여성에게 유리한 성차별에 관한 미연방대법원 판례

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

The Supreme Court uses intermediate scrutiny standard when it reviews the laws that classify on the basis of gender. The majority of Supreme Court cases concerning gender discrimination have involved laws that benefit women and disadvantage men. Three principles emerge from these decisions.
First, gender classifications benefiting women based on role stereotypes generally will not be allowed. Second, gender classifications benefiting women designed to remedy past discrimination and differences in opportunity generally are permitted. Third, gender classifications benefiting women can be based on biological differences between men and women.
The Supreme Court frequently has invalidated laws that benefit women and disadvantage men when the Court perceives the law as being based on stereotypical assumptions about gender roles. Many of these laws were based on the stereotype of women being economically dependent on their husbands, but men being economically independent of their wives.
Similarly, the Supreme Court declared unconstitutional many laws that automatically allowed women economic benefits, such as when their husbands died, but permitted men the same benefits only if they proved dependence on their wives' income.
The Court has indicated that gender classifications benefiting women will be allowed when they are designed to remedy past discrimination or differences in opportunity. For example, in Califano v. Webster, the Supreme Court upheld a provision in the Social Security Act that calculated benefits for women in a more advantageous way than was used for men.
Thus far, the Court has not considered a constitutional challenge to an affirmative action program designed to benefit women. Although intermediate scrutiny is the test for all gender-based classifications, many of the same issues will arise as in the context of race-based affirmative action, including what interests justify affirmative action and what techniques are permissible.
In Nguyen v. Immigration and Naturalization Service, the Court allowed a third type of gender classification: gender classifications benefiting women because of biological differences between men and women. The Court allowed a difference in INS rules favoring mothers over fathers because of the greater certainty as to the identity of the mother as compared to the father and the greater opportunity that mothers have in establishing a relationship with their children.