The plaintiff, a gay man, participated in a gay recreational softball league. Subsequently, he received criticism at his job as a welfare services coordinator for Clayton Country, Georgia, for his sexual orientation and participating in the league. Previously he had received positive professional evaluations.
Myra Bradwell petitioned to be admitted to the bar and to be allowed to practice law, but was denied by the Supreme Court of Illinois. The United States Supreme Court upheld this decision, noting that a woman’s freedom to pursue the occupation of a lawyer was not a “privilege and immunity” of Untied States citizenship that was protected from state restriction by the 14th amendment to the United States Constitution. Thus the court found that excluding women from the bar did not violate the U.S. Constitution.
A Mississippi abortion clinic and one of its physicians challenged a Mississippi state law, called the Gestational Age Act (“GAA”), which made it illegal for women to obtain abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy. The plaintiffs sought a temporary restraining order to prevent the GAA’s enforcement during the trial, which was granted. The district court, and later the Fifth Circuit, found that the GAA was unconstitutional pursuant to Roe v.
The Supreme Court stated that a woman could not be admitted to the bar because she was under a common law disability: she did not have the right to enter into contracts with third persons without the permission of her husband.
Mr. Jackson, a teacher and basketball coach, brought suit against the Birmingham Board of Education (“Board”), alleging that the Board retaliated against him because he had complained about sex discrimination in the high school’s athletic program. Specifically, Mr. Jackson complained to his supervisors that the girls’ basketball team was not receiving equal funding and equal access to athletic equipment and facilities. After the Board terminated Mr. Jackson’s coaching duties, he filed suit in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Alabama.
In light of the ruling in Roe v. Wade, which established a woman’s right to an abortion prior to fetal viability the plaintiffs challenged various abortion-limiting restrictions in Pennsylvania’s Abortion Control Act. The act restricted public funding to abortion clinics. It also required women to obtain informed consent, notify their husbands if married, wait 24 hours before proceeding with the surgery, and obtain parental consent if underage.
The plaintiff discovered she was pregnant and sought an abortion. She was unable to obtain a legal abortion due to a Texas law that criminalized all abortions except those necessary to protect the life of the mother. The plaintiff alleged that the Texas law violated her constitutional right to privacy. The Court invalidated the law, finding that the U.S. Constitution’s 14th Amendment Due Process Clause protects women’s right to privacy and thus their right to choose to have an abortion before the end of the first trimester.
