Roberts v. U.S. Jaycees 1984
| Author | Daniel Brannen, Richard Hanes, Elizabeth Shaw |
| Pages | 23-28 |
Page 23
Petitioner: Kathryn R. Roberts, Acting Commissioner, Minnesota Department of Human Rights, et al.
Respondent: U.S. Jaycees
Petitioner's Claim: That Minnesota's Human Rights Act was constitutional and required the Jaycees to admit women as regular members.
Chief Lawyer for Petitioner: Richard L. Varco Jr.
Chief Lawyer for Respondent: Carl D. Hall Jr.
Justices for the Court: William J. Brennan, Jr. (writing for the Court), Thurgood Marshall, Sandra Day O'Connor, Lewis F. Powell, Jr., William H. Rehnquist, John Paul Stevens, Byron R. White
Justices Dissenting: None (Harry A. Blackmun and Warren E. Burger did not participate)
Date of Decision: July 3, 1984
Decision: Minnesota's Human Rights Act was constitutional. Requiring the Jaycees to admit women as regular members did not violate the organization's freedom of association.
Significance: This was the first in a series of Supreme Court decisions that opened many all-male organizations to women.
Page 24
The Supreme Court often decides cases involving conflicting constitutional rights. In Roberts v. U.S. Jaycees, the U.S. Jaycees argued that the First Amendment freedom of association allowed the organization to refuse to admit women as regular members. (The freedom of association is the right to form organizations for political or social causes and to control who can be a member.) The state of Minnesota argued that it could force the Jaycees to admit women in order to stop sex discrimination. (Sex discrimination is unequal treatment of people based on their gender.) The Supreme Court had to choose between the freedom of association and the goal of ending sex discrimination.
The U.S. Jaycees is a nonprofit organization with national offices in Tulsa, Oklahoma. State offices are also located throughout the country. Many cities and other communities also have local Jaycees organizations called chapters. As of 1999, the Jaycees' goal is to promote leadership
Page 25
training and community involvement for young adults between twenty-one and thirty-nine years old.
Prior to 1984, however, the Jaycees' main goal was to promote community service and leadership by young men. Regular membership was only open to men between the ages of eighteen and thirty-five. The Jaycees developed training programs to teach young men how to be leaders in business and society. Men...
To continue reading
Request your trial