Ho Ah Kow v. Nunan
United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit
12 F. Cas. 252 (No. 6546) (1879)
San Francisco (defendant) passed an ordinance requiring every man in county jail to have his hair cut to one inch, which particularly burdened Chinese men like Ho Ah Kow (plaintiff), whose religious custom involved wearing a long braided queue; evidence showed the facially neutral ordinance was in practice enforced only against Chinese prisoners, and the city's own stated goal was to pressure Chinese men specifically into paying fines rather than risk losing their queue in jail, earning it the nickname the "Queue Ordinance."
Whether a law that is not explicitly based on race nonetheless violates the Equal Protection Clause if it is enforced on the basis of race.