Strict scrutiny is a form of judicial review that courts use to
determine the constitutionality of certain laws. To pass strict
scrutiny, the legislature must have passed the law to further a
"compelling governmental interest," and must have narrowly
tailored the law to achieve that interest. A famous quip asserts
that strict scrutiny is "strict in name, but fatal in practice."
For a court to apply strict scrutiny, the legislature must
either have significantly abridged a fundamental right with the
law's enactment or have passed a law that involves a suspect
classification. Suspect classifications have come to include
race, national origin, religion, alienage, and poverty. Compare
to intermediate scrutiny and rational basis. Definition from
Nolo’s Plain-English Law Dictionary A legal standard to
determine the constitutionality of a statute, used when the
statute implicates a fundamental right or relates to a suspect
classification under the equal protection clause (such as race).
To determine if a statute pas