suspect categories

In the summer of 1968 Mexican-American parents whose children attended elementary and secondary schools in the Edgewood Independent School District in San Antonio Texas brought a class action. They sued on behalf of schoolchildren throughout the state who were members of minority groups or who were poor and resided in school districts having a low property tax base. Named as defendants were the State Board of Education the Commissioner of Education the State Attorney General and the Bexar County Board of Trustees. The complaint was filed in the United States District Court for the Western District of Texas. A three-judge court was impaneled in January 1969. The Texas system of financing public education originated with the state's first constitution in 1845. It evolved through constitutional amendments permitting local school districts to levy ad valorem taxes for school buildings and maintenance. These local revenues were supplemented by distributions from the state's Permanent School Fund established in 1854 and the Available School Fund. In the late 1940s the legislature enacted the Minimum Foundation School Program. Under the program the state supplies approximately 80 percent of the cost of teacher salaries operating expenses and transportation. Each district contributes the remaining 20 percent through a Local Fund Assignment. The assignment is calculated by an economic index reflecting relative taxpaying ability. Every district also levies additional local property taxes beyond the assignment to supplement its foundation grant. For the 1967-1968 school year the Edgewood Independent School District had an average assessed property value of $5960 per pupil and a median family income of $4686. It raised $26 per pupil through local taxation at a rate of $1.05 per $100 of assessed valuation. It received $222 per pupil from the Foundation Program and obtained $108 in federal funds for a total of $356 per pupil. By comparison the Alamo Heights Independent School District had an assessed property value exceeding $49000 per pupil and a median family income of $8001. It raised $333 per pupil locally at a rate of $0.85 per $100 received $225 from the Foundation Program and $36 in federal funds for a total of $594 per pupil. Similar disparities in per-pupil expenditures existed throughout the state. They were largely attributable to differences in the amount of taxable property within each district. In December 1971 the three-judge District Court rendered judgment holding the Texas school finance system unconstitutional under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The State appealed. The Supreme Court noted probable jurisdiction in 1972 to consider the constitutional questions presented.

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.

In July 1980, respondent Jan Hannah purchased a building at 201 Featherston Street in Cleburne, Texas. Hannah intended to lease the property to Cleburne Living Center, Inc. (CLC) for use as a group home. The home would house thirteen mentally retarded men and women under constant staff supervision. The building contained four bedrooms and two baths, and CLC planned to add a half bath while complying with all applicable state and federal regulations for an Intermediate Care Facility for the Mentally Retarded. The site lay in an R-3 Apartment House District. The city's zoning ordinance permitted apartment houses, boarding houses, hospitals, and nursing homes in that district without special permission. However, the ordinance required a special use permit, renewable annually after a public hearing, for hospitals for the insane or feeble-minded. The city classified the proposed group home as a hospital for the feeble-minded and informed CLC that a permit was required. After a public hearing, the City Council voted three to one to deny the application. CLC and its prospective residents filed suit in federal district court against the city and its officials. They alleged that the ordinance and its application discriminated against the mentally retarded in violation of the Equal Protection Clause. The district court upheld the ordinance and the denial. It found that the council's decision was motivated by the residents' mental retardation yet rationally related to legitimate interests such as neighborhood safety and property values. The Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit reversed, holding that mental retardation is a quasi-suspect class and that the ordinance was invalid both facially and as applied. The Supreme Court granted certiorari to review the equal protection issues raised by the zoning ordinance and its application to the proposed group home.

New York, like most states, criminalizes aiding another to commit or attempt suicide. Patients may nevertheless refuse even lifesaving medical treatment. Petitioners are New York public officials responsible for enforcing state law. Respondents Timothy E. Quill, Samuel C. Klagsbrun, and Howard A. Grossman are physicians practicing in New York. The physicians assert that prescribing lethal medication for mentally competent, terminally ill patients suffering great pain would be consistent with their medical standards. They are deterred by the state's ban. Along with three gravely ill patients who later died, the physicians sued the State's Attorney General in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. They argued that the ban violates equal protection because New York allows refusal of life-sustaining treatment, which they claim is essentially the same as physician-assisted suicide. The District Court disagreed with their position. The Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit reversed in 1996. It held that New York law unequally treats competent persons in the final stages of fatal illness who wish to hasten death. Those on life-support may direct removal, but others may not self-administer prescribed drugs. The Supreme Court granted certiorari in 1996. New York enacted its assisted-suicide statutes in 1965. It later protected the right to refuse treatment through 1987 do-not-resuscitate legislation and 1990 health care proxy laws, both in the Public Health Law. In 1994, a state task force unanimously recommended against legalizing assisted suicide.