|
|
|
|
|
Board Of Trustees Of The University Of Alabama V. GarrettBoard of Trustees of the University of Alabama v. Garrett, 531 U.S. 356 (2001), was a Supreme Court case about Congress's enforcement powers under the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution. The plaintiffs were Milton Ash and Patricia Garrett, employees of the University of Alabama school system. Both were disabled under the definition of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA): Ash had a lifelong history of severe asthma, and Garrett had been diagnosed with breast cancer, and had received radiation and chemotherapy treatments. Both alleged that they had been discriminated against at their jobs, and filed a suit in federal court against the University of Alabama for money damages, arguing that the University had violated Title I of the ADA. The University of Alabama responded with a motion to dismiss on the grounds that the Eleventh Amendment prohibited the suit. The Court, in an opinion by Chief Justice William Rehnquist, held that Congress, in the legislative record of the ADA, failed to show a pattern of state discrimination against Americans with disabilities that rose to the level of irrationality. (Under the Fourteenth Amendment, the Court held, only irrational discrimination against the disabled was prohibited. See Equal Protection Clause.) And (the Court said) since citizens' substantive rights under the Fourteenth Amendment are determined by the Supreme Court alone, Congress cannot remedy violations of rights where those rights do not exist. Thus, the ADA did not meet the congruent-and-proportional test of City of Boerne v. Flores, and so unconstitutionally abrogated the states' sovereign immunity. The Court split 5-4. Justice Stephen Breyer filed a dissenting opinion in which he was joined by Justices John Paul Stevens, David Souter, and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, arguing that Congress had indeed met the congruent-and-proportional test.
|
 |
|
| Copyright 2005-2009 OnPedia.com. All Rights Reserved |
|
|