Katz on Mary Lou Graves, Nolen Breedlove, and the Nineteenth Amendment @UMichLaw

Ellen D. Katz, University of Michigan Law School, is publishing Mary Lou Graves, Nolen Breedlove, and the Nineteenth Amendment in volume 20 of the Georgetown Journal of Law & Public Policy. Here is the abstract.

This close examination of two cases is part of a larger ongoing project to provide a distinct account of the Nineteenth Amendment. In 1921, the Alabama Supreme Court held the Nineteenth Amendment required that any poll tax be imposed equally on men and women. Sixteen years later, the Supreme Court disagreed. Juxtaposing these two cases, and telling their story in rich context, captures my larger claim that – contrary to the general understanding in the scholarly literature – the Nineteenth Amendment was deliberately crafted as a highly circumscribed measure that would eliminate only the exclusively male franchise while serving steadfastly to preserve and promote social hierarchies more generally, specifically those based on race and gender.

Download the article from SSRN at the link.