Petitioner
Yick Wo
Respondent
Peter Hopkins, San Francisco Sheriff
Petitioner's Claim
That San Francisco was enforcing an ordinance in an unlawfully discriminatorymanner against the defendant and other Chinese persons.
Chief Lawyers for Petitioner
Hall McAllister, D. L. Smoot, L. H. Van Schaick
Chief Lawyers for Respondent
Alfred Clarke, H. G. Sieberst
Justices for the Court
Samuel Blatchford, Joseph P. Bradley, Stephen Johnson Field, Horace Gray, John Marshall Harlan I, Stanley Matthews (writing for the Court), Samuel FreemanMiller, Morrison Remick Waite, William Burnham Woods
Justices Dissenting
None
Place
Washington, D.C.
Date of Decision
10 May 1886
Decision
Yick Wo's conviction for violating the ordinance was unconstitutional.
Significance
In Yick Wo, the Supreme Court proclaimed that even if a law was non-discriminatory, enforcing the law in a discriminatory manner was unconstitutional.
On 26 May 1880 the city of San Francisco enacted an ordinance requiring all commercial laundries to be in brick or stone buildings. Wooden buildings werepermissible, but only with the board of supervisors' approval. The ordinancemade no distinction between laundries run by Chinese immigrants and those runby whites. However, the ordinance was enforced in a blatantly racist manner.The board rubber-stamped its approval of white petitions to run laundries inwooden buildings, but denied every one of the nearly 200 Chinese petitions.
Sheriff Peter Hopkins enforced the ordinance, arresting Yick Wo and over 150other Chinese persons who continued to run laundries in wooden buildings without board approval. Yick Wo was convicted, and ordered to pay a fine of $10 or spend ten days in jail. The California Supreme Court upheld his conviction,and he appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court for an order preventing San Francisco in the person of Sheriff Hopkins from carrying out the sentence.
The Court reversed Yick Wo's conviction, holding that the ordinance was beingunfairly administered:
The significance of the Yick Wo decision is that, even if a law is non-discriminatory, enforcing the law in a discriminatory manner is unconstitutional.
Related Cases
Yick Wo
Respondent
Peter Hopkins, San Francisco Sheriff
Petitioner's Claim
That San Francisco was enforcing an ordinance in an unlawfully discriminatorymanner against the defendant and other Chinese persons.
Chief Lawyers for Petitioner
Hall McAllister, D. L. Smoot, L. H. Van Schaick
Chief Lawyers for Respondent
Alfred Clarke, H. G. Sieberst
Justices for the Court
Samuel Blatchford, Joseph P. Bradley, Stephen Johnson Field, Horace Gray, John Marshall Harlan I, Stanley Matthews (writing for the Court), Samuel FreemanMiller, Morrison Remick Waite, William Burnham Woods
Justices Dissenting
None
Place
Washington, D.C.
Date of Decision
10 May 1886
Decision
Yick Wo's conviction for violating the ordinance was unconstitutional.
Significance
In Yick Wo, the Supreme Court proclaimed that even if a law was non-discriminatory, enforcing the law in a discriminatory manner was unconstitutional.
On 26 May 1880 the city of San Francisco enacted an ordinance requiring all commercial laundries to be in brick or stone buildings. Wooden buildings werepermissible, but only with the board of supervisors' approval. The ordinancemade no distinction between laundries run by Chinese immigrants and those runby whites. However, the ordinance was enforced in a blatantly racist manner.The board rubber-stamped its approval of white petitions to run laundries inwooden buildings, but denied every one of the nearly 200 Chinese petitions.
Sheriff Peter Hopkins enforced the ordinance, arresting Yick Wo and over 150other Chinese persons who continued to run laundries in wooden buildings without board approval. Yick Wo was convicted, and ordered to pay a fine of $10 or spend ten days in jail. The California Supreme Court upheld his conviction,and he appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court for an order preventing San Francisco in the person of Sheriff Hopkins from carrying out the sentence.
The Court reversed Yick Wo's conviction, holding that the ordinance was beingunfairly administered:
Though the law itself be fair on its faceand impartial in appearance, yet, if it is applied and administered by public authority with an evil eye and an unequal hand, so as practically to make unjust and illegal discriminations between persons in similar circumstances, material to their rights, the denial of equal justice is still within the prohibition of the Constitution . . .
And while this consent of the supervisors is withheld from [YickWo] and from two hundred others who have also petitioned, all of whom happento be Chinese subjects, eighty others, not Chinese subjects, are permitted tocarry on the same business under similar conditions. The fact of this discrimination is admitted. No reason for it is shown, and the conclusion cannot beresisted, that no reason for it exists except hostility to the race and nationality to which the petitioners belong . . .
The significance of the Yick Wo decision is that, even if a law is non-discriminatory, enforcing the law in a discriminatory manner is unconstitutional.
Related Cases
- Truax v. Raich, 239 U.S. 33 (1915).
- Missouri ex rel Gaines v. Canada, 305 U.S. 337 (1938).
- Ambach v. Norwick, 441 U.S. 68 (1979).
Further Readings
- Johnson, John W., ed. Historic U.S. Court Cases, 1690-1990: An Encyclopedia. New York: Garland Publishing, 1992.
- Nelson, William Edward. The Fourteenth Amendment: From Political Principle to Judicial Doctrine. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1988.
- Pole, J. R. The Pursuit of Equality in American History. Berkeley:University of California Press, 1978.
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