A legal category for discrimination based on characteristics like gender or legitimacy of birth that receives intermediate scrutiny rather than strict scrutiny. These classifications require an important government objective and substantially related means, a middle tier of constitutional protection.
From Latin 'quasi' (as if, seemingly) combined with suspect classification. Developed in 1970s Supreme Court cases as justices sought a middle ground between rational basis review and strict scrutiny for gender-based laws that seemed problematic but not as historically pernicious as racial classifications.
The creation of quasi-suspect classification for gender was a compromise that reflected the Court's struggle with women's rights—while recognizing that sex-based laws often reflected harmful stereotypes, the justices weren't ready to treat gender exactly like race. This intermediate scrutiny standard has been crucial in striking down laws that treated women as legally inferior while allowing some sex-based distinctions like male-only military draft registration.
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