The Supreme Court decided Yick Wo v. Hopkins on May 10, 1886, establishing a landmark precedent on equal protection under the Fourteenth Amendment. The case challenged a San Francisco ordinance that required laundry operators to obtain permits before opening businesses. Though the law applied equally to all laundry owners on its face, city officials enforced it with explicit racial discrimination against Chinese immigrants.

Yick Wo, a Chinese immigrant who operated a laundry, was denied a permit while white applicants received approval at high rates. The Court ruled that enforcement of facially neutral laws with discriminatory intent violates the Equal Protection Clause. This distinction between neutral law and discriminatory application became foundational to American civil rights jurisprudence.

The decision held that government cannot hide racial discrimination behind formally equal rules. Officials denied permits to approximately 200 Chinese laundry operators while approving nearly all applications from white owners. The Court found this pattern of enforcement demonstrated intentional discrimination regardless of the ordinance's neutral wording.

Yick Wo v. Hopkins shaped how courts analyze civil rights claims for over a century. It established that discriminatory intent and effect matter as much as the text of a law. The ruling protected against what became known as "disparate impact" discrimination, where neutral rules produce racially skewed outcomes.

The case reflected the Chinese Exclusion Act era, when federal and state governments systematically targeted Chinese immigrants. San Francisco's permit scheme functioned as an economic barrier despite lacking explicit racial language. The Supreme Court rejected this indirect approach to racial discrimination, affirming that equal protection requires equal treatment in practice, not just in theory.

This precedent echoed through subsequent cases addressing voting rights, employment discrimination, and housing law. Courts now scrutinize whether neutral-seeming policies mask racial animus. Yick Wo v. Hopkins remains cited when plaintiffs challenge laws