Equal Protection Images
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Female cadets greet Vice President Dick Cheney at the Virginia Military Institute. Their admission to the formerly all-male military school was made possible through United States v. Virginia.
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One of the Virginia Military Institute's first female cadets, Megan Smith, endures the "ethos-building" welcome of upper classmen.
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Allan Bakke, the white applicant who challenged the University of California, Davis Medical School's affirmative action policies.
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Tyron Garner and John Geddes Lawrence, the successful petitioners in Lawrence v. Texas, the landmark Supreme Court case that struck down the state's "Homosexual Conduct law.
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George E.C. Hayes, Thurgood Marshall, and James Nabrit celebrate the Court's ruling in Brown v. Board of Education. Marshall, chief counsel for the NAACP, later would become the first African-American justice on the United States Supreme Court.
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Chief Justice Earl Warren, author of the Supreme Court's opinion in Brown v. Board of Education.
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Mayor Gavin Newsom presides over the marriage of Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon in 2008.
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In Plessy v. Ferguson, the Supreme Court decision that established the doctrine of "separate but equal," Justice John Marshall Harlan wrote an inspiring dissent: "Our Constitution is color-blind, and neither knows nor tolerates classes among citizens. In respect of civil rights, all citizens are equal before the law."_CITATION74_