The Massachusetts et al. v. Feeney case in 1976 revolved around a state law that gave absolute preference to veterans for public employment, which was challenged as discriminatory against women since the majority of veterans were men. The Supreme Court ruled in favor of Massachusetts, stating that while the law did disproportionately affect women, it was not enacted with explicit intent to discriminate based on gender but rather to benefit a specific group - veterans. Therefore, it did not violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. This decision established an important legal precedent: laws resulting in disparate impact do not necessarily constitute discrimination unless there is clear evidence they were designed with discriminatory intent.

In the dissenting opinion for Massachusetts v. Feeney, Justice Brennan argued that the Massachusetts law giving absolute preference to veterans in civil service hiring was unconstitutional because it discriminated against women. He contended that while the law appeared gender-neutral on its surface, it had a discriminatory impact as 98% of veterans were men at the time. Thus, he believed this constituted de facto discrimination and violated equal protection principles under the Fourteenth Amendment. Furthermore, Justice Brennan disagreed with majority's interpretation of intent; he asserted that intentional discrimination could be inferred from lawmakers' awareness of such disparate impacts when enacting or maintaining laws even if there wasn't explicit intention to discriminate based on sex.