1. What does it mean to have equal protection under the law?
2. Under what circumstances, if any, is it necessary to allow the law to discriminate, violating equal protection?
3. Which judicialscrutiny is used when assessing laws that discriminate based on age, gender, or race?
4. How fair is it to have different judicial scrutiny's, allowing the possibility that government can discriminate against groups in the application of specific laws?

these questions needed to be answered from the below info:

Passed by the Senate on June 8, 1866, and ratified two years later, on July 9, 1868, theFourteenth Amendmentgranted citizenship to all persons "born or naturalized in the United States," including formerly enslaved people, and provided all citizens with "equal protection under the laws," extending the provisions of the Bill of Rights to the states. The amendment authorized the government to punish states that abridged citizens' right to vote by proportionally reducing their representation in Congress. It banned those who "engaged in insurrection" against the United States from holding any civil, military, or elected office without the approval of two-thirds of the House and Senate. The amendment prohibited former Confederate states from repaying war debts and compensating former slave owners for the emancipation of their enslaved people. Finally, it granted Congress the power to enforce this amendment, a provision that led to the passage of other landmark legislation in the 20th century, including theCivil Rights Act of 1964, and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Congress required former Confederate states to ratify the Fourteenth Amendment as a condition of regaining federal representation.

Sections of the 14^th Amendment:

Section 1

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

Section 2

Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice-President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the Executive and Judicial officers of a State, or the members of theLegislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State.

Section 3

United States be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.

Section 4

The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But neither the United States nor any State shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave; but all such debts, obligations and claims shall be held illegal and void.

Section 5

The Congress shall have the power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.

Impact of the 14th Amendment

In its early decisions involving the 14th Amendment, the Supreme Court often limited the application of its protections on a state and local level.

InPlessy v. Ferguson(1896), the Court ruled that racially segregated public facilities did not violate the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment, a decision that would help establish infamous Jim Crow laws throughout the South for decades to come.

But beginning in the 1920s, the Supreme Court increasingly applied the protections of the 14th Amendment on the state and local level. Ruling on appeal in the 1925 caseGitlow v. New York, the Court stated that the due process clause of the 14th Amendment protected theFirst Amendmentrights of freedom of speech from infringement by the state as well as the federal government.

And in its famous 1954 ruling inBrown v. Board of Education, the Supreme Court overturned the "separate but equal" doctrine established inPlessy v. Ferguson, ruling that segregated public schools did in fact violate the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment.

In other landmark rulings, the Supreme Court has cited the 14th Amendment in cases involving the use of contraception (1965'sGriswold v. Connecticut), interracial marriage (1967'sLoving v. Virginia), abortion (1973'sRoe v. Wade), a highly contested presidential election (2000'sBush v. Gore), gun rights (2010'sMcDonald v. Chicago) andsame-sex marriage(2015'sObergefell v. Hodges).

Judicial ScrutinyWhat is Strict Scrutiny?

What is strict scrutiny? The legal concept ofstrict scrutinyis a method courts use to review laws or policies in relation to the Constitution. The definition of strict scrutiny is "a form of judicial review that courts use to determine the constitutionality of certain laws." Under thestrict scrutiny test, the government must have a compelling interest for passing a law that limits a person's constitutional rights. The law must also be narrowly tailored to meet that interest. Strict scrutiny is used when there is a potential violation of laws involving suspect classifications, which are laws that impact a class of individuals based upon race, national origin, religion, poverty, or alienage. If the law passes this review, then it is said to have held up to thestrict scrutiny standard.

The Supreme Court has used a three-part test to determine whether a law meets the strict scrutiny standard. The test looks at:

• the purpose of the law
• how the law will be enforced
• whether there are any less restrictive alternatives to the law

Failure to fulfill any part of the strict scrutiny standard test will result in the law being declaredunconstitutional.

The first notable case of the U.S. Supreme Court applying strict scrutiny wasKorematsu v. United States. In this case, Fred Korematsu was arrested and sent to aJapanese internment campduring World War II because he was of Japanese descent. The Supreme Court ruled in favor of the U.S. government, saying that it was constitutional to detain American citizens of Japanese descent. Justice Hugo Black argued that while laws that target individual groups or races should be "immediately suspect," there are still times when public necessity justifies their existence if they pass "the most rigid scrutiny" from the courts.

Some examples of laws that meet the strict scrutiny standard are:

• laws that prohibit discrimination on the basis of race,sexual preference, religion, or national origin
• laws that protect free speech andfreedom of assembly
• laws that allow for search and seizure without a warrant

Some examples of laws that fail the strict scrutiny standard are:

• laws that require people to carry identification cards at all times
• laws that prohibit gay marriage
• laws that allow for indefinite detention without trial