1. Yick Wo v. Hopkins, (1886)
2. Facts: A San Franscisco law required that laundries could not be operated in other than brick or stone buildings without approval by the city. All but one of 88 non-chinese applicants were granted approval to operate in a non-stone building. However, not a single one of 200 chinese applicants had been granted approval.
3. Procedural Posture: Unknown
4. Issue: Whether the statistically unequal administration of a facially neutral law is violation of equal protection when it operates to discriminate in practice against a racial minority.
5. Holding: Yes.
6. Reasoning: Statistics show that the application of this law was clearly discriminatory against chinese launderers. Even if the law is neutral on its face, it is a violation of equal protection to enforce it in an invidiously discriminatory manner.
7. Notes: In Swain v. Alabama, the court held that a prosecutor may use peremptory challenges to strike all black jurors from a jury, without violating equal protection unless a showing could be made that it was systematic discrimination. However, in Batson v. Kentucky, the court overruled Swain to hold that it was a violation of equal protection if it was based on the justification that blacks, as a class, would be unable to impartially consider the State’s case against a black defendant. Also, in Snowden v. Hughes, the court stated that “unequal application” of statutes fair on their face is not a violation of unequal protection “unless there is a showing of intentional or purposeful discrimination.”
