Loving v. Virginia: Equal Protection and the Right to Marry

Loving v. Virginia is the 1967 U.S. Supreme Court decision that struck down every state law banning interracial marriage. The unanimous 9-0 ruling, written by Chief Justice Earl Warren and reported at 388 U.S. 1, held that Virginia’s ban violated both the Equal Protection and Due Process Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment.¹ In a single decision, the Court invalidated anti-miscegenation statutes still on the books in 16 states.

Who the Lovings Were

Mildred Jeter, a Black woman, and Richard Loving, a white man, lived in Caroline County, Virginia. In June 1958, they traveled to Washington, D.C., to marry legally, then returned home.² Acting on an anonymous tip, police entered their bedroom at night and arrested them for violating Virginia’s ban on interracial marriage.

The Lovings pleaded guilty. The trial judge gave them a choice: one year in prison, or leave Virginia for 25 years.¹ They accepted exile and moved to Washington, D.C. Years later, two ACLU volunteer attorneys, Bernard S. Cohen and Philip J. Hirschkop, took the case and carried it to the Supreme Court on Fourteenth Amendment grounds.

The Law at the Center of the Case

Virginia’s Racial Integrity Act of 1924 barred any white person from marrying anyone classified as non-white. Violation was a felony punishable by one to five years in prison.² A separate provision automatically voided any interracial marriage without a court proceeding. Fifteen other states enforced similar statutes when the Lovings’ appeal reached the Court.

What the Supreme Court Decided

On June 12, 1967, the Court unanimously reversed the Lovings’ convictions. Chief Justice Warren framed the question as whether a state could prevent marriages solely on the basis of racial classifications.¹ The answer was no, on two independent constitutional grounds. The criminal convictions were vacated, and the Lovings were free to return to Virginia.

Equal Protection

Virginia’s central defense was the “equal application” theory: because the law punished both the white and the non-white spouse, it treated the races equally. The Court rejected that argument. Any law drawing racial classifications must survive “the most rigid scrutiny,” and equal punishment does not cure racial discrimination.³

Applying that standard, the Court found the statute had “no legitimate purpose independent of invidious racial discrimination.”³ The opinion pointed to Virginia’s own prior rulings, which had endorsed preserving “racial integrity.” The Court called racial distinctions drawn by law “odious to a free people.” The statute existed to maintain white supremacy, and equal-application language did not disguise that purpose.

Due Process and the Right to Marry

The second ground was the Due Process Clause. Warren wrote that “marriage is one of the ‘basic civil rights of man,’ fundamental to our very existence and survival,” and that denying it based on racial classifications “is surely to deprive all the State’s citizens of liberty without due process of law.”¹

The opinion closed with a line quoted in civil rights litigation ever since: “Under our Constitution, the freedom to marry, or not marry, a person of another race resides with the individual, and cannot be infringed by the State.”¹ Grounding the right to marry in both due process and equal protection gave the holding a double foundation that has resisted narrowing.

What the Ruling Did to Other States

At the time of the decision, 16 states still enforced anti-miscegenation laws. The ruling made every one of them unenforceable overnight. Removing the dead-letter language took much longer. Alabama was the last state to formally repeal its constitutional ban. In 2000, voters approved Amendment 2, removing the prohibition from the state constitution by roughly 59 percent, meaning more than 40 percent voted to keep language that had been void under federal law for 33 years.⁴

The Case’s Reach Beyond Interracial Marriage

The Lovings returned to Caroline County and lived quietly. Richard Loving died on June 29, 1975, at age 41, when a drunk driver struck the couple’s car. Mildred survived and largely stayed out of public view.

In 2007, on the 40th anniversary of the decision, Mildred Loving issued a rare statement. “I believe all Americans, no matter their race, no matter their sex, no matter their sexual orientation, should have that same freedom to marry,” she wrote. “I support the freedom to marry for all. That’s what Loving, and loving, are all about.” Eight years later, the Supreme Court cited Loving repeatedly in Obergefell v. Hodges, the 2015 decision recognizing the right to same-sex marriage.⁵

Federal Statutory Protection Today

For more than half a century after the ruling, the only protection for interracial marriage was the decision itself. That changed with the Respect for Marriage Act, signed into law in 2022 as Public Law 117-228. The statute requires every state to give full faith and credit to marriages from other states regardless of the sex, race, ethnicity, or national origin of the spouses.⁶

The law also creates enforcement tools that the 1967 decision did not. The Attorney General can bring a civil action against anyone acting under state authority who violates the statute, and individuals harmed by a violation can file their own lawsuits for injunctive and declaratory relief.⁶ If a future Supreme Court were to revisit Loving, the federal statute would independently require states to recognize interracial marriages performed elsewhere.

1
Justia. Loving v. Virginia 388 U.S. 1 (1967)
2
University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law. Loving v. Virginia
3
Oyez. Loving v. Virginia
4
Ballotpedia. Alabama Interracial Marriage, Amendment 2 (2000)
5
Justia. Obergefell v. Hodges 576 U.S. 644 (2015)
6
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 28 U.S. Code 1738C – Certain Acts, Records, and Proceedings and the Effect Thereof