Stanton v. Stanton - Impact

Stanton would bear heavily on Craig v. Boren (1976), a case challenging an Oklahoma statute that set the legal drinking age at twenty-one for males and eighteen for females. Once again the Court would rule, this time 7-2, that the statute relied on gender classifications that were unconstitutional under the Equal Protection Clause. Mississippi University for Women v. Hogan (1982) also relied on Stanton in its attack on gender-based classifications. Stanton helped signal a trend throughout the 1970s, one which continued into the 1990s, of attempts to establish equality of males and females before the law.