The Supreme Court applies three standards of scrutiny (or levels of review) to cases involving equal protection issues. These standards are called rational, intermediate, and strict scrutiny. Over the course of judicial history, many judges have believed that women were not discriminated against and thus should not be designated as a suspect class and afforded strict scrutiny when contemplating issues of equal protection. In fact, the Supreme Court has never declared women to be a suspect classification, but rather an intermediate standard of scrutiny for sex discrimination was eventually adopted. This paper explores the questions of: What is a suspect class? What are some of the characteristics that distinguish what the courts call a suspect class? Are women are a suspect class? Why or why not?
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