ABSTRACT
The US Supreme Court's decision in Frontiero v. Richardson, 411 US 677, helped establish gender equality as a constitutional right. The holding was grounded in analysis of the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment to the US Constitution, the clause that implicitly guarantees all individuals equal protection of the law. Lieutenant Frontiero put in a request for the increased quarters allowances and the housing and medical benefits for her husband that were routinely awarded to dependents of male officers. Frontiero was represented in part by attorney Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who made her first oral argument before the US Supreme Court when it heard the case in 1973. Frontiero would prove to be as close as the Court would come to extending the strict-scrutiny test to gender classifications. Justice William J. Brennan Jr.'s opinion for himself and three other justices agreed, and Frontiero won her case.
