第二段：14修正案所用的broad language强烈地表明了提案者的目的并不是要提出谁的权力应该受保护的名单，而是要在宪法中建立建立这样一个原则：任何一个个人都不应该被当做低等阶层对待。但是14修正案提出后的80年间，最高法院对它的解释违背了它的这个平等的想法。举例:1883年的Civil Rights Cases中最高法院发明了“state action”这样的一个限制，将public accommodations and other commercial businesses所有者的四人决定孤立于14修正案的法律平等保护之外。中华考试网(www.Examw。com)
After the Second World War, a judicial climate more hospitable to equal protection claims culminated in the Supreme Court’s ruling in Brown v. Board of Education that racially segregated schools violated the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Two doctrines embraced by the Supreme Court during this period extended the amendment’s reach. First, the Court required especially strict scrutiny of legislation that employed a “suspect classification,” meaning discrimination against a group on grounds that could be construed as racial. This doctrine has broadened the application of the Fourteenth Amendment to other, nonracial forms of discrimination, for while some justices have refused to find any legislative classification other than race to be constitutionally disfavored, most have been receptive to arguments that at least some nonracial discriminations, sexual discrimination in particular, are “suspect” and deserve this heightened scrutiny by the courts. Second, the Court relaxed the state action limitation on the Fourteenth Amendment, bringing new forms of private conduct within the amendment’s reach.
第三段：二战后，最高法院积聚了一个对equal protection更友好的法律氛围，它认为种族隔离的学校违背了14修正案的平等条款。这一时期，最高法院支持了2个扩展14修正案覆盖范围的文件。第一个：要求立法的严格审核，应用了“怀疑分类法”，。。。这个文件扩展了14修正案的应用，将他扩展到非种族的歧视。因为尽管某些人拒绝找除种族之外的歧视，大部分人接受这样一种论断：至少有一些种族歧视以外的歧视，特别是性别歧视，是可疑的并应该受到严格审查。第二个：最高法院取消了(第二段中提到的那个)state action limitation，使得14修正案可以应用的范围包括了新形式的私人行为。
