Supreme Court: “Illegitimate” Children Are Persons with Rights
In the case of Levy v. Louisiana, decided on this day, the Supreme Court held that, under the meaning of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, so-called illegitimate children were “persons” and thereby have a constitutional right to sue on behalf of their deceased parents.
The decision was part of the “rights explosion” of the 1960s which involved political activism, cultural change, and court decisions expanding constitutional rights to vast new (and previously neglected) groups: African Americans, women, Native Americans, Latinos, students, teachers, the right to privacy, abortion, prisoners, gay and lesbian people, military personnel and others.
Justice William O. Douglas for the Court: “We start from the premise that illegitimate children are not ‘nonpersons.’ They are humans, live, and have their being. They are clearly ‘persons’ within the meaning of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.”
Learn more about children’s rights at the ACLU: https://www.aclu.org/human-rights/childrens-rights
Learn more about the history of civil liberties and the child welfare system: https://www.aclu.org/human-rights/aclu-history-child-welfare-institutions
On the role of the ACLU in the “rights revolution,” read: Samuel Walker, In Defense of American Liberties: A History of the ACLU (1990)