospital program requiring procreation workshops before receiving contraceptives. The court applies heightened judicial solicitude to the privacy interest at stake and strikes down the program because it burdens the marital zone of privacy without narrow tailoring.
Hilda Hernandez, a lawful permanent resident, is denied state welfare benefits available to citizens under an Arizona statute. The court invokes heightened judicial solicitude for aliens as a discrete and insular minority and invalidates the classification under strict scrutiny.
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Hassan Hakim challenges a federal statute that treats unwed fathers differently from mothers in transmitting citizenship to foreign-born children. The court subjects the gender line to heightened judicial solicitude and finds it incompatible with equal protection requirements.
Harriet Hamilton, a lawful permanent resident, is barred from becoming a notary public by a state law limiting the role to citizens. The court applies heightened judicial solicitude to the alienage classification and holds that the restriction fails strict scrutiny.
Hyun Han, a resident alien, is excluded from state civil service positions under a statute reserving them for citizens. The court extends heightened judicial solicitude to the classification and concludes that the blanket exclusion violates equal protection.
Heidi Henderson and other plaintiffs contest an executive order restricting entry from certain countries. The court declines to apply heightened judicial solicitude to the nationality-based distinctions and upholds the order under deferential review of executive immigration authority.
Classifications based on alienage trigger heightened judicial solicitude because aliens constitute a discrete and insular minority that lacks political power. Courts therefore apply strict scrutiny to state laws that discriminate against aliens.
No. Heightened judicial solicitude applies primarily to state classifications. Federal alienage rules receive greater deference because immigration policy is a political function entrusted to the political branches.
Heightened judicial solicitude leads courts to apply strict scrutiny to suspect classifications such as alienage. The government must then demonstrate that the classification is narrowly tailored to serve a compelling interest.
…parents reside. Yet in San Antonio Independent School Dist. v. Rodriguez , 411 U. S. 1 (1973), we declined to review under "heightened scrutiny" a claim that a State discriminated against residents of less wealthy school districts in its provision of educational benefits. There was no suggestion in that case that a child's "lack of…