Frontiero v. Richardson , U. Frontiero is an important decision in several respects, including the fact that it informed the military establishment that in terms of pay, allowances and general treatment, women must be considered on an equal plane as men. However, the Court did not issue a broad decision requiring the military to prove in the courts its reasons for excluding women from combat positions. Sharron Frontiero, a lieutenant in the United States Air Force , applied for housing and medical benefits for her husband, Joseph, whom she claimed as a "dependent.
Joseph did not qualify under this rule, and therefore could not get benefits. Sharron sued, and the case was appealed up to the Supreme Court. Frontiero was represented by Joseph J. Levin, Jr. It was her first time giving an oral argument in front of the court. At the time Ginsburg was only a legal advocate on behalf of women's rights.
While prepping for the appeal in the case, the SPLC faction had reached out to Ginsburg for aid, with recognition to her partial victory in the Reed v. Reed case of only a year prior, Ginsburg argued for the "strict scrutiny" classification to be upheld when looking at any case that was involved in gender discrimination.
Her appearance before the court lasted in a 10 minute argument. All I ask of our brethren is that they take their feet off our necks. In a plurality opinion written by Associate Justice William J. Brennan Jr. The Air Force argued that the policy was intended to save administrative costs by not forcing the military bureaucracy to determine that every wife was in fact a dependent.
Justice Brennan dismissed this argument, saying that, although as an empirical matter more wives than husbands are dependent for support on their spouses, still, by automatically granting benefits to wives who might not truly be dependents, the Air Force might actually be losing money because of this policy—and the Air Force had not presented evidence to the contrary.
