...VANDERBILT LAW REVIEW ing the workload of its probate courts by eliminating a hearing. The Court held that: To give a mandatory preference to members of either...legislative choice forbidden by the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment; and whatever may be said as to the positive values of avoiding intrafamily...

...decision ... in Reed v. Reed. . . . 20 This implicit support stemmed from the following language in Reed: To give a mandatory preference to members of either..."departure from 'traditional' rationale basis analysis. . . ." 22 Relying on this, the plurality opinion concluded that "any statutory scheme which draws a...

...objective in a manner consistent with the command of the Equal Protection Clause. We hold that it does not. To give a mandatory preference to members of either...accomplish the elimination of hearings on the merits, is the very kind of arbitrary legislative choice forbidden by the Equal Protection Clause. . . ." (404...

...either sex over members of the other, merely to accomplish the elimination of hearings on the merits, is the very kind of arbitrary legislative choice forbidden by the Equal Protection Clause. . . ." (404 US at 75-76) In Lindsey v. Normet, 405 US 56 (1971), the Court considered an Oregon statute...

...and arbitrary."21 The US Supreme Court found sex discrimination under the Equal Protection Clause: To give a mandatory preference to members of either...legislative choice forbidden by the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.22 Placing women beyond an inquiry into their merits made sex a criterion...

...the United States Supreme Court rejected this argument, holding that the genderbased distinction was "the very kind of arbitrary legislative choice forbidden by the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment." Reed v. Reed, 404 US 71, 76 (1971). In 1975, the United States Supreme...

...between parent and child is a relevant criterion in evaluating both the rights of the ture had made "the very kind of arbitrary legislative choice forbidden by the Equal Protection Clause." Id., at 76. The State's articulated goal could have been completely served by requiring a coin flip....

...the State's interest in achieving administrative efficiency "is not without some legitimacy," "[tjo give a mandatory preference to members of either sex...kind of arbitrary legislative choice forbidden by the [Constitution] . . ." Id. at 76. This departure from "traditional" rational basis analysis with respect...

...at 12. Reed v. Reed. 404 US 71 (1971). 11 Id., at 12-13. FHONTIKRO v. LAIRD at 76, 77. Indeed, "ftjo give a mandatory preference to members of either sex...kind of arbitrary legislative choice forbidden by the [Constitution]. . . .'' Id., at 76. In terms of the constitutional challenge, the situation here is...

...distinction between men and women bore no "rational relationship" to any identifiable state objective. "To give a mandatory preference to members of either...legislative choice forbidden by the Equal Protection Clause. . . ."196 Justice Bradley would presumably have found the state's preference for male administrators...