Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2018
ISSN
1068-7955
Publisher
University of Virginia School of Law
Language
en-US
Abstract
In 1967, the United States Supreme Court issued an opinion that contained its most searing and explicit condemnation of white supremacy: Loving v. Virginia. At issue in Loving was the constitutionality of a statutory scheme in the state of Virginia that prohibited marriages between individuals solely on the basis of race. Among other things, provisions in this statutory scheme punished intermarriage between a "white person" and a "colored person," meaning not only Blacks, but also Asian Americans and American Indians who did not fall under the Pocahontas Exception. The provisions also punished evasion of the state's interracial marriage ban by Virginians who chose to legally marry each other in another state and then return to live together as spouses in Virginia. Indeed, Section 20-59 of the statutory scheme subjected individuals who violated Virginia's anti-miscegenation laws to imprisonment for one to five years.
Recommended Citation
Angela Onwuachi-Willig,
From Loving v. Virginia to Washington v. Davis: The Erosion of the Supreme Court's Equal Protection Intent Analysis
,
in
25
Virginia Journal of Social Policy & the Law
303
(2018).
Available at:
https://scholarship.law.bu.edu/faculty_scholarship/2851
