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Sex & Gender Equality
Frontiero v. Richardson
Decided: 1973
In brief
Struck down unequal military benefits rules based on sex, pushing toward heightened scrutiny of sex classifications.
The Court's ruling in depth
Female service members had to prove their husbands' dependency to obtain the housing and medical benefits granted automatically to servicemen with wives. The Court struck the scheme down; a four-Justice plurality would have declared sex a 'suspect classification' warranting strict scrutiny. That fell one vote short, but the trajectory was clear.