Marino v. Ortiz, 484 U.S. 301 (1988), was a United States Supreme Court case which resulted from a lawsuit filed by 350 New York City police officers that pitted the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment against Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

The case originated with a lawsuit filed by African American and Hispanic advocacy groups (including the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund[1]) alleging that a police sergeant's examination had a disparate impact because the percentage of African Americans and Hispanics that passed the examination was disproportionate to overall percentage.

After the ruling but before the hearing, 350 police officers filed suit in the same court alleging that the settlement had deprived them of equal protection of the laws under the Fourteenth Amendment.

This resulted in a gridlock 4-4 tie vote in the matter of whether the officers were correct to file a separate suit challenging the settlement.

Sonia Sotomayor, a future Supreme Court appointee by Barack Obama, promoted the minority officers' cause while at the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund and would later rule against white plaintiffs in a similar case, Ricci v. DeStefano, in a decision that the Supreme Court would overturn by a 5–4 vote.