NPO: Can Fathers Sue Courts Under ‘Disparate Impact’ Theory?

Article here. Excerpt:

'Will last week’s ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court permitting same-gender couples to marry have any impact on the movement for equal parenting following divorce? It’s a question many people asked immediately after the opinion was announced.

My guess is that it will have no direct impact. The right of same-gender couples to marry has little legal relation to the importance to children of keeping both parents in their lives when the parents split up. The value of both parents is addressed to the “best interests of the child” standard that’s already found in Supreme Court precedent. As I see it, constitutional law is already where it needs to be as regards parental rights. What needs to change is factual - the awareness of state legislatures that children do best with both parents involved in their lives, an arrangement family courts need to stop obstructing.

But another, far less heralded opinion was issued by the Court holding, as it has in previous cases, that state action that creates a disparate impact on the basis of a suspect category like race, creates a cause of action under federal civil rights laws (Wall Street Journal, 6/25/15). That is, a plaintiff seeking to sue need not produce evidence of an intention on the part of the defendant to discriminate. Here’s how this article described the case in question: ...'