## Facts

- The Board of Education of the City of Chicago provided employee health benefits and spousal coverage, but historically did not cover unmarried partners.
- In 1999, the Board extended spousal-type health benefits to “domestic partners,” but limited eligibility to same-sex domestic partners.
- Milagros Irizarry, a Chicago public school employee, lived for more than twenty years with a male partner and had children with him, but they were not married.
- Irizarry’s partner satisfied the policy’s domestic-partner criteria except for the same-sex requirement, and therefore was ineligible for coverage.
- The Board adopted the same-sex limitation to address that same-sex couples could not marry under Illinois law, while opposite-sex couples could obtain spousal benefits by marrying.
- Irizarry alleged the exclusion of opposite-sex domestic partners violated equal protection and, secondarily, substantive due process.

## Issues

1. Whether a public employer violates the Equal Protection Clause by offering domestic-partner health benefits to same-sex partners but not to opposite-sex unmarried partners who may marry.
2. Whether denying benefits to opposite-sex domestic partners violates substantive due process.

## Decision

- The Seventh Circuit affirmed dismissal under Rule 12(b)(6) for failure to state a constitutional claim.
- The court applied rational basis review and held the same-sex-only domestic partner benefit policy was rationally related to legitimate governmental interests.
- The court rejected the substantive due process claim because the policy did not burden a fundamental right and was supported by rational justifications.

## Legal Principles

- Under rational basis review, a government policy satisfies equal protection if any reasonably conceivable set of facts could provide a rational relation to a legitimate governmental interest.
- A public employer may treat marriage as the default gateway for opposite-sex couples to obtain spousal benefits and may extend domestic-partner benefits to same-sex couples to address their inability to marry under state law.
- Offering benefits to attract and retain employees, including recruiting teachers to better serve student needs, is a legitimate governmental interest; rational basis review does not require proof that the policy will succeed.
- A benefits policy that conditions spousal-type coverage on marriage for opposite-sex couples does not, without more, infringe a fundamental right and therefore does not trigger heightened scrutiny under due process or equal protection.

## Conclusion

The court upheld a school board policy limiting domestic-partner health benefits to same-sex partners, reasoning that it was rational to provide a substitute for couples barred from marriage while leaving opposite-sex couples to obtain equivalent coverage through marriage, and that no fundamental right was infringed.


Irizarry v. Bd. of Educ. of Chi., 251 F.3d 604 (7th Cir. 2001)