With no explanation, chose the best option from "A", "B", "C" or "D". exemption from the existing personal property restrictions.” J.A. 300-01. Defendants Garraghty and Millard now appeal. II. The Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment provides that “[n]o State shall ... deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” U.S. Const, amend. XIV, § 1. The Clause “does not take from the States all power of classification,” Personnel Adm’r of Mass. v. Feeney, 442 U.S. 256, 271, 99 S.Ct. 2282, 60 L.Ed.2d 870 (1979), but “keeps governmental decision-makers from treating differently persons who are in all relevant respects alike,” Nordlinger v. Hahn, 505 U.S. 1, 10, 112 S.Ct. 2326, 120 L.Ed.2d 1 (1992). See also City of Cleburne v. Cleburne Living Ctr., Inc., 473 U.S. 432, 440, 105 S.Ct. 3249, 87 L.Ed.2d 313 (1985) (<HOLDING>). To succeed on an equal protection claim, a

A: holding members of two distinct pension plans were not similarly situated for equal protection analysis
B: holding that to assert a viable equal protection claim plaintiffs must first make a threshold showing that they were differently treated from others who were similarly situated to them
C: holding that the equal protection clause is essentially a direction that all persons similarly situated should be treated alike
D: holding that an equal protection violation may occur when similarly situated persons are not treated equally under the law quotation marks omitted
C.