# Syed Hassan v. City of New York

> Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit · October 13, 2015 · 804 F.3d 277

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9818325

## Case

- **Full name:** Syed Farhaj HASSAN; The Council of Imams in New Jersey; Muslim Students Association of the U.S. and Canada, Inc.; All Body Shop Inside & Outside; Unity Beef Sausage Company; Muslim Foundation Inc.; Moiz Mohammed; Jane Doe; Soofia Tahir; Zaimah Abdur-Rahim; Abdul-Hakim Abdullah, Appellants v. the CITY OF NEW YORK
- **Court:** Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit
- **Decided:** October 13, 2015
- **Citations:** 804 F.3d 277; 2015 U.S. App. LEXIS 17776; 2015 WL 5933354
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** Concurrence by Roth
- **Judges:** Ambro, Fuentes, Roth
- **Cited by:** 161 later opinions in the Frix Law Library

## Citator (automated)

- No negative treatment found by the automated citator. That is not the same as a confirmation that the case is good law; read the citing cases.
- Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9818325

## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction)

- explaining, in a § 1983 case alleging selective enforcement based on "religious affiliation," that "at a minimum," equal protection requires "rational-basis review," "intermediate scrutiny" where a "quasi-suspect" class, like gender, is at issue, and "strict scrutiny" only whe…
- recognizing that “the conflation of Arab and Muslim identity was deeply entrenched within the courts during the Naturalization Era” (quoting Kha-led A. Beydoun, Between Muslim and White: The Legal Construction of Arab American Identity, 69 N.Y.U. Ann. Surv. Am. L. 29, 33 (2013))
- finding the challenged policy had to proceed to the appropriate level of review because “the protected trait by definition plays a role in the decision-making process, inasmuch as the policy explicitly classifies people on that basis”
- holding that a plaintiff need not even suffer an economic injury to have standing to bring an Equal Protection claim
- holding redressability is satisfied when plaintiff had several available remedies including damages for past harm or an order enjoining defendant from engaging in harmful conduct

## Opinion text

ROTH, Circuit Judge,
concurrence.
I agree that plaintiffs have demonstrated standing and made sufficient allegations of violations of equal-protection rights .. I differ from the majority in its failure to determine whether “intermediate scrutiny” or “strict scrutiny” applies here. In our determinations so far, we have also, I be *310 lieve, made the findings necessary to resolve the issue of the appropriate level of scrutiny.
In my opinion, “intermediate scrutiny” is appropriate here. I say this because “intermediate scrutiny” is the level applied in gender discrimination cases. I have the immutable characteristic of being a woman. I am happy with this condition, but during my 80 years on this earth, it has caused me at times to suffer gender discrimination. My remedy now for any future gender discrimination would be reviewed with “intermediate scrutiny.” For that reason, I cannot endorse a level of scrutiny in other types of discrimination cases that would be stricter than the level which would apply to discrimination against me as a woman.

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Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9818325. Public record. Not legal advice.