West Virginia v. B. P. J. · ¶162

The Fourteenth Amendment provides that “[n]o State shall . . . deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” Sitting “‘[a]t the heart of ’” this “‘guarantee of equal protection’” is a “‘simple command’”: “‘[T]he Government must treat citizens as individuals, not as simply components of a racial, religious, sexual or national class.’” Miller v. Johnson, 515 U. S. 900, 911 (1995) (some internal quotation marks omitted). The Clause thus bars state action that denies individuals “full citizenship stature,” or “equal opportunity to aspire, achieve, participate in and contribute to society based on their individual talents and capacities,” because of a class to which they happen to belong. United States v. Virginia, 518 U. S. 515, 532 (1996).

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