Loving v. Virginia
Headline: Virginia’s bans on interracial marriage are struck down, ending state criminal penalties and race-based marriage rules and freeing interracial couples to marry and live in the State.
Holding: The Court held that Virginia's laws banning marriage between people of different races violate the Fourteenth Amendment’s guarantees of equal protection and liberty, and it reversed the Lovings’ convictions.
- Strikes down Virginia's criminal ban on interracial marriage and reverses the Lovings’ convictions.
- Allows people of different races to marry and live together in Virginia without criminal penalty.
- Undercuts other state race-based marriage laws remaining in force at the time.
Summary
Background
Mildred Jeter, a Black woman, and Richard Loving, a white man, married in the District of Columbia in 1958 and then returned to live in Virginia. Virginia prosecuted them under state laws that criminalized marriages between white and nonwhite people, and a judge suspended their one-year jail sentence on the condition they leave the State for 25 years. The Lovings challenged their convictions in state and federal courts, and Virginia’s highest court upheld the statutes before the case reached this Court.
Reasoning
The Court asked whether laws that bar marriage solely because of race are consistent with the Fourteenth Amendment’s promises of equal protection and liberty. The Justices rejected Virginia’s arguments that equal punishment or long-standing local rules made the laws acceptable. The Court said racial classifications in criminal laws carry a heavy burden and that the freedom to marry is a fundamental personal right. It found no legitimate, nonracial purpose for Virginia’s scheme and held the statutes violate both equal protection and due process.
Real world impact
The decision reverses the Lovings’ convictions and invalidates Virginia’s race-based marriage prohibitions. At the time, Virginia was one of 16 States with such statutes, so the ruling removes a legal barrier that prevented interracial couples from marrying and living together in the State. The opinion emphasizes that the choice to marry someone of another race belongs to the individual, not the State.
Dissents or concurrances
Justice Stewart wrote a brief concurrence agreeing that a law making criminality depend on race cannot be valid under the Constitution, and he joined the Court’s judgment.
Opinions in this case:
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