Is It Fair or Illegal? How Courts Judge Discrimination

Discrimination isn't always illegal — and the system is more complicated than you think. In this video, Brenton Goodman breaks down how courts decide when discrimination crosses the line, when it’s protected, and who the law really defends. From race and sex to sexual orientation and beyond, the rules aren’t always on your side. Is justice truly equal in America? You decide.

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*This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos.

Hi, I'm Brenton Goodman, and this is You Decide a series where I break down hot button issues using facts, law, and the Constitution. I won't tell you what to think. I'll just give you the information. So you decide. Our modern understanding of discrimination comes from the key historical movements like civil rights and women's suffrage. At its core, discrimination is the unfair denial of rights or liberties based on characteristics like race, sex, age, or disability. To prevent this, we've passed constitutional amendments, written laws, and created systems to protect people from discrimination. When a case of alleged discrimination comes up, courts ask four main questions. Who is doing the discriminating? How intentional is it? Who is being affected and what right is at stake? If a purely private group, like a private social club chooses to exclude certain people, that's generally allowed because we have the freedom to assemble with whoever we choose.

But if a business university or government agency is involved, things get a little bit trickier. That is because we recognize that society benefits when public services treat everyone equally. So if it's something other than a purely private group, the court will determine how intentional the discrimination is. This is very fact specific. For instance, a law that says black people cannot sit on the front of the bus is clearly discriminative. But what if a county requires a physical state ID to vote, and most people without IDs in that area happen to be Latino? Is that discrimination or just a neutral rule with unintended consequences? Courts have to decide. Now, even if discrimination is intentional and done by state actors, that doesn't always make it illegal. Sometimes society's interests outweigh individual claims. For instance, teens under 16 can't drive that's age discrimination and limits their rights to travel.

But we accept that it's okay because it keeps our road safe. But when discriminatory regulations affect fundamental rights, people with unchangeable characteristics or groups historically excluded from fully engaging with society and democracy. Courts take it much more seriously. For instance, courts are much stricter with the law preventing people of a certain race from attending an event than they are about 14 year olds being banned from driving because people have been discriminated based on race for hundreds of years. While 14 year olds don't remain 14, they do not have a history of being discriminated against and they have never been rejected from society. So what about discrimination based on sexual orientation? Well, the Supreme Court has said if a law discriminates

Based on sex, which according to a case, Bostock versus Clayton County, includes gender and sexual orientation, it is only legal if it serves an important government purpose and is substantially related to achieve that purpose. Now, this is because laws that benefit or burden the sexes in different ways very likely reflect an outdated idea of what men and women are capable of. Now, how has this worked in real life? Well, in 1976, the Supreme Court struck down a law that set different drinking ages for men at 21 and women at 18. The court ruled that while traffic safety is important, there wasn't enough evidence that a person's gender affects their alcohol related decisions. For instance, a man is not more likely to drink and drive just because he's a man. So the law could not be substantially related to achieving traffic safety. Since the law unfairly treated people based on sex, it was then unconstitutional.

But in 1981, the Supreme Court upheld the law requiring only men register for the draft. Because the law served an important purpose to ensure military readiness, and because women were not eligible for combat roles at that time, the law was substantially related to achieving that specific purpose. Now, this case has not been overruled as of today.