Mississippi University for Women v. Hogan 1982
| Author | Daniel Brannen, Richard Hanes, Elizabeth Shaw |
| Pages | 633-639 |
Page 633
Petitioner: Mississippi University for Women
Respondent: Joe Hogan
Petitioner's Claim: That the state supported school's nursing program did not violate gender discrimination laws because its single-sex admission policy was a form of affirmative action.
Chief Lawyer for Petitioner: Hunter M. Gholson
Chief Lawyer for Respondent: Wilbur O. Colom
Justices for the Court: William J. Brennan, Jr., Thurgood Marshall, Sandra Day O'Connor, John Paul Stevens, Byron R. White
Justices Dissenting: Harry A. Blackmun, Chief Justice Warren E. Burger, Lewis F. Powell, Jr., William H. Rehnquist
Date of Decision: July 1, 1982
Decision: That the Mississippi University for Women had violated Hogan's constitutional right to equal protection of the law guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment by barring his admission to its nursing school.
Significance: The Court found that men as well as women are constitutionally protected against gender discrimination. A new level of scrutiny, intermediate scrutiny, is applied in gender discrimination cases. The case lead to the end of publicly funded single-sex schools.
Page 634
The Mississippi University for Women had a long history of quality, single-sex education.
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In 1979 Joe Hogan was a surgical nurse and nursing supervisor in a medical center in Columbia, Mississippi. Through various two- and three-year programs, it was possible to have a nursing career without obtaining a four-year university degree. However, as in the case of many careers, a four-year degree meant a higher skill level which also meant a higher salary. Desiring to complete his four-year degree, Hogan applied to a university in his hometown of Columbus. The problem he ran into was reflected in the name of the school, Mississippi University for Women.
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The Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, approved in 1868, guaranteed "equal protection of the laws" to "any person" within a state. However, it would take the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act almost a century later to begin correcting gender (sex) discrimination. Gender discrimination is the unfair treatment of a person or group because of their sex. Traditionally, in the thoughts of most Americans and in reality, gender discrimination meant discrimination against women. However, "any person" in the Fourteenth Amendment certainly referred to both women and men. Increasingly in the 1970s cases involving discrimination against men began to reach the U.S. Supreme Court.
Although men were allowed to audit (to attend without receiving formal credit) courses, the Mississippi University for Women was a single-sex school and its nursing program was only open to women. Founded in 1884 as the Mississippi Industrial Institute and College for the Education of White Girls of the State of Mississippi, it was one of the country's first public...
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