## Facts

- Federal statutes set different “up-or-out” tenure rules for male and certain female Navy line officers who were not selected for promotion.
- Under 10 U.S.C. § 6382(a), a male line officer twice passed over for promotion to lieutenant commander faced mandatory discharge after roughly 9–10 years of commissioned service.
- Under 10 U.S.C. § 6401, certain female line officers could remain on active duty for up to 13 years before mandatory separation after comparable promotion failures.
- Robert C. Ballard, a male Navy lieutenant with more than nine years of commissioned service, twice failed selection for promotion and became subject to discharge under § 6382(a).
- Ballard claimed that the longer tenure available to women under § 6401 denied him equal protection as incorporated through the Fifth Amendment’s Due Process Clause.
- Congress justified the longer tenure for women based on legal limits then preventing female line officers from combat duty and most sea duty, which narrowed their opportunities for professional experience and promotion.

## Issues

1. Whether differing statutory discharge rules that allowed certain female naval officers longer commissioned service and additional promotion chances than male officers violated the Fifth Amendment’s equal protection component.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court reversed the three-judge district court and upheld the statutory scheme.
- The Court held that the sex-based tenure distinction was completely rational and did not violate the Due Process Clause.
- The Court concluded the difference was tied to legally imposed limits on women’s assignments and served Congress’s aim of providing fair and equitable advancement opportunities.
- A dissent would have applied a more demanding standard to invalidate the classification as impermissible sex-based preference.

## Legal Principles

- A sex-based classification in federal law may be sustained under the Fifth Amendment when it rationally responds to real differences in legally available opportunities rather than administrative convenience or stereotyped assumptions.
- Congress may adopt a compensatory personnel rule in the military to offset constraints that affect one sex’s professional development and promotion prospects.
- Courts give substantial weight to congressional judgments in structuring military personnel systems, including rules designed to maintain promotion flow and staffing consistent with service needs.

## Conclusion

The Court upheld longer statutory tenure for certain female naval line officers as a rational, compensatory measure addressing then-existing legal restrictions on women’s military assignments, and therefore found no Fifth Amendment violation when a male officer received shorter tenure before mandatory discharge for nonpromotion.


Schlesinger v. Ballard, 419 U.S. 498 (1975)