Discuss and Distinguish the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment and its various tests to determine whether there has been a violation of a constitutional right.

 

The fourteenth amendment provides that no enforceable law or a state shall in any way go against the immunities and the privileges of the US Citizens. No state can deprive any citizen such fundamental right as that of life, property and liberty without relying on the use of the due process as provided by the law. The fourteenth amendment equal clause comes with the requirement in which states are required to always practice equal protection. The state is forced to be governed impartially with the use of the equal protection as there is no drawing of the distinctive differences between individuals especially those that are irrelevant to the legitimate objectives of the government.

One of the test of violation of the fourteenth amendment is the judicial review and the test that are provided by the courts. The use of judicial review makes determination of the violation by the government on whether there is presence or not. The test are usually the rational basis, the strict scrutiny testing and the intermediate scrutiny. The rational scrutiny is used in the determination of where no fundamental rights are involved.  The intermediate scrutiny covers the concerns relating to discrimination on the basis of gender and in events where government forcefully compels a person to make some disclosures. For strict scrutiny, the concern must involve the fundamental right such as discrimination on the basis of race and the concerns on freedom of speech