Yick Wo
E437928
Yick Wo was a Chinese immigrant in San Francisco whose challenge to discriminatory enforcement of a city ordinance led to the landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision in Yick Wo v. Hopkins, establishing that laws applied with unequal impact violate the Equal Protection Clause.
All labels observed (1)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| Yick Wo canonical | 3 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T4407532 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
NED1
Entity disambiguation (via context triple)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Yick Wo Context triple: [Yick Wo v. Hopkins, plaintiff, Yick Wo]
-
A.
Dred Scott
Dred Scott was an enslaved African American man whose unsuccessful lawsuit for freedom led to the infamous 1857 Supreme Court decision denying citizenship and rights to Black people in the United States.
-
B.
Thurgood Jenkins
Thurgood Jenkins is the bumbling, good-hearted stoner protagonist of the 1998 cannabis comedy film "Half Baked," played by Dave Chappelle.
-
C.
William Henry Furman
William Henry Furman was the defendant in the landmark U.S. Supreme Court case Furman v. Georgia, which led to a temporary halt of capital punishment nationwide in 1972.
-
D.
Homer Plessy
Homer Plessy was a mixed-race Louisiana shoemaker and civil rights activist best known for challenging racial segregation laws in the landmark 1896 U.S. Supreme Court case Plessy v. Ferguson.
-
E.
Thomas Prosser
Thomas Prosser was a 19th-century British railway architect best known for designing major stations such as York railway station.
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
NED2
Entity disambiguation (via description)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Yick Wo Target entity description: Yick Wo was a Chinese immigrant in San Francisco whose challenge to discriminatory enforcement of a city ordinance led to the landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision in Yick Wo v. Hopkins, establishing that laws applied with unequal impact violate the Equal Protection Clause.
-
A.
Dred Scott
Dred Scott was an enslaved African American man whose unsuccessful lawsuit for freedom led to the infamous 1857 Supreme Court decision denying citizenship and rights to Black people in the United States.
-
B.
Thurgood Jenkins
Thurgood Jenkins is the bumbling, good-hearted stoner protagonist of the 1998 cannabis comedy film "Half Baked," played by Dave Chappelle.
-
C.
William Henry Furman
William Henry Furman was the defendant in the landmark U.S. Supreme Court case Furman v. Georgia, which led to a temporary halt of capital punishment nationwide in 1972.
-
D.
Homer Plessy
Homer Plessy was a mixed-race Louisiana shoemaker and civil rights activist best known for challenging racial segregation laws in the landmark 1896 U.S. Supreme Court case Plessy v. Ferguson.
-
E.
Thomas Prosser
Thomas Prosser was a 19th-century British railway architect best known for designing major stations such as York railway station.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (25)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
Chinese immigrant
ⓘ
person ⓘ |
| affectedGroup | Chinese immigrants in San Francisco ⓘ |
| caseCitation |
Yick Wo v. Hopkins, 118 U.S. 356 (1886)
ⓘ
linked to:
Yick Wo v. Hopkins
|
| constitutionalAmendmentInvolved |
Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution
ⓘ
linked to:
Fourteenth Amendment
|
| countryOfOrigin | China ⓘ |
| ethnicity | Chinese ⓘ |
| historicalPeriod | 19th century ⓘ |
| impactOnCivilRights | strengthened protections for racial minorities under equal protection doctrine ⓘ |
| impactOnLaw | set precedent against racially discriminatory law enforcement ⓘ |
| jurisdictionOfCase |
United States Supreme Court
ⓘ
linked to:
Supreme Court of the United States
|
| legalCase | Yick Wo v. Hopkins ⓘ |
| legalIssue |
discriminatory enforcement of a city ordinance
ⓘ
equal protection under the law ⓘ |
| legalOutcomeSignificance |
established that laws applied with unequal impact can violate the Equal Protection Clause
ⓘ
expanded interpretation of the Equal Protection Clause to cover discriminatory application of facially neutral laws ⓘ |
| legalRightAsserted |
Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment
ⓘ
linked to:
Equal Protection Clause
|
| legalStrategy | challenged selective enforcement of licensing ordinance ⓘ |
| locationOfLegalCase |
San Francisco, California
ⓘ
linked to:
San Francisco
|
| notableFor |
being the named party in the U.S. Supreme Court case Yick Wo v. Hopkins
ⓘ
challenging discriminatory enforcement of a San Francisco ordinance ⓘ |
| occupation | laundry operator ⓘ |
| operatedBusinessType | laundry ⓘ |
| residence | San Francisco ⓘ |
| roleInLegalCase | plaintiff ⓘ |
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: Yick Wo Description of subject: Yick Wo was a Chinese immigrant in San Francisco whose challenge to discriminatory enforcement of a city ordinance led to the landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision in Yick Wo v. Hopkins, establishing that laws applied with unequal impact violate the Equal Protection Clause.
Referenced by (3)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.