Editing Equal Protection Clause (section)

==Application to federal government==
By its terms, the clause restrains only state governments. However, the [[Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution|Fifth Amendment]]'s [[due process]] guarantee, beginning with ''[[Bolling v. Sharpe]]'' (1954), has been interpreted as imposing some of the same restrictions on the federal government: "Though the Fifth Amendment does not contain an equal protection clause, as does the Fourteenth Amendment which applies only to the States, the concepts of equal protection and due process are not mutually exclusive."<ref>{{cite web|url=http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=US&vol=347&invol=497 |title=FindLaw &#124; Cases and Codes |publisher=Caselaw.lp.findlaw.com |date=1954-05-17 |access-date=2012-08-13}}</ref> In ''[[Lawrence v. Texas]]'' (2003) the Supreme Court added: "Equality of treatment and the due process right to demand respect for conduct protected by the substantive guarantee of liberty are linked in important respects, and a decision on the latter point advances both interests"<ref>Lawrence v. Texas, {{Ussc|539|598|2003}}, at page 2482</ref>
Some scholars have argued that the Court's decision in ''Bolling'' should have been reached on other grounds. For example, [[Michael W. McConnell]] has written that Congress never "required that the schools of the District of Columbia be segregated."<ref>Balkin, J. M.; Bruce A. Ackerman (2001). "Part II". What Brown v. Board of Education should have said : the nation's top legal experts rewrite America's landmark civil rights decision. et al. New York University Press. p. 168.</ref> According to that rationale, the segregation of schools in Washington D.C. was unauthorized and therefore illegal.

The federal government has at times shared its power to discriminate against noncitizens with states through [[cooperative federalism]]. It has done so in the [[Welfare Reform Act of 1996]] and the [[Children's Health Insurance Program]].<ref>{{cite journal | last=Ayers | first=Ava | date=2020 | title=Discriminatory Cooperative Federalism | journal=Villanova Law Review | volume=65 | number=1 | url=https://digitalcommons.law.villanova.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3429&context=vlr}}</ref>