## Facts

- New York’s Constitution and Civil Service Law awarded certain veterans bonus points on civil service examinations.
- Eligibility required (1) honorable discharge, (2) wartime service, and (3) New York residence at the time the veteran entered military service.
- The preference was usable only once (for initial appointment or a single promotion).
- The plaintiffs were honorably discharged wartime Army veterans who became long-term New York residents and passed New York City civil service examinations.
- They were denied the preference solely because they were not New York residents when they entered the military.
- They challenged the prior-residence condition as violating equal protection and the constitutional right to travel.

## Issues

1. Whether conditioning a veterans’ civil-service preference on being a state resident at the time of enlistment penalizes interstate migration and violates the Equal Protection Clause.
2. What level of scrutiny applies to a classification that disfavors later-arriving residents, and whether the law can survive under the applicable standard.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court affirmed the judgment invalidating the prior-residence requirement, in a 6–3 decision with a plurality and concurrences on different rationales.
- A four-Justice plurality held the requirement penalized the right to travel and therefore required heightened scrutiny, which the law failed.
- Two Justices concurred in the judgment on equal protection grounds, concluding the classification was irrational even under rational-basis review.
- Three Justices dissented, arguing the preference did not meaningfully burden a fundamental right and should be upheld.

## Legal Principles

- A state violates equal protection when it conditions benefits on a residency-based classification that penalizes interstate migration by favoring earlier residents over later-arriving residents.
- When a law penalizes the constitutional right to travel by disadvantaging new residents based on their migration history, heightened equal protection scrutiny applies and the state must justify the classification with a sufficiently strong interest and a close fit.
- Even under rational-basis review, a state benefit scheme may be invalid if it irrationally discriminates among similarly situated persons based solely on past residence unrelated to legitimate state objectives.

## Conclusion

New York could not constitutionally limit veterans’ civil-service bonus points to those who were New York residents when they entered military service; the Court held the prior-residence condition unlawfully discriminated against later-arriving resident veterans under equal protection principles, with the plurality treating it as a penalty on the right to travel.


Attorney General of N.Y. v. Soto-Lopez, 476 U.S. 898 (1986)