Home > West's Encyclopedia of American Law > Yick Wo v. Hopkins

An 1896 U.S. Supreme Court decision, Yick Wo v. Hopkins, 118 U.S. 356, 6 S. Ct. 1064, 30 L. Ed. 220 (1886), held that the unequal application of a law violates the EQUAL PROTECTION CLAUSE of the FOURTEENTH AMENDMENT to the U.S. Constitution.

A law that is racially neutral on its face may be deliberately administered in a discriminatory way, or it may have been enacted in order to disadvantage a racial minority. In Yick Wo v. Hopkins, the Supreme Court stated for the first time that a state or municipal law that appears to be fair on its face will be declared unconstitutional under the Fourteenth Amendment because of its discriminatory purpose.

Yick Wo, a native and subject of China, was convicted and imprisoned for violating an ordinance of the city of San Francisco, California, which made it unlawful to maintain a laundry "without having...