In United States v. Morrison, decided in 2000, the Supreme Court struck down the federal civil remedy in the Violence Against Women Act. By a 5–4 vote, the Court held that Congress had no power under either the Commerce Clause or Section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment to let victims of gender-motivated violence sue their attackers in federal court.1Supreme Court of the United States. United States v Morrison The ruling became one of the defining federalism decisions of the Rehnquist Court, reinforcing state authority over criminal law and violent conduct.
How the Case Reached the Supreme Court
Christy Brzonkala, a student at Virginia Polytechnic Institute, alleged that two fellow students, Antonio Morrison and James Crawford, sexually assaulted her in the fall of 1994. She first pursued the university’s internal disciplinary process. A Virginia Tech judicial committee found Morrison guilty and suspended him for two semesters, and after a second hearing under the university’s Abusive Conduct Policy the committee reached the same result. On a further appeal, the university’s Senior Vice President and Provost reduced the punishment to a deferred suspension and a one-hour educational session. The committee found insufficient evidence to act against Crawford.2Justia Law. Brzonkala v Virginia Polytechnic Institute, 132 F3d 949
Brzonkala then sued in federal district court under 42 U.S.C. § 13981, the civil remedy provision of the Violence Against Women Act of 1994. The statute allowed victims of gender-motivated violence to sue their attackers in federal court for compensatory damages, punitive damages, and injunctive or declaratory relief.3Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 42 USC 13981 – Civil Rights The district court dismissed the case, ruling Congress had overstepped, and the full Fourth Circuit agreed. The Supreme Court took the case to settle the constitutional question.
The Commerce Clause Ruling
Congress had built the civil remedy on the Commerce Clause, backed by years of hearings and data showing that gender-motivated violence deters travel, cuts workforce participation, and costs billions in healthcare and lost productivity every year. The theory was that these aggregate economic effects justified federal regulation.
The Court disagreed. Chief Justice Rehnquist, writing for the majority, applied the framework from United States v. Lopez (1995), which had struck down the Gun-Free School Zones Act. Lopez laid out three categories Congress may reach under the Commerce Clause: the channels of interstate commerce, the people and things moving in it, and activities that substantially affect it.4Justia. United States v Lopez, 514 US 549 (1995) Gender-motivated violent crime, the Court concluded, fit none of them. As Rehnquist put it, such crimes “are not, in any sense of the phrase, economic activity.”5Library of Congress. ArtI.S8.C3.6.5 Limits on Federal Regulation of Intrastate Activity
The majority acknowledged that Congress had gathered far more economic evidence than it had for the gun statute in Lopez, but found that record “substantially weakened” because it rested on the same chain of reasoning the Court had already rejected: tracing a violent crime through attenuated downstream effects until it touches commerce. Accept that logic, the Court warned, and virtually every violent crime becomes federal. The distinction “between what is truly national and what is truly local” would collapse, and Congress would gain a general police power the Constitution never granted.1Supreme Court of the United States. United States v Morrison
The Fourteenth Amendment Ruling
Congress had also invoked Section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment, which lets it enforce the amendment’s guarantees through “appropriate legislation.” Supporters argued the civil remedy was needed to counteract bias in state justice systems that failed victims of gender-motivated violence.
The Court rejected that theory on state action grounds. The Fourteenth Amendment restricts states, not private individuals. Quoting Shelley v. Kraemer, the majority wrote that the amendment “erects no shield against merely private conduct, however discriminatory or wrongful.” Section 13981, the Court noted, was “directed not at any State or state actor, but at individuals who have committed criminal acts motivated by gender bias.”6Library of Congress. United States v Morrison, 529 US 598 (2000) It did not correct discriminatory state laws or the conduct of biased judges and prosecutors. It bypassed the states and reached private attackers directly.
The Court also found a proportionality problem. Section 13981 applied uniformly to all fifty states even though Congress’s own findings did not show systemic discrimination against victims in every state. Section 5 remedies must be congruent and proportional to the constitutional violations being addressed, and this one was not tailored that way.
The Dissent
Justice Souter wrote the principal dissent, joined by Justices Stevens, Ginsburg, and Breyer. Justice Breyer wrote separately, joined by Stevens and in part by Souter and Ginsburg.7Justia. United States v Morrison, 529 US 598 (2000)
Souter’s central objection was that the majority had imposed a new rule requiring regulated activity to be “economic” in character. He viewed that as a return to formalism the Court had left behind decades earlier. Under Wickard v. Filburn and its successors, what mattered was whether an activity, in the aggregate, substantially affected interstate commerce. Whether the activity looked economic in isolation was beside the point.8Supreme Court of the United States. United States v Morrison – Dissenting Opinion
On the record, Souter was direct. Four years of congressional hearings produced what he called a “mountain of data,” including findings that violent crime against women cost the country at least $3 billion a year, and that healthcare, criminal justice, and related social costs ran between $5 billion and $10 billion annually. The proper question, he said, was whether Congress had a rational basis for its economic conclusions, not whether the Court agreed with them.8Supreme Court of the United States. United States v Morrison – Dissenting Opinion
What Victims Can Do After Morrison
With the federal civil cause of action gone, victims of gender-motivated violence are left with state law. Common tort claims against an assailant include assault, battery, false imprisonment, and intentional infliction of emotional distress. Negligence claims against third parties, such as landlords, employers, or schools, may be available where inadequate security or negligent hiring played a role.
Civil suits carry a lower evidentiary bar than criminal cases. Instead of proof beyond a reasonable doubt, a plaintiff needs to show the defendant is more likely than not responsible, the preponderance of the evidence standard. A victim can win a civil judgment even when prosecutors decline to charge or a criminal jury acquits. Damages can include medical costs, lost income, emotional suffering, and sometimes punitive awards.
The costs are real too. Victims bear the litigation expense, face statutes of limitations that vary widely by state, and must work through the same state court systems Congress had tried to route around. The majority acknowledged this. If Brzonkala’s allegations were true, the Court wrote, “no civilized system of justice could fail to provide her a remedy.” Under the federal system, though, that remedy had to come from Virginia, not the United States.7Justia. United States v Morrison, 529 US 598 (2000)
What Survived in VAWA
The ruling took down only Section 13981. The rest of the Violence Against Women Act stayed in force, including its federal grant programs for law enforcement training, shelters, and victim services, and its criminal provisions targeting interstate domestic violence and stalking.7Justia. United States v Morrison, 529 US 598 (2000) Congress later reauthorized VAWA and expanded its grant and criminal enforcement framework, areas grounded in the spending power and authority over interstate conduct.9EveryCRSReport.com. The Violence Against Women Act (VAWA): Historical Overview Neither reauthorization tried to revive the civil remedy. The provision, later editorially reclassified as 34 U.S.C. § 12361, remains unenforceable under Morrison.10Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 42 USC 13981
Why the Case Still Matters
Together with Lopez, Morrison drew a line that still governs Commerce Clause litigation. Congress cannot regulate noneconomic, violent criminal conduct on the theory that its aggregate effects touch interstate commerce. Legislation reaching private conduct now needs a firmer hook: an economic activity, the spending power, or another enumerated authority.
The decision also tightened Section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment as a legislative tool. A Section 5 remedy has to target state action and be proportional to documented state-level discrimination, which makes it harder for Congress to create nationwide civil rights causes of action against private individuals. Critics say that reading limits Congress’s ability to address systemic discrimination. Supporters say it preserves the constitutional structure the Court described as leaving the “suppression of violent crime and vindication of its victims” to the states.1Supreme Court of the United States. United States v Morrison
For victims of gender-motivated violence, the practical takeaway has not changed since 2000. The federal courthouse door that Section 13981 briefly opened is closed. Any civil claim against a private attacker runs through state courts under state law, on state timelines.