Frontiero v. Richardson
Supreme Court
411 U.S. 677 (1973)
A federal law let a serviceman claim his wife as a dependent for housing and medical benefits regardless of her actual financial dependence, while a servicewoman could claim her husband as a dependent only by proving he received more than half his support from her. Air Force officer Sharron Frontiero (plaintiff) was denied dependent benefits for her husband because she couldn't make that required showing, and she and her husband sued the Secretary of Defense (defendant), arguing the differential treatment violated the Fifth Amendment's Due Process Clause; a divided three-judge district court upheld the law as a reasonable administrative-efficiency measure, reasoning husbands are typically breadwinners, and the Frontieros appealed directly to the Supreme Court.
Whether governmental classifications based on sex, like this differential military-dependent-benefits scheme, must satisfy strict judicial scrutiny under the Due Process Clause.