## Facts

- The Philadelphia public high school system included several types of schools, including two selective, city-wide “academic” high schools offering only college-preparatory curricula.
- Central High School admitted only boys; Girls High School admitted only girls.
- The trial court found, and the court of appeals accepted, that Central and Girls High were “substantially equal” in academic quality and most opportunities offered.
- Susan Lynn Vorchheimer, an honors graduate of a Philadelphia junior high school, applied to Central and was denied admission solely because she was female.
- Vorchheimer attended a coeducational comprehensive high school and filed a class action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 alleging the single-sex academic high schools violated the Equal Protection Clause.
- The district court enjoined the School District and ordered admission of qualified female students to Central.

## Issues

1. Whether a public school district violates the Equal Protection Clause by maintaining a limited number of voluntary, single-sex public high schools when educational opportunities for boys and girls are essentially equal.
2. Whether excluding an otherwise qualified student from a selective public high school solely based on sex is unconstitutional where a substantially equal single-sex counterpart exists.

## Decision

- The Third Circuit vacated the district court’s injunction and upheld the School District’s policy.
- The court held that maintaining voluntary, substantially equal single-sex academic high schools within an otherwise coeducational system did not deny equal protection.
- The Supreme Court later affirmed the Third Circuit’s judgment by an equally divided Court, leaving the appellate judgment in place without a controlling Supreme Court rationale.

## Legal Principles

- Sex-based classifications are not automatically invalid; the constitutional analysis turns on whether the classification is justified by legitimate governmental objectives and whether the scheme results in unequal educational opportunity.
- A public school district may maintain single-sex schools if enrollment is voluntary and the educational opportunities offered to each sex are essentially equal.
- Minor differences between parallel single-sex schools do not establish an equal protection violation absent a showing of meaningful inequality or invidious discrimination.
- In assessing sex-separated education, courts may consider the system-wide context, including the availability of coeducational alternatives and whether students are compelled into single-sex schooling.

## Conclusion

The Third Circuit concluded that Philadelphia’s operation of separate, selective academic high schools for boys and girls, found substantially equal and offered on a voluntary basis within a largely coeducational system, did not violate the Equal Protection Clause, and it vacated an injunction requiring Central High School to admit qualified female applicants.


Vorchheimer v. Sch. Dist. of Phila., 532 F.2d 880 (3d Cir. 1976)