Equal protection under the law. That’s the promise of justice contained in the US Constitution’s Fourteenth Amendment, which took effect in 1868 — the so-called Equal Protection Clause which states: “…nor shall any State […] deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”
A primary motivation for this clause was to validate equality provisions contained in the Civil Rights Act of 1866, which guaranteed that all citizens would have the guaranteed right to equal protection by law. The Fourteenth Amendment applied substantially more constitutional restrictions upon the states than had existed before the Civil War.
The courts have since expanded upon the possible applications of that clause.
According to several news stories that appeared last week, twenty-year-old Effie Krokos was playing Frisbee in her fiancé’s front yard… on a warm day this past September… and decided to take off her shirt. After someone called in a complaint to the City of Loveland police department, Officer Greg Harris came to her door and wrote her a summons.
“I knew my rights; I told the officer I knew my rights — this is a topless state,” Ms. Krokos told reporters. “It was a hot day… I didn’t think I was doing anything wrong.”
In fact, the courts seem to have taken Mr. Krokos’ side. This past February, the 19th Circuit Court of Appeals decided a case named Free the Nipple vs. the City of Fort Collins, which challenged a 2015 Fort Collins ordinance. That ordinance allowed men to appear topless in public, but prohibited women (over the age of 10) from doing the same.
In that case, the Court of Appeals upheld a district court decision that the city’s topless law violated the Fourteenth Amendment. In the majority opinion, Judge Gregory Phillips wrote:
“We’re left, as the district court was, to suspect that the City’s professed interest in protecting children derives not from any morphological differences between men’s and women’s breasts but from negative stereotypes depicting women’s breasts, but not men’s breasts, as sex objects…”
Theoretically, the Fort Collins City Council could have appealed the case to the US Supreme Court, but instead chose to pay a $200,000 settlement to the plaintiffs.
When Ms. Krokos reminded Loveland’s police officer of the Fort Collins lawsuit, the officer told her the ruling applied only to Fort Collins.
“I knew that wasn’t right,” Ms. Krokos explained. After receiving the summons, she filed a formal complaint with the City… and hired an lawyer: civil rights attorney David Lane. In an interview with the Denver Post, Mr. Lane clarified his view that the Fort Collins case applies all across Colorado.
“The Court essentially held that, based upon the Equal Protection Clause of the Constitution, anywhere it’s legal for a man to appear in public topless, it’s legal for a woman to do the same.”
Attorney Lane wrote a letter to the City of Loveland on October 24, proposing a settlement in order to prevent a federal lawsuit, and the city accepted the offer. The settlement went into effect last Thursday.
From the Mercury News:
Krokos said that the settlement is a relief because it means that the ordeal is over. She said she will use the money for college tuition. Having moved to Loveland from her native New York in 2017, she is studying at Front Range Community College in Fort Collins.
She stressed that the money isn’t what’s important to her. She said she wants to show that it isn’t fair for women to be treated differently than men by law enforcement, and hopes that the case will make more women aware of their rights.
Frisbee, anyone?