Mullin v. Doe · ¶111

Respondents’ equal protection claim also has no basis in the Constitution. The Constitution has only one Equal Protection Clause, and it applies only to the “State[s],” not the Federal Government. Amdt. 14, §1. Respondents, of course, sued the Federal Government. When asked at argument how the Equal Protection Clause could have anything to do with a suit against the Federal Government, respondents’ counsel, drawing on precedents of this Court, stated that the claim “arises under . . . the Fifth Amendment’s equal protection guarantee” because “the Fifth Amendment constrains the federal government in the same way that the Fourteenth Amendment constrains states.” Tr. of Oral Arg. 118. Because the Fifth Amendment has no Equal Protection Clause, this Court was wrong to read equal protection into it in Bolling v. Sharpe, 347 U. S. 497 (1954). And, even if the Due Process Clause does prohibit…

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