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Adam Smith, a lifeguard for 30 years at Hammonasset State Beach in Connecticut, was notified last spring that he would not be allowed to return for work for another season because he had reached the age of 55. Adam Smith was released from his employment under a Connecticut State Parks Department rule requiring all lifeguards be under the age of 55. The issue is whether the State of Connecticut is prohibited from enforcing this rule? In analyzing this issue, the question can be divided into two sub-issue: (1) whether the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution prohibits the State of Connecticut from enforcing a rule that requires all lifeguards to be under the age of 55, and (2) if the Equal Protection clause does not prohibit the State of Connecticut from enforcing this rule, whether there are any statutes that prohibit the State of Connecticut from enforcing this rule? As stated above, in determining whether the state of Connecticut is prohibited from enforcing the rule in question, the first question to ask is whether the rule violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The first step in answering any equal protection question is determining the appropriate level of review, strict scrutiny or rational basis review, for the challenged classification. Under rational basis review the rule would likely be upheld, whereas under strict scrutiny the rule would most likely be struck down. As should be clear from prior Equal Protection cases, rational basis is the appropriate level of review in this case. Rational basis review is essentially a default rule; if a challenged classification does not fit under strict scrutiny, it will automatically be looked at under rational basis review. For a legislative classification to be analyzed under strict scrutiny it must either impermissibly interfere with a fundamental right or burden a suspect class. Massachusetts Board of Retirement v. Murgia, 427 U.S. 307, 312. In the absence of either of these situations, strict scrutiny will not be used. The Supreme Court has never found the right to governmental employment to be a fundamental right, and in fact has been explicitly found not to be a fundamental right, Id. at 313, and since Murgia it has been settled that age is not a suspect class. Id. at 313. The court has limited suspect classifications to those involving race or national origin and has explicitly excluded age from consideration as a suspect class. Id. at 313. Though it can be said that the aged in this country have not been completely free from discrimination, neither are they a discrete and insular minority in need of protection from majoritarian political processes, nor have they been historically subjected to purposeful discrimination, unlike those groups that have been found to be suspect classes. Id at 313. In Murgia, the court used rational basis review since the case involved governmental employment, not a fundamental right, and because the classification was one based on age, not a suspect class. Id at 313. Since, as in the case of Murgia, neither of the strict scrutiny prongs applies to Adam Smith, rational basis is the appropriate level of review.
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