Equal Protection: Race
Defining State Action
Shelley v. Kraemer (1948)
334 U.S. 1 (1948)
Vote: 6-0
Decision: Reversed
Majority: Vinson, joined by Black, Frankfurter, Douglas, Murphy and Burton
Not participating: Reed, Jackson, and Rutledge
Chief Justice Vinson delivered the Opinion of the Court.
These cases present for our consideration questions relating to the validity of court enforcement of private agreements, generally described as restrictive covenants, which have as their purpose the exclusion of persons of designated race or color from the ownership or occupancy of real property. Basic constitutional issues of obvious importance have been raised.
The first of these cases comes to this Court on certiorari to the Supreme Court of Missouri. On February 16, 1911, thirty out of a total of thirty-nine owners of property fronting both sides of Labadie Avenue between Taylor Avenue and Cora Avenue in the city of St. Louis, signed an agreement, which was subsequently recorded, providing in part:
“ … the said property is hereby restricted to the use and occupancy for the term of Fifty (50) years from this date, so that it shall be a condition all the time and whether recited and referred to as [sic] not in subsequent conveyances and shall attach to the land as a condition precedent to the sale of the same, that hereafter no part of said property or any portion thereof shall be, for said term of Fifty-years, occupied by any person not of the Caucasian race, it being intended hereby to restrict the use of said property for said period of time against the occupancy as owners or tenants of any portion of said property for resident or other purpose by people of the Negro or Mongolian Race.”
The entire district described in the agreement included fifty-seven parcels of land. The thirty owners who signed the agreement held title to forty-seven parcels, including the particular parcel involved in this case. At the time the agreement was signed, five of the parcels in the district were owned by Negroes. One of those had been occupied by Negro families since 1882, nearly thirty years before the restrictive agreement was executed. The trial court found that owners of seven out of nine homes on the south side of Labadie Avenue, within the restricted district and “in the immediate vicinity” of the premises in question, had failed to sign the restrictive agreement in 1911. At the time this action was brought, four of the premises were occupied by Negroes, and had been so occupied for periods ranging from twenty-three to sixty-three years. A fifth parcel had been occupied by Negroes until a year before this suit was instituted.
On August 11, 1945, pursuant to a contract of sale, petitioners Shelley, who are Negroes, for valuable consideration received from one Fitzgerald a warranty deed to the parcel in question. The trial court found that petitioners had no actual knowledge of the restrictive agreement at the time of the purchase.
On October 9, 1945, respondents, as owners of other property subject to the terms of the restrictive covenant, brought suit in the Circuit Court of the city of St. Louis praying that petitioners Shelley be restrained from taking possession of the property and that judgment be entered divesting title out of petitioners Shelley and revesting title in the immediate grantor or in such other person as the court should direct. The trial court denied the requested relief on the ground that the restrictive agreement, upon which respondents based their action, had never become final and complete because it was the intention of the parties to that agreement that it was not to become effective until signed by all property owners in the district, and signatures of all the owners had never been obtained.
The Supreme Court of Missouri sitting en banc reversed and directed the trial court to grant the relief for which respondents had prayed. That court held the agreement effective and concluded that enforcement of its provisions violated no rights guaranteed to petitioners by the Federal Constitution. At the time the court rendered its decision, petitioners were occupying the property in question.
The second of the cases under consideration comes to this Court from the Supreme Court of Michigan. The circumstances presented do not differ materially from the Missouri case …
Whether the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment inhibits judicial enforcement by state courts of restrictive covenants based on race or color is a question which this Court has not heretofore been called upon to consider …
[But it is] clear that restrictions on the right of occupancy of the sort sought to be created by the private agreements in these cases could not be squared with the requirements of the Fourteenth Amendment if imposed by state statute or local ordinance. We do not understand respondents to urge the contrary …
Here the particular patterns of discrimination and the areas in which the restrictions are to operate, are determined, in the first instance, by the terms of agreements among private individuals. Participation of the State consists in the enforcement of the restrictions so defined. The crucial issue with which we are here confronted is whether this distinction removes these cases from the operation of the prohibitory provisions of the Fourteenth Amendment.
Since the decision of this Court in the Civil Rights Cases, 109 U.S. 3 (1883), the principle has become firmly embedded in our constitutional law that the action inhibited by the first section of the Fourteenth Amendment is only such action as may fairly be said to be that of the States. That Amendment erects no shield against merely private conduct, however discriminatory or wrongful.
We conclude, therefore, that the restrictive agreements standing alone cannot be regarded as a violation of any rights guaranteed to petitioners by the Fourteenth Amendment. So long as the purposes of those agreements are effectuated by voluntary adherence to their terms, it would appear clear that there has been no action by the state and the provisions of the Amendment have not been violated.
But here there was more. These are cases in which the purposes of the agreements were secured only by judicial enforcement by state courts of the restrictive terms of the agreements. The respondents urge that judicial enforcement of private agreements does not amount to state action; or, in any event, the participation of the State is so attenuated in character as not to amount to state action within the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment. Finally, it is suggested, even if the States in these cases may be deemed to have acted in the constitutional sense, their action did not deprive petitioners of rights guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment. We move to a consideration of these matters.
… [T]he examples of state judicial action which have been held by this Court to violate the Amendment’s commands are not restricted to situations in which the judicial proceedings were found in some manner to be procedurally unfair. It has been recognized that the action of state courts in enforcing a substantive common-law rule formulated by those courts, may result in the denial of rights guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment, even though the judicial proceedings in such cases may have been in complete accord with the most rigorous conceptions of procedural due process …
The short of the matter is that from the time of the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment until the present, it has been the consistent ruling of this Court that the action of the States to which the Amendment has reference, includes action of state courts and state judicial officials … [I]t has never been suggested that state court action is immunized from the operation of those provisions simply because the act is that of the judicial branch of the state government.
Against this background of judicial construction, extending over a period of some three-quarters of a century, we are called upon to consider whether enforcement by state courts of the restrictive agreements in these cases may be deemed to be the acts of those States; and, if so, whether that action has denied these petitioners the equal protection of the laws which the Amendment was intended to insure.
We have no doubt that there has been state action in these cases in the full and complete sense of the phrase. The undisputed facts disclose that petitioners were willing purchasers of properties upon which they desired to establish homes. The owners of the properties were willing sellers; and contracts of sale were accordingly consummated. It is clear that but for the active intervention of the state courts, supported by the full panoply of state power, petitioners would have been free to occupy the properties in question without restraint.
…
The enforcement of the restrictive agreements by the state courts in these cases was directed pursuant to the common-law policy of the States as formulated by those courts in earlier decisions. In the Missouri case, enforcement of the covenant was directed in the first instance by the highest court of the State after the trial court had determined the agreement to be invalid for want of the requisite number of signatures. In the Michigan case, the order of enforcement by the trial court was affirmed by the highest state court. The judicial action in each case bears the clear and unmistakable imprimatur of the State. We have noted that previous decisions of this Court have established the proposition that judicial action is not immunized from the operation of the Fourteenth Amendment simply because it is taken pursuant to the state’s common-law policy. Nor is the Amendment ineffective simply because the particular pattern of discrimination, which the State has enforced, was defined initially by the terms of a private agreement …
Respondents urge, however, that since the state courts stand ready to enforce restrictive covenants excluding white persons from the ownership or occupancy of property covered by such agreements, enforcement of covenants excluding colored persons may not be deemed a denial of equal protection of the laws to the colored persons who are thereby affected. This contention does not bear scrutiny. The parties have directed our attention to no case in which a court, state or federal, has been called upon to enforce a covenant excluding members of the white majority from ownership or occupancy of real property on grounds of race or color. But there are more fundamental considerations. The rights created by the first section of the Fourteenth Amendment are, by its terms, guaranteed to the individual. The rights established are personal rights. It is, therefore, no answer to these petitioners to say that the courts may also be induced to deny white persons rights of ownership and occupancy on grounds of race or color. Equal protection of the laws is not achieved through indiscriminate imposition of inequalities.
Nor do we find merit in the suggestion that property owners who are parties to these agreements are denied equal protection of the laws if denied access to the courts to enforce the terms of restrictive covenants and to assert property rights which the state courts have held to be created by such agreements. The Constitution confers upon no individual the right to demand action by the State which results in the denial of equal protection of the laws to other individuals. And it would appear beyond question that the power of the State to create and enforce property interests must be exercised within the boundaries defined by the Fourteenth Amendment. Cf. Marsh v. Alabama (1946). […]
Reversed.
Burton v. Wilmington Parking Authority (1961)
365 U.S. 715 (1961)
Vote: 6-3
Decision: Reversed
Majority: Clark, joined by Warren, Black, Douglas, and Brennan
Concurrence: Stewart
Dissent: Frankfurter
Dissent: Harlan, joined by and Whittaker
Mr. Justice Clark delivered the opinion of the Court.
In this action for declaratory and injunctive relief, it is admitted that the Eagle Coffee Shoppe, Inc., a restaurant located within an off-street automobile parking building in Wilmington, Delaware, has refused to serve appellant food or drink solely because he is a Negro. The parking building is owned and operated by the Wilmington Parking Authority, an agency of the State of Delaware, and the restaurant is the Authority’s lessee. Appellant claims that such refusal abridges his rights under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. The Supreme Court of Delaware has held that Eagle was acting in “a purely private capacity” under its lease; that its action was not that of the Authority, and was not, therefore, state action within the contemplation of the prohibitions contained in that Amendment … On appeal here from the judgment as having been based upon a statute construed unconstitutionally, we postponed consideration of the question of jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1257(2), to the hearing on the merits … We agree with the respondents that the appeal should be dismissed, and accordingly the motion to dismiss is granted. However, since the action of Eagle in excluding appellant raises an important constitutional question, the papers whereon the appeal was taken are treated as a petition for a writ of certiorari, 28 U.S.C. § 2103, and the writ is granted. 28 U.S.C. § 1257(3). On the merits, we have concluded that the exclusion of appellant under the circumstances shown to be present here was discriminatory state action in violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
…
Agreeing to pay an annual rental of $28,700, Eagle covenanted to
“occupy and use the leased premises in accordance with all applicable laws, statutes, ordinances and rules and regulations of any federal, state or municipal authority.”
Its lease, however, contains no requirement that its restaurant services be made available to the general public on a nondiscriminatory basis, in spite of the fact that the Authority has power to adopt rules and regulations respecting the use of its facilities except any as would impair the security of its bondholders …
In August, 1958, appellant parked his car in the building and walked around to enter the restaurant by its front door on Ninth Street. Having entered and sought service, he was refused it. Thereafter, he filed this declaratory judgment action in the Court of Chancery. On motions for summary judgment, based on the pleadings and affidavits, the Chancellor concluded, contrary to the contentions of respondents, that whether in fact the lease was a “device” or was executed in good faith, it would not “serve to insulate the public authority from the force and effect of the Fourteenth Amendment.” … The Supreme Court of Delaware reversed … holding that Eagle, “in the conduct of its business, is acting in a purely private capacity.” It therefore denied appellant’s claim under the Fourteenth Amendment … Delaware’s highest court has thus denied the equal protection claim of the appellant …
…
… It is clear, as it always has been since the Civil Rights Cases, supra, that “Individual invasion of individual rights is not the subject matter of the amendment,” at 109 U. S. 11, and that private conduct abridging individual rights does no violence to the Equal Protection Clause unless, to some significant extent, the State, in any of its manifestations, has been found to have become involved in it … to fashion and apply a precise formula for recognition of state responsibility under the Equal Protection Clause is an “impossible task” which “This Court has never attempted.” Kotch v. Board of River Port Pilot Comm’rs [1947]. Only by sifting facts and weighing circumstances can the nonobvious involvement of the State in private conduct be attributed its true significance.
… [T]he Delaware Supreme Court seems to have placed controlling emphasis on its conclusion, as to the accuracy of which there is doubt, that only some 15% of the total cost of the facility was “advanced” from public funds; … that the Authority had no original intent to place a restaurant in the building, it being only a happenstance resulting from the bidding; that Eagle expended considerable moneys on furnishings; that the restaurant’s main and marked public entrance is on Ninth Street, without any public entrance direct from the parking area; and that
“the only connection Eagle has with the public facility … is the furnishing of the sum of $28,700 annually in the form of rent which is used by the Authority to defray a portion of the operating expense of an otherwise unprofitable enterprise.”
… While these factual considerations are indeed validly accountable aspects of the enterprise upon which the State has embarked, we cannot say that they lead inescapably to the conclusion that state action is not present. Their persuasiveness is diminished when evaluated in the context of other factors which must be acknowledged.
The land and building were publicly owned. As an entity, the building was dedicated to “public uses” in performance of the Authority’s “essential governmental functions.” 22 Del.Code, §§ 501, 514. The costs of land acquisition, construction, and maintenance are defrayed entirely from donations by the City of Wilmington, from loans and revenue bonds, and from the proceeds of rentals and parking services out of which the loans and bonds were payable. Assuming that the distinction would be significant, cf. Derrington v. Plummer, the commercially leased areas were not surplus state property, but constituted a physically and financially integral and, indeed, indispensable part of the State’s plan to operate its project as a self-sustaining unit. Upkeep and maintenance of the building, including necessary repairs, were responsibilities of the Authority, and were payable out of public funds. It cannot be doubted that the peculiar relationship of the restaurant to the parking facility in which it is located confers on each an incidental variety of mutual benefits. Guests of the restaurant are afforded a convenient place to park their automobiles, even if they cannot enter the restaurant directly from the parking area. Similarly, its convenience for diners may well provide additional demand for the Authority’s parking facilities. Should any improvements effected in the leasehold by Eagle become part of the realty, there is no possibility of increased taxes’ being passed on to it, since the fee is held by a tax-exempt government agency. Neither can it be ignored, especially in view of Eagle’s affirmative allegation that for it to serve Negroes would injure its business, that profits earned by discrimination not only contribute to, but also are indispensable elements in, the financial success of a governmental agency.
Addition of all these activities, obligations and responsibilities of the Authority, the benefits mutually conferred, together with the obvious fact that the restaurant is operated as an integral part of a public building devoted to a public parking service, indicates that degree of state participation and involvement in discriminatory action which it was the design of the Fourteenth Amendment to condemn. It is irony amounting to grave injustice that, in one part of a single building, erected and maintained with public funds by an agency of the State to serve a public purpose, all persons have equal rights, while in another portion, also serving the public, a Negro is a second-class citizen, offensive because of his race, without rights and unentitled to service, but at the same time fully enjoys equal access to nearby restaurants in wholly privately owned buildings … By its inaction, the Authority, and through it the State, has not only made itself a party to the refusal of service, but has elected to place its power, property and prestige behind the admitted discrimination. The State has so far insinuated itself into a position of interdependence with Eagle that it must be recognized as a joint participant in the challenged activity, which, on that account, cannot be considered to have been so “purely private” as to fall without the scope of the Fourteenth Amendment.
Because readily applicable formulae may not be fashioned, the conclusions drawn from the facts and circumstances of this record are by no means declared as universal truths on the basis of which every state leasing agreement is to be tested. Owing to the very “largeness” of government, a multitude of relationships might appear to some to fall within the Amendment’s embrace, but that, it must be remembered, can be determined only in the framework of the peculiar facts or circumstances present. Therefore, respondents’ prophecy of nigh universal application of a constitutional precept so peculiarly dependent for its invocation upon appropriate facts fails to take into account “Differences in circumstances [which] beget appropriate differences in law,” Whitney v. State Tax Comm’n, 309 U. S. 530, 309 U. S. 542. Specifically defining the limits of our inquiry, what we hold today is that, when a State leases public property in the manner and for the purpose shown to have been the case here, the proscriptions of the Fourteenth Amendment must be complied with by the lessee as certainly as though they were binding covenants written into the agreement itself.
The judgment of the Supreme Court of Delaware is reversed, and the cause remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
Reversed and remanded.
Reitman v. Mulkey (1967)
387 U.S. 369 (1967)
Vote: 5-4
Decision: Affirmed
Majority: Warren, joined by Douglas, Brennan, White, and Fortas
Dissent: Harlan, joined by Black, Clark, and Stewart
Justice White delivered the opinion of the Court.
The question here is whether Art. I, § 26, of the California Constitution denies “to any person … the equal protection of the laws” within the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States. Section 26 of Art. I, an initiated measure submitted to the people as Proposition 14 in a statewide ballot in 1964, provides in part as follows:
“Neither the State nor any subdivision or agency thereof shall deny, limit or abridge, directly or indirectly, the right of any person, who is willing or desires to sell, lease or rent any part or all of his real property, to decline to sell, lease or rent such property to such person or persons as he, in his absolute discretion, chooses.”
The real property covered by § 26 is limited to residential property, and contains an exception for state-owned real estate.
The issue arose in two separate actions in the California courts, Mulkey v. Reitman and Prendergast v. Snyder. In Reitman, the Mulkeys, who are husband and wife and respondents here, sued under § 51 and § 52 of the California Civil Code alleging that petitioners had refused to rent them an apartment solely on account of their race. An injunction and damages were demanded. Petitioners moved for summary judgment on the ground that §§ 51 and 52, insofar as they were the basis for the Mulkeys’ action, had been rendered null and void by the adoption of Proposition 14 after the filing of the complaint. The trial court granted the motion, and respondents took the case to the California Supreme Court.
…
In the Prendergast case, respondents, husband and wife, filed suit in December, 1964, seeking to enjoin eviction from their apartment; respondents alleged that the eviction was motivated by racial prejudice, and therefore would violate § 51 and § 52 of the Civil Code. Petitioner Snyder cross-complained for a judicial declaration that he was entitled to terminate the month-to-month tenancy even if his action was based on racial considerations. In denying petitioner’s motion for summary judgment, the trial court found it unnecessary to consider the validity of Proposition 14, because it concluded that judicial enforcement of an eviction based en racial grounds would, in any event, violate the Equal Protection Clause of the United States Constitution. The cross-complaint was dismissed with prejudice and petitioner Snyder appealed to the California Supreme Court, which considered the case along with Mulkey v. Reitman. That court, in reversing the Reitman case, held that Art. I, § 26, was invalid as denying the equal protection of the laws guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment. 64 Cal. 2d 529, 413 P.2d 825. For similar reasons, the court affirmed the judgment in the Prendergast case. 64 Cal. 2d 877, 413 P.2d 847. We granted certiorari because the cases involve an important issue arising under the Fourteenth Amendment.
We affirm the judgments of the California Supreme Court. We first turn to the opinion of that court in Reitman, which quite properly undertook to examine the constitutionality of § 26 in terms of its “immediate objective” its “ultimate effect” and its “historical context and the conditions existing prior to its enactment.” Judgments such as these we have frequently undertaken ourselves …
[Describes the California Supreme Court decision … ]
There is no sound reason for rejecting this judgment. Petitioners contend that the California court has misconstrued the Fourteenth Amendment, since the repeal of any statute prohibiting racial discrimination, which is constitutionally permissible, may be said to “authorize” and “encourage” discrimination because it makes legally permissible that which was formerly proscribed … [The California Supreme Court] did not read either our cases or the Fourteenth Amendment as establishing an automatic constitutional barrier to the repeal of an existing law prohibiting racial discriminations in housing; nor did the court rule that a State may never put in statutory form an existing policy of neutrality with respect to private discrimination. What the court below did was first to reject the notion that the State was required to have a statute prohibiting racial discriminations in housing. Second, it held the intent of § 26 was to authorize private racial discriminations in the housing market … and to create a constitutional right to discriminate on racial grounds in the sale and leasing of real property. Hence, the court dealt with § 26 as though it expressly authorized and constitutionalized the private right to discriminate. Third, the court assessed the ultimate impact of § 26 in the California environment, and concluded that the section would encourage and significantly involve the State in private racial discrimination contrary to the Fourteenth Amendment.
The California court could very reasonably conclude that § 26 would and did have wider impact than a mere repeal of existing statutes. Section 26 … announced the constitutional right of any person to decline to sell or lease his real property to anyone to whom he did not desire to sell or lease … But the section struck more deeply and more widely. Private discriminations in housing were now not only free from [statutory authority], but they also enjoyed a far different status than was true before the passage of those statutes. The right to discriminate, including the right to discriminate on racial grounds, was now embodied in the State’s basic charter, immune from legislative, executive, or judicial regulation at any level of the state government. Those practicing racial discriminations need no longer rely solely on their personal choice. They could now invoke express constitutional authority, free from censure or interference of any kind from official sources.
This Court has never attempted the “impossible task” of formulating an infallible test for determining whether the State “in any of its manifestations” has become significantly involved in private discriminations. “Only by sifting facts and weighing circumstances” on a case-by-case basis can a “nonobvious involvement of the State in private conduct be attributed its true significance.” Burton v. Wilmington Parking Authority, (1961). Here, the California court, armed as it was with the knowledge of the facts and circumstances concerning the passage and potential impact of § 26, and familiar with the milieu in which that provision would operate, has determined that the provision would involve the State in private racial discriminations to an unconstitutional degree. We accept this holding of the California court.
… Here we are dealing with a provision which does not just repeal an existing law forbidding private racial discriminations. Section 26 was intended to authorize, and does authorize, racial discrimination in the housing market. The right to discriminate is now one of the basic policies of the State. The California Supreme Court believes that the section will significantly encourage and involve the State in private discriminations. We have been presented with no persuasive considerations indicating that these judgments should be overturned.
Affirmed.
Moose Lodge v. Irvis (1972)
407 U.S. 163 (1972)
Vote: 6-3
Decision: Reversed and remanded
Majority: Rehnquist, joined by Burger, Stewart, White, Blackmun, and Powell
Dissent: Douglas, joined by Marshall
Dissent: Brennan, joined by Marshall
Justice Rehnquist delivered the opinion of the Court.
Appellee Irvis, a Negro (hereafter appellee), was refused service by appellant Moose Lodge, a local branch of the national fraternal organization located in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Appellee then brought this action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 for injunctive relief in the United States District Court … He claimed that, because the Pennsylvania liquor board had issued appellant Moose Lodge a private club license that authorized the sale of alcoholic beverages on its premises, the refusal of service to him was “state action” for the purposes of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. He named both Moose Lodge and the Pennsylvania Liquor Authority as defendants, seeking injunctive relief that would have required the defendant liquor board to revoke Moose Lodge’s license so long as it continued its discriminatory practices. Appellee sought no damages.
A three-judge district court, convened at appellee’s request, upheld his contention on the merits, and entered a decree declaring invalid the liquor license issued to Moose Lodge “as long as it follows a policy of racial discrimination in its membership or operating policies or practices.” Moose Lodge alone appealed from the decree …
…
The District Court did not find, and it could not have found on this record, that appellee had sought membership in Moose Lodge and been denied it. Appellant contends that, because of this fact, appellee had no standing to litigate the constitutional issue respecting Moose Lodge’s membership requirements, and that, therefore, the decree of the court below erred insofar as it decided that issue.
Any injury to appellee from the conduct of Moose Lodge stemmed not from the lodge’s membership requirements, but from its policies with respect to the serving of guests of members. Appellee has standing to seek redress for injuries done to him, but may not seek redress for injuries done to others.
…
Because appellee had no standing to litigate a constitutional claim arising out of Moose Lodge’s membership practices, the District Court erred in reaching that issue on the merits. But it did not err in reaching the constitutional claim of appellee that Moose Lodge’s guest service practices under these circumstances violated the Fourteenth Amendment. Nothing in the positions taken by the parties since the entry of the District Court decree has mooted that claim, and we therefore turn to its disposition.
…
Appellee, while conceding the right of private clubs to choose members upon a discriminatory basis, asserts that the licensing of Moose Lodge to serve liquor by the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board amounts to such state involvement with the club’s activities as to make its discriminatory practices forbidden by the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The relief sought and obtained by appellee in the District Court was an injunction forbidding the licensing by the liquor authority of Moose Lodge until it ceased its discriminatory practices. We conclude that Moose Lodge’s refusal to serve food and beverages to a guest by reason of the fact that he was a Negro does not, under the circumstances here presented, violate the Fourteenth Amendment.
The Court has never held, of course, that discrimination by an otherwise private entity would be violative of the Equal Protection Clause if the private entity receives any sort of benefit or service at all from the State, or if it is subject to state regulation in any degree whatever. Since state-furnished services include such necessities of life as electricity, water, and police and fire protection, such a holding would utterly emasculate the distinction between private, as distinguished from state, conduct set forth in The Civil Rights Cases, supra, and adhered to in subsequent decisions. Our holdings indicate that, where the impetus for the discrimination is private, the State must have “significantly involved itself with invidious discriminations,” (1967), in order for the discriminatory action to fall within the ambit of the constitutional prohibition.
…
With the exception hereafter noted, the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board plays absolutely no part in establishing or enforcing the membership or guest policies of the club that it licenses to serve liquor. There is no suggestion in this record that Pennsylvania law, either as written or as applied, discriminates against minority groups either in their right to apply for club licenses themselves or in their right to purchase and be served liquor in places of public accommodation. The only effect that the state licensing of Moose Lodge to serve liquor can be said to have on the right of any other Pennsylvanian to buy or be served liquor on premises other than those of Moose Lodge is that, for some purposes, club licenses are counted in the maximum number of licenses that may be issued in a given municipality …
… We therefore hold that, with the exception hereafter noted, the operation of the regulatory scheme enforced by the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board does not sufficiently implicate the State in the discriminatory guest policies of Moose Lodge to make the latter “state action” within the ambit of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
…
Reversed and remanded.
Hills v. Gautreaux (1976)
425 U.S. 284 (1976)
Vote: 8-0
Decision: Affirmed
Majority: Stewarts, joined by Burger, Blackmun, Powell and Rehnquist
Concurrence: Marshall, joined by Brennan and White
Justice Stevens took no part in the consideration or decision of the case.
Mr. Justice Steward delivered the opinion of the Court.
The United States Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has been judicially found to have violated the Fifth Amendment and the Civil Rights Act of 1964 in connection with the selection of sites for public housing in the city of Chicago. The issue before us is whether the remedial order of the federal trial court may extend beyond Chicago’s territorial boundaries.
This extended litigation began in 1966, when the respondents, six Negro tenants in or applicants for public housing in Chicago, brought separate actions on behalf of themselves and all other Negro tenants and applicants similarly situated against the Chicago Housing Authority (CHA) and HUD. The complaint filed against CHA in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois alleged that, between 1950 and 1965, substantially all of the sites for family public housing selected by CHA and approved by the Chicago City Council were “at the time of such selection, and are now,” located “within the areas known as the Negro Ghetto.” The respondents further alleged that CHA deliberately selected the sites to “avoid the placement of Negro families in white neighborhoods” in violation of federal statutes and the Fourteenth Amendment. In a companion suit against HUD, the respondents claimed that it had “assisted in the carrying on and continues to assist in the carrying on of a racially discriminatory public housing system within the City of Chicago” by providing financial assistance and other support for CHA’s discriminatory housing projects.
The District Court stayed the action against HUD pending resolution of the CHA suit. In February, 1969, the court entered summary judgment against CHA on the ground that it had violated the respondents’ constitutional rights by selecting public housing sites and assigning tenants on the basis of race. Gautreaux v. Chicago Housing Authority. Uncontradicted evidence submitted to the District Court established that the public housing system operated by CHA was racially segregated, with four overwhelmingly white projects located in white neighborhoods and with 99 1/2% of the remaining family units located in Negro neighborhoods and 99% of those units occupied by Negro tenants. Id. at 910. In order to prohibit future violations and to remedy the effects of past unconstitutional practices, the court directed CHA to build its next 700 family units in predominantly white areas of Chicago, and thereafter to locate at least 75% of its new family public housing in predominantly white areas inside Chicago or in Cook County. Gautreaux v. Chicago Housing Authority. In addition, CHA was ordered to modify its tenant assignment and site selection procedures and to use its best efforts to increase the supply of dwelling units as rapidly as possible in conformity with the judgment.
The District Court then turned to the action against HUD. In September, 1970, it granted HUD’s motion to dismiss the complaint for lack of jurisdiction and failure to state a claim on which relief could be granted. The United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit reversed, and ordered the District Court to enter summary judgment for the respondents, holding that HUD had violated both the Fifth Amendment and § 601 of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 78 Stat. 252, 42 U.S.C. § 2000d, by knowingly sanctioning and assisting CHA’s racially discriminatory public housing program. Gautreaux v. Romney.
On remand, the trial court addressed the difficult problem of providing an effective remedy for the racially segregated public housing system that had been created by the unconstitutional conduct of CHA and HUD. The court granted the respondents’ motion to consolidate the CHA and HUD cases and ordered the parties to formulate “a comprehensive plan to remedy the past effects of unconstitutional site selection procedures.” The order directed the parties to “provide the Court with as broad a range of alternatives as seem … feasible,” including “alternatives which are not confined in their scope to the geographic boundary of the City of Chicago.” After consideration of the plans submitted by the parties and the evidence adduced in their support, the court denied the respondents’ motion to consider metropolitan area relief and adopted the petitioner’s proposed order requiring HUD to use its best efforts to assist CHA in increasing the supply of dwelling units and enjoining HUD from funding family public housing programs in Chicago that were inconsistent with the previous judgment entered against CHA. The court found that metropolitan area relief was unwarranted because “the wrongs were committed within the limits of Chicago and solely against residents of the City” and there were no allegations that “CHA and HUD discriminated or fostered racial discrimination in the suburbs.” On appeal, the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, with one judge dissenting, reversed and remanded the case for
“the adoption of a comprehensive metropolitan area plan that will not only disestablish the segregated public housing system in the City of Chicago … but will increase the supply of dwelling units as rapidly as possible.”
503 F.2d 930, 939. Shortly before the Court of Appeals announced its decision, this Court, in Milliken v. Bradley … had reversed a judgment of the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit that had approved a plan requiring the consolidation of 54 school districts in the Detroit metropolitan area to remedy racial discrimination in the operation of the Detroit public schools. Understanding Milliken “to hold that the relief sought there would be an impractical and unreasonable overresponse to a violation limited to one school district,” the Court of Appeals concluded that the Milliken decision did not bar a remedy extending beyond the limits of Chicago in the present case because of the equitable and administrative distinctions between a metropolitan public housing plan and the consolidation of numerous local school districts. 503 F.2d at 935-936. In addition, the appellate court found that, in contrast to Milliken, there was evidence of suburban discrimination and of the likelihood that there had been an “extra-city impact” of the petitioner’s “intra-city discrimination.” Id. at 936-937, 939-940. The appellate court’s determination that a remedy extending beyond the city limits was both “necessary and equitable” rested in part on the agreement of the parties and the expert witnesses that “the metropolitan area is a single relevant locality for low rent housing purposes and that a city-only remedy will not work.” Id. at 936-937. HUD subsequently sought review in this Court of the permissibility in light of Milliken of “inter-district relief for discrimination in public housing in the absence of a finding of an inter-district violation.” We granted certiorari to consider this important question. 421 U.S. 962.
In Milliken v. Bradley, supra, this Court considered the proper scope of a federal court’s equity decree in the context of a school desegregation case … After finding that constitutional violations committed by the Detroit School Board and state officials had contributed to racial segregation in the Detroit schools, the trial court had proceeded to the formulation of a remedy. Although there had been neither proof of unconstitutional actions on the part of neighboring school districts nor a demonstration that the Detroit violations had produced significant segregative effects in those districts, the court established a desegregation panel and ordered it to prepare a remedial plan consolidating the Detroit school system and 53 independent suburban school districts. Id. at 733-734. The Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit affirmed the desegregation order … This Court reversed the Court of Appeals, holding that the multidistrict remedy contemplated by the desegregation order was an erroneous exercise of the equitable authority of the federal courts.
Although the Milliken opinion discussed the many practical problems that would be encountered in the consolidation of numerous school districts by judicial decree, the Court’s decision rejecting the metropolitan area desegregation order was actually based on fundamental limitations on the remedial powers of the federal courts to restructure the operation of local and state governmental entities. That power is not plenary. It “may be exercised only on the basis of a constitutional violation.'” quoting Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education … Once a constitutional violation is found, a federal court is required to tailor “the scope of the remedy” to fit “the nature and extent of the constitutional violation.” Swann, supra … In Milliken, there was no finding of unconstitutional action on the part of the suburban school officials and no demonstration that the violations committed in the operation of the Detroit school system had had any significant segregative effects in the suburbs. The desegregation order in Milliken requiring the consolidation of local school districts in the Detroit metropolitan area thus constituted direct federal judicial interference with local governmental entities without the necessary predicate of a constitutional violation by those entities or of the identification within them of any significant segregative effects resulting from the Detroit school officials’ unconstitutional conduct. Under these circumstances, the Court held that the inter-district decree was impermissible because it was not commensurate with the constitutional violation to be repaired.
Since the Milliken decision was based on basic limitations on the exercise of the equity power of the federal courts, and not on a balancing of particular considerations presented by school desegregation cases, it is apparent that the Court of Appeals erred in finding Milliken inapplicable on that ground to this public housing case. The school desegregation context of the Milliken case is nonetheless important to an understanding of its discussion of the limitations on the exercise of federal judicial power … The District Court’s desegregation order in Milliken was held to be an impermissible remedy not because it envisioned relief against a wrongdoer extending beyond the city in which the violation occurred, but because it contemplated a judicial decree restructuring the operation of local governmental entities that were not implicated in any constitutional violation.
The question presented in this case concerns only the authority of the District Court to order HUD to take remedial action outside the city limits of Chicago. HUD does not dispute the Court of Appeals’ determination that it violated the Fifth Amendment and § 601 of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 by knowingly funding CHA’s racially discriminatory family public housing program, nor does it question the appropriateness of a remedial order designed to alleviate the effects of past segregative practices by requiring that public housing be developed in areas that will afford respondents an opportunity to reside in desegregated neighborhoods. But HUD contends that the Milliken decision bars a remedy affecting its conduct beyond the boundaries of Chicago for two reasons. First, it asserts that such a remedial order would constitute the grant of relief incommensurate with the constitutional violation to be repaired. And second, it claims that a decree regulating HUD’s conduct beyond Chicago’s boundaries would inevitably have the effect of “consolidat[ing] for remedial purposes” governmental units not implicated in HUD’s and CHA’s violations.
We reject the contention that, since HUD’s constitutional and statutory violations were committed in Chicago, Milliken precludes an order against HUD that will affect its conduct in the greater metropolitan area. The critical distinction between HUD and the suburban school districts in Milliken is that HUD has been found to have violated the Constitution. That violation provided the necessary predicate for the entry of a remedial order against HUD and, indeed, imposed a duty on the District Court to grant appropriate relief … As the Court observed in Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education:
“Once a right and a violation have been shown, the scope of a district court’s equitable powers to remedy past wrongs is broad, for breadth and flexibility are inherent in equitable remedies.”
Nothing in the Milliken decision suggests a per se rule that federal courts lack authority to order parties found to have violated the Constitution to undertake remedial efforts beyond the municipal boundaries of the city where the violation occurred …
In this case, it is entirely appropriate and consistent with Milliken to order CHA and HUD to attempt to create housing alternatives for the respondents in the Chicago suburbs. Here, the wrong committed by HUD confined the respondents to segregated public housing. The relevant geographic area for purposes of the respondents’ housing options is the Chicago housing market, not the Chicago city limits.
…
An order directing HUD to use its discretion under the various federal housing programs to foster projects located in white areas of the Chicago housing market would be consistent with and supportive of well established federal housing policy.
…
A remedial plan designed to insure that HUD will utilize its funding and administrative powers in a manner consistent with affording relief to the respondents need not abrogate the role of local governmental units in the federal housing-assistance programs. Under the major housing programs in existence at the time the District Court entered its remedial order pertaining to HUD, local housing authorities and municipal governments had to make application for funds or approve the use of funds in the locality before HUD could make housing assistance money available. See 42 U.S.C. §§ 1415(7)(b), 1421b(a)(2). An order directed solely to HUD would not force unwilling localities to apply for assistance under these programs, but would merely reinforce the regulations guiding HUD’s determination of which of the locally authorized projects to assist with federal funds.
…
Use of the § 8 program to expand low income housing opportunities outside areas of minority concentration would not have a coercive effect on suburban municipalities. For under the program, the local governmental units retain the right to comment on specific assistance proposals, to reject certain proposals that are inconsistent with their approved housing assistance plans, and to require that zoning and other land use restrictions be adhered to by builders.
In sum, there is no basis for the petitioner’s claim that court-ordered metropolitan area relief in this case would be impermissible as a matter of law under the Milliken decision. In contrast to the desegregation order in that case, a metropolitan area relief order directed to HUD would not consolidate or in any way restructure local governmental units. The remedial decree would neither force suburban governments to submit public housing proposals to HUD nor displace the rights and powers accorded local government entities under federal or state housing statutes or existing land use laws. The order would have the same effect on the suburban governments as a discretionary decision by HUD to use its statutory powers to provide the respondents with alternatives to the racially segregated Chicago public housing system created by CHA and HUD.
Since we conclude that a metropolitan area remedy in this case is not impermissible as a matter of law, we affirm the judgment of the Court of Appeals remanding the case to the District Court “for additional evidence and for further consideration of the issue of metropolitan area relief.” 503 F.2d at 940. Our determination that the District Court has the authority to direct HUD to engage in remedial efforts in the metropolitan area outside the city limits of Chicago should not be interpreted as requiring a metropolitan area order. The nature and scope of the remedial decree to be entered on remand is a matter for the District Court in the exercise of its equitable discretion, after affording the parties an opportunity to present their views.
The judgment of the Court of Appeals remanding this case to the District Court is affirmed, but further proceedings in the District Court are to be consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
