Bradwell v. State
21 L. Ed. 442, 83 US 130, 16 Wall. 130 (1873)
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Rule of Law:
The right to practice a profession in a state's courts is not a privilege or immunity of United States citizenship protected by the Fourteenth Amendment. Therefore, states retain the authority to regulate admission to the bar, including setting rules based on gender.
Facts:
- Myra Bradwell was a citizen of the United States and a resident of Illinois.
- She was born in Vermont, making her a former citizen of that state.
- Bradwell applied for a license to practice law in the state of Illinois.
- Bradwell was qualified for admission based on her character and learning.
- The State of Illinois denied her application for a license to practice law solely because she was a woman.
Procedural Posture:
- Myra Bradwell applied to the Supreme Court of Illinois for a license to practice law.
- The Supreme Court of Illinois denied her application.
- Bradwell appealed the decision to the Supreme Court of the United States, arguing the denial violated the Privileges and Immunities Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
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Issue:
Does the Privileges and Immunities Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment prevent a state from denying a woman a license to practice law?
Opinions:
Majority - Justice Miller
No. The Privileges and Immunities Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment does not prevent a state from denying a woman a law license because the right to practice law in state court is not a privilege or immunity of U.S. citizenship. Relying on the recently decided Slaughter-House Cases, the Court distinguished between privileges of state citizenship and privileges of national citizenship. The right to control and regulate the granting of licenses to practice law is a power reserved to the states and is not transferred to the federal government for protection. This right is related to state citizenship, which a state has the full authority to regulate.
Concurring - Justice Bradley
No. While I concur in the judgment, the denial is justified because the Privileges and Immunities Clause does not protect a woman's right to engage in any and every profession. The law of nature and civil law recognize a wide difference between the spheres of men and women. The 'paramount destiny and mission of woman are to fulfil the noble and benign offices of wife and mother,' and the 'natural and proper timidity and delicacy' of the female sex makes them unfit for the legal profession. Therefore, it is within a state's police power to prescribe regulations founded on these differences and limit admission to certain professions to men.
Analysis:
This decision, issued one day after the Slaughter-House Cases, severely restricted the scope of the Fourteenth Amendment's Privileges and Immunities Clause, effectively preventing its use to protect individuals from state infringement on fundamental economic rights. It affirmed that the regulation of professions was a matter of state, not federal, law. Justice Bradley's concurrence is historically infamous for its explicit judicial endorsement of gender-based discrimination rooted in 19th-century societal norms about the 'separate spheres' of men and women, providing a legal basis for sex-based classifications for decades.
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