The case was Craig v. Boren, in which the Court struck down an Oklahoma statute that allowed young women to purchase “near beer,” a beverage that contains only 3.2 percent alcohol, at age 18 but required young men to wait until they turned 21 to buy the weak brew. It was a silly law, which the state sought to justify on the ground that boys drive more, drink more, and commit more alcohol-related offenses than
