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Constitutional Law Keyed to Chemerinsky

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United States v. Virginia

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Facts

VMI has a long tradition of providing a rigorous, military style college experience to its undergraduate students. Since its founding in 1839, VMI has been an exclusively male institution. After a negative ruling by the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, the Respondent attempted to create a separate women’s program at a coeducational institution. However, it was clear that the qualifications of the faculty and students at the parallel institution for women were inferior to VMI’s in several indicators.

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Topic:
Identifies the topic of law and where this case fits within your course outline.
Parties:
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Procedural Posture & History:
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Case Key Terms, Acts, Doctrines, etc.:
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Case Doctrines, Acts, Statutes, Amendments and Treatises:
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The Case Brief is the complete case summarized and authored in the traditional Law School I.R.A.C. format. The Pro case brief includes:
Brief Facts:
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Rule of Law:
Identifies the Legal Principle the Court used in deciding the case.
Facts:
What are the factual circumstances that gave rise to the civil or criminal case? What is the relationship of the Parties that are involved in the case.
Issue(s):
Lists the Questions of Law that are raised by the Facts of the case.
Holding:
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The Brief Prologue closes the case brief with important forward-looking discussion and includes:
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Case Quiz

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Question 1 of 3

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0 of 3 Questions answered correctly.

Results

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Q.1 - Which of the following most accurately reflects the jurisprudential shift introduced by the Court in United States v. Virginia regarding the evidentiary burden in Equal Protection challenges involving sex-based classifications?

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(A) The Court adopted a rebuttable presumption of unconstitutionality for all gender classifications, subject only to a minimal showing of governmental intent.

Incorrect. The Court did not adopt a presumption of unconstitutionality nor abandon the intermediate scrutiny framework.

(B) The decision modified intermediate scrutiny by requiring the government not only to assert but to prove that the justification for the classification is genuine and not hypothesized post hoc.

Correct! The Court emphasized that the justification for sex-based classifications must be “genuine, not hypothesized,” and must not rely on overbroad generalizations, thereby intensifying the evidentiary rigor of intermediate scrutiny.

(C) The ruling reaffirmed that gender classifications are presumptively valid provided they align with historical precedent or legitimate pedagogical concerns.

Incorrect. The Court explicitly rejected deference to historical precedent or generalized educational rationales.

(D) The Court replaced intermediate scrutiny with a sliding scale of scrutiny contingent on the level of educational prestige involved.

Incorrect. No sliding scale or variable scrutiny based on institutional prestige was introduced or implied.

Q.2 - In rejecting Virginia’s creation of the Virginia Women’s Institute for Leadership (VWIL) as an equal alternative to VMI, which constitutional principle did the majority most forcefully reassert?

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(A) That formal equality in educational access is sufficient to satisfy the Equal Protection Clause unless intent to discriminate can be shown.

Incorrect. The majority explicitly rejected formal equality as constitutionally sufficient.

(B) That educational institutions may implement single-sex policies when doing so promotes diversity under a rational basis framework.

Incorrect. Diversity was not at issue here, and rational basis was not the standard applied.

(C) That the Equal Protection Clause prohibits gender classifications based on overbroad generalizations, particularly when the alternatives offered are structurally unequal in substance and stature.

Correct! The Court found that VWIL failed to provide substantive parity and reiterated that equal protection demands more than symbolic access; it rejects classifications rooted in stereotypical assumptions.

(D) That private educational models, if voluntarily accepted, may supersede constitutional equal protection guarantees in public institutions.

Incorrect. Equal protection cannot be waived or displaced by private analogies in public education.

Q.3 - Justice Scalia’s dissent in United States v. Virginia critiques the majority for what he perceives as an unwarranted expansion of judicial power. From a separation of powers perspective, what is the core constitutional objection raised in his opinion?

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(A) That the judiciary improperly used Equal Protection analysis to override state curricular decisions, effectively engaging in policy-making beyond its constitutional competence.

Correct! Scalia warned that the majority's decision constituted judicial overreach, displacing the role of democratically accountable state institutions in setting educational policy.

(B) That the Court failed to apply any scrutiny and simply deferred to legislative intent without meaningful review.

Incorrect. Scalia’s objection was that the Court applied scrutiny too aggressively, not that it failed to apply scrutiny.

(C) That judicial enforcement of intermediate scrutiny inherently violates the political question doctrine.

Incorrect. The political question doctrine was not the basis of his dissent.

(D) That Congress, not the Court, is solely authorized to impose gender integration mandates on state-funded educational institutions.

Incorrect. Equal Protection doctrine applies regardless of congressional action; Scalia did not argue that Congress had exclusive authority in this domain.

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United States v. Virginia