Home › Case briefs › Constitutional Law

Sugarman v. Dougall

Supreme Court of the United States · 1973 · Constitutional Law

Constitutional LawEqual ProtectionAlienagePublic EmploymentEqual Protection Clausealienagestrict scrutinyclose judicial scrutiny

Facts

New York Civil Service Law § 53(1) provided that no person was eligible for appointment to any position in the competitive class of the civil service unless he was a United States citizen. The appellees were federally registered resident aliens who were employed by New York City's Manpower Career and Development Agency and were discharged solely because they were aliens. New York's civil service system did not impose citizenship requirements across all public positions; the restriction applied only to the competitive class, which covered a broad range of jobs from menial to policymaking, while other classes and many high offices lacked the same blanket restriction. The record did not show that the appellees had taken steps toward citizenship.

Issue

Does New York's flat statutory prohibition on the employment of aliens in the competitive classified civil service violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment? More specifically, may a State broadly exclude all aliens from this large class of public employment based on asserted interests in loyalty, political community, and efficient government?

Rule

Classifications based on alienage are subject to close judicial scrutiny under the Equal Protection Clause. A State may pursue legitimate interests in defining its political community and may require citizenship for an appropriately defined class of positions involving direct participation in the formulation, execution, or review of broad public policy, but the means used must be precisely drawn; a broad, indiscriminate ban on aliens holding public jobs with little or no relation to those interests is unconstitutional.

🔒

See the holding & full analysis

Create a free KwikCourt account to unlock the rest of this brief — and practice the case.

The court's holding and reasoning
Doctrine tests, pitfalls & exam hypotheticals
10 practice questions + 4 AI-graded essays on this case

Free sample · practice this case

Test yourself

One of 10 multiple-choice questions for this case. Pick an answer to see why.

Illinois enacts a statute providing that only United States citizens may hold any position in the state's merit-based competitive civil service. The covered jobs include file clerks, maintenance workers, laboratory assistants, and budget analysts, while many elected and high appointive offices remain outside the statute. Lina Moreno, a lawful permanent resident in Chicago, is denied a file-clerk position solely because she is not a citizen.

Lina challenges the statute under the Equal Protection Clause. Which is the strongest argument that the statute is unconstitutional?

Explanation. Alienage classifications by a state receive close judicial scrutiny. A state may have a substantial interest in preserving its political community, but the means must be precisely drawn. A blanket exclusion from a broad competitive civil service that ranges from menial to policymaking positions is unconstitutional when it sweeps in positions with little or no relation to that interest and is underinclusive as to other positions. The Court rejected the old privilege-based special-public-interest theory and did not require proof that the alien had sought citizenship.