Yick Wo v. Hopkins
118 U.S. 356 (1886)
Premium Feature
Subscribe to Lexplug to listen to the Case Podcast.
Rule of Law:
A facially neutral law that is administered by public authorities with an unequal hand so as to create unjust discrimination between persons in similar circumstances violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
Facts:
- Yick Wo, a subject of the Emperor of China, operated a laundry in a wooden building in San Francisco for 22 years.
- The city of San Francisco enacted an ordinance requiring a permit from the Board of Supervisors to operate a laundry in a wooden building, while not requiring such a permit for laundries in brick or stone buildings.
- The ordinance vested the Board of Supervisors with total discretion to grant or withhold the permits without setting any standards or requiring any reasons for their decisions.
- Yick Wo applied for a permit to continue his business but was denied.
- The Board of Supervisors denied permits to all of the approximately 200 Chinese applicants who petitioned.
- Conversely, the Board of Supervisors granted permits to all but one of the 80 non-Chinese applicants.
- Yick Wo continued to operate his laundry without a permit and was arrested and imprisoned by Sheriff Hopkins.
Procedural Posture:
- Yick Wo was convicted in a San Francisco court for violating a city ordinance and was imprisoned.
- He petitioned the Supreme Court of California for a writ of habeas corpus, alleging his imprisonment was illegal under the U.S. Constitution.
- The Supreme Court of California, the state's highest court, denied the petition.
- Yick Wo then brought the case to the U.S. Supreme Court on a writ of error to review the judgment of the Supreme Court of California.
- A companion case involving Wo Lee, who had been denied habeas corpus by a federal circuit court, was heard at the same time.
Premium Content
Subscribe to Lexplug to view the complete brief
You're viewing a preview with Rule of Law, Facts, and Procedural Posture
Issue:
Does a facially neutral municipal ordinance that grants officials absolute discretion to issue or deny business permits violate the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause when it is enforced in a racially discriminatory manner?
Opinions:
Majority - Justice Matthews
Yes. A facially neutral ordinance violates the Equal Protection Clause when its administration is directed so exclusively against a particular class of persons as to amount to a practical denial of equal justice. The Court reasoned that the Fourteenth Amendment's protections are not confined to citizens but apply to all persons within the territorial jurisdiction of the United States. Although the San Francisco ordinance appeared impartial, its application by the Board of Supervisors demonstrated clear discrimination. The fact that permits were denied to two hundred Chinese applicants but granted to eighty non-Chinese applicants under similar circumstances established an administration with an "evil eye and an unequal hand." The ordinance itself was also constitutionally suspect because it conferred upon the supervisors a "naked and arbitrary power" to give or withhold consent at their "mere will," which is incompatible with a government of laws.
Analysis:
This is a landmark case establishing that a law, while neutral on its face, can be unconstitutional as applied. It affirmed that the Equal Protection Clause prohibits discriminatory administration of laws, creating the foundation for "as-applied" constitutional challenges. The decision was also significant for extending the protections of the Fourteenth Amendment to non-citizens, confirming that "persons" under the law includes aliens. Yick Wo v. Hopkins remains a cornerstone of equal protection jurisprudence, demonstrating that courts may look beyond the text of a statute to its practical effect to prevent state-sponsored discrimination.
