Supreme Court strikes down Idaho's mandatory male preference law 9-0, ruling for the first time that the Equal Protection Clause prohibits sex-based discrimination

The Supreme Court ruled unanimously on November 22, 1971 — the day after Thanksgiving — that Idaho Code § 15-314's mandatory preference for male estate administrators violated the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment. Chief Justice Warren Burger wrote the opinion, holding that the Idaho statute made "the very kind of arbitrary legislative choice forbidden by the Equal Protection Clause." The ruling was the first time the Supreme Court had ever struck down a sex-based classification under the 14th Amendment, opening the door to decades of women's rights litigation built on the equal protection framework that Ruth Bader Ginsburg's brief introduced.