Personnel Administrator of Massachusetts v. Feeney
E391917
Personnel Administrator of Massachusetts v. Feeney is a 1979 U.S. Supreme Court case that clarified the standard for proving unconstitutional sex discrimination by requiring a showing of discriminatory intent rather than merely discriminatory impact.
All labels observed (2)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| Personnel Administrator of Massachusetts v. Feeney canonical | 2 |
| Massachusetts veterans’ preference statute for civil service positions | 1 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T3821854 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
Target entity: Personnel Administrator of Massachusetts v. Feeney Context triple: [Village of Arlington Heights v. Metropolitan Housing Development Corp., relatedCase, Personnel Administrator of Massachusetts v. Feeney]
-
A.
Cooley v. Board of Wardens
Cooley v. Board of Wardens is an 1852 U.S. Supreme Court decision that helped define the scope of the Commerce Clause by allowing states to regulate certain local aspects of commerce, such as port pilotage, without violating federal authority.
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B.
Wards Cove Packing Co. v. Atonio
Wards Cove Packing Co. v. Atonio is a 1989 U.S. Supreme Court case that narrowed the standards for proving employment discrimination under Title VII, prompting Congress to later revise those standards in the Civil Rights Act of 1991.
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C.
Frontiero v. Richardson
Frontiero v. Richardson is a landmark 1973 U.S. Supreme Court case that advanced gender equality by striking down federal benefit rules that discriminated against female military service members.
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D.
Employment Division v. Smith
Employment Division v. Smith is a landmark 1990 U.S. Supreme Court decision that significantly narrowed protections for religious practices under the Free Exercise Clause by upholding the enforcement of neutral, generally applicable laws even when they incidentally burden religion.
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E.
Employment Division, Department of Human Resources of Oregon
Employment Division, Department of Human Resources of Oregon is a state agency responsible for administering employment-related services and regulations in Oregon, including unemployment insurance and workforce programs.
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
Target entity: Personnel Administrator of Massachusetts v. Feeney Target entity description: Personnel Administrator of Massachusetts v. Feeney is a 1979 U.S. Supreme Court case that clarified the standard for proving unconstitutional sex discrimination by requiring a showing of discriminatory intent rather than merely discriminatory impact.
-
A.
Cooley v. Board of Wardens
Cooley v. Board of Wardens is an 1852 U.S. Supreme Court decision that helped define the scope of the Commerce Clause by allowing states to regulate certain local aspects of commerce, such as port pilotage, without violating federal authority.
-
B.
Wards Cove Packing Co. v. Atonio
Wards Cove Packing Co. v. Atonio is a 1989 U.S. Supreme Court case that narrowed the standards for proving employment discrimination under Title VII, prompting Congress to later revise those standards in the Civil Rights Act of 1991.
-
C.
Frontiero v. Richardson
Frontiero v. Richardson is a landmark 1973 U.S. Supreme Court case that advanced gender equality by striking down federal benefit rules that discriminated against female military service members.
-
D.
Employment Division v. Smith
Employment Division v. Smith is a landmark 1990 U.S. Supreme Court decision that significantly narrowed protections for religious practices under the Free Exercise Clause by upholding the enforcement of neutral, generally applicable laws even when they incidentally burden religion.
-
E.
Employment Division, Department of Human Resources of Oregon
Employment Division, Department of Human Resources of Oregon is a state agency responsible for administering employment-related services and regulations in Oregon, including unemployment insurance and workforce programs.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (45)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
United States Supreme Court case
ⓘ
equal protection case ⓘ sex discrimination case ⓘ |
| areaOfLaw |
anti-discrimination law
ⓘ
constitutional law ⓘ employment and civil service law ⓘ |
| challengedLaw |
Personnel Administrator of Massachusetts v. Feeney
self-linksurface differs
ⓘ
surface form:
Massachusetts veterans’ preference statute for civil service positions
|
| citation |
442 U.S. 256
ⓘ
60 L. Ed. 2d 870 ⓘ 99 S. Ct. 2282 ⓘ |
| constitutionalProvisionInterpreted |
Equal Protection Clause
ⓘ
surface form:
Fourteenth Amendment Equal Protection Clause
|
| country |
United States of America
ⓘ
surface form:
United States
|
| court | Supreme Court of the United States ⓘ |
| decisionDate | 1979-06-05 ⓘ |
| decisionType | opinion of the Court ⓘ |
| dissentBy |
John Paul Stevens
ⓘ
surface form:
Justice John Paul Stevens
|
| docketNumber | 78-233 ⓘ |
| factualContext | Because the vast majority of veterans in Massachusetts were men, the veterans’ preference effectively disadvantaged women applicants for civil service jobs. ⓘ |
| holding |
A law that is facially neutral and administered in a neutral manner does not violate the Equal Protection Clause solely because it has a disproportionate impact on one sex.
ⓘ
To prove unconstitutional sex discrimination, a plaintiff must show that the law was enacted or maintained because of, not merely in spite of, its adverse effects on a protected group. ⓘ |
| impactOnJurisprudence | strengthened the requirement of proving discriminatory purpose in equal protection challenges to facially neutral laws ⓘ |
| joinedByInMajority |
Warren E. Burger
ⓘ
surface form:
Chief Justice Warren E. Burger
Byron R. White ⓘ
surface form:
Justice Byron R. White
Harry A. Blackmun ⓘ
surface form:
Justice Harry A. Blackmun
Lewis F. Powell Jr. ⓘ
surface form:
Justice Lewis F. Powell Jr.
Thurgood Marshall ⓘ
surface form:
Justice Thurgood Marshall
William H. Rehnquist ⓘ
surface form:
Justice William H. Rehnquist
William J. Brennan Jr. ⓘ
surface form:
Justice William J. Brennan Jr.
|
| jurisdiction | federal ⓘ |
| languageOfProceedings | English ⓘ |
| legalIssue |
Equal Protection Clause
ⓘ
surface form:
Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment
discriminatory intent versus discriminatory impact ⓘ sex discrimination ⓘ |
| majorityOpinionBy |
Potter Stewart
ⓘ
surface form:
Justice Potter Stewart
|
| originatingJurisdiction |
Massachusetts
ⓘ
surface form:
Commonwealth of Massachusetts
|
| petitioner | Personnel Administrator of Massachusetts ⓘ |
| policyDescription | The Massachusetts statute gave an absolute lifetime preference to veterans in civil service hiring and promotion. ⓘ |
| precedentialStatus | binding precedent on questions of equal protection and discriminatory intent in the United States federal courts ⓘ |
| relatedCase |
Village of Arlington Heights v. Metropolitan Housing Development Corp.
ⓘ
surface form:
Arlington Heights v. Metropolitan Housing Development Corp.
Washington v. Davis ⓘ |
| relatedDoctrine | disparate impact versus disparate treatment ⓘ |
| respondent | Helen Feeney NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| standardClarified |
discriminatory intent requirement under the Equal Protection Clause
ⓘ
mere discriminatory impact is insufficient to establish a constitutional violation ⓘ |
| testArticulated | A law violates equal protection only if the decisionmaker selected or reaffirmed a particular course of action at least in part because of, not merely in spite of, its adverse effects upon an identifiable group. ⓘ |
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Subject: Personnel Administrator of Massachusetts v. Feeney Description of subject: Personnel Administrator of Massachusetts v. Feeney is a 1979 U.S. Supreme Court case that clarified the standard for proving unconstitutional sex discrimination by requiring a showing of discriminatory intent rather than merely discriminatory impact.
Referenced by (3)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.