In the case of Califano v. Webster, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of Mrs. Carmen Webster, a retired worker who challenged the Social Security Act's formula for calculating retirement benefits which favored women over men. The Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare argued that this provision was designed to compensate women for their years out of workforce due to child-rearing or other family responsibilities; however, it did not take into account individual circumstances and applied universally to all female beneficiaries regardless if they had such interruptions in their careers or not. The court held that this gender-based distinction violated equal protection principles under the Fifth Amendment’s Due Process Clause as it constituted "invidious discrimination". This ruling marked an important step towards gender equality by eliminating discriminatory provisions from federal law.

In the dissenting opinion for Califano v. Webster, Justice Rehnquist disagreed with the majority's decision to uphold a provision of the Social Security Act that allowed women to exclude more low-earning years from their benefit calculations than men. He argued that this was not merely an attempt to rectify past discrimination but rather constituted "a naked preference" in favor of women over men, which violated equal protection principles. He also contended that there was no evidence showing Congress intended this differential treatment as a remedy for societal discrimination against women and thus it should not be justified under such grounds. Furthermore, he expressed concern about potential implications of the ruling on other gender-based classifications in federal social welfare legislation.