State Action.—"[T]he 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."1192 The Amendment by its express terms provides that "[n]o State . . ." and "nor shall any State . . ." engage in the proscribed conduct. "It is State action of a particular character that is prohibited. Individual invasion of individual rights is not the subject matter of the amendment. It has a deeper and broader scope. It nullifies and makes void all State legislation, and State action of every kind, which impairs the privileges and immunities of citizens of the United States, or which injures them in life, liberty, or property without due process of law, or which denies to any of them the equal protection of the laws."1193 While the state action doctrine is equally applicable to denials of privileges or immunities, due process, and equal protection, it is actually only with the last great right of the Fourteenth Amendment that the doctrine is invariably associated.1194
1192 Shelley v. Kraemer, 334 U.S. 1, 13 (1948). Similarly, the due process clause of the Fifth Amendment, with its equal protection component, limits only federal governmental action and not that of private parties, as is true of each of the provisions of the Bill of Rights. The scope and reach of the "state action" doctrine is thus the same whether a State or the National Government is concerned. See CBS v. Democratic Nat'l Comm., 412 U.S. 94 (1973).
1193 Civil Rights Cases, 109 U.S. 3, 11 (1883). With regard to the principal issue in this decision, the limitation of the state action requirement on Congress' enforcement powers, see "State Action," infra.
1194 Recently, however, because of broadening due process conceptions and the resulting litigation, issues of state action have been raised with respect to the due process clause. See, e.g., Jackson v. Metropolitan Edison Co., 419 U.S. 345 (1974); Flagg Bros. v. Brooks, 436 U.S. 149 (1978); Rendell-Baker v. Kohn, 457 U.S. 830 (1982); Lugar v. Edmondson Oil Co., 457 U.S. 922 (1982); Blum v. Yaretsky, 457 U.S. 991 (1982).
"The vital requirement is State responsibility," Justice Frankfurter once wrote, "that somewhere, somehow, to some extent, there be an infusion of conduct by officials, panoplied with State power, into any scheme" to deny protected rights.1195 Certainly, state legislation commanding a discriminatory result is state action condemned by the first section of the Fourteenth Amendment, and is void.1196 But the difficulty for the Court has begun when the conduct complained of is not so clearly the action of a State but is, perhaps, the action of a minor state official not authorized or perhaps forbidden by state law so to act, or is, perhaps on the other hand, the action of a private party who nonetheless has some relationship with governmental authority.
The continuum of state action ranges from obvious legislated denial of equal protection to private action that is no longer so significantly related to state action that the Amendment applies. The prohibitions of the Amendment "have reference to actions of the political body denominated by a State, by whatever instruments or in whatever modes that action may be taken. A State acts by its legislative, its executive, or its judicial authorities. It can act in no other way. The constitutional provision, therefore, must mean that no agency of the State, or of the officers or agents by whom its powers are exerted, shall deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. Whoever, by virtue of public position under a State government, deprives another of property, life, or liberty, without due process of law, or denies or takes away the equal protection of the laws, violates the constitutional inhibition; and as he acts in the name and for the State, and is clothed with the State's power, his act is that of the State."1197
1195 Terry v. Adams, 345 U.S. 461, 473 (1953) (concurring). The Justice was speaking of the state action requirement of the Fifteenth Amendment. The Nineteenth and Twenty-sixth Amendments also hinge on state action; the Thirteenth Amendment, banning slavery and involuntary servitude, does not.
1196 United States v. Raines, 362 U.S. 17, 25 (1960). A prime example is the statutory requirement of racially segregated schools condemned in Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483 (1954). And see Peterson v. City of Greenville, 373 U.S. 244 (1963), holding that trespass convictions of African Americans "sitting-in" at a lunch counter over the objection of the manager cannot stand because of a local ordinance commanding such separation, irrespective of the manager's probable attitude if no such ordinance existed.
1197 Ex parte Virginia, 100 U.S. 339, 346-47 (1880).
"Careful adherence to the 'state action' requirement preserves an area of individual freedom by limiting the reach of federal law and federal judicial power. It also avoids imposing on the State, its agencies or officials, responsibility for conduct for which they cannot fairly be blamed. A major consequence is to require the courts to respect the limits of their own power as directed against state governments and private interests. Whether this is good or bad policy, it is a fundamental fact of our political order."1198 That the doctrine serves certain values and disserves others is not a criticism of it but a recognition that in formulating and applying the several tests by which the presence of "state action" is discerned,1199 the Court has considerable discretion and the weights of the opposing values and interests will lead to substantially different applications of the tests. Thus, following the Civil War, when the Court sought to reassert federalism values, it imposed a rather rigid state action standard. During the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s, when almost all state action contentions were raised in a racial context, the Court generally found the presence of state action. As it grew more sympathetic to federalism concerns in the late 1970s and 1980s, the Court began to reassert a strengthened state action doctrine, primarily but hardly exclusively in nonracial cases.
1198 Lugar v. Edmondson Oil Co., 457 U.S. 922, 936-37 (1982). "Freedom of the individual to choose his associates or his neighbors, to use and dispose of his property as he sees fit, to be irrational, arbitrary, capricious, even unjust in his personal relations are things all entitled to a large measure of protection from governmental interference. This liberty would be overridden in the name of equality, if the structures of the amendment were applied to governmental and private action without distinction. Also inherent in the concept of state action are values of federalism, a recognition that there are areas of private rights upon which federal power should not lay a heavy hand and which should properly be left to the more precise instruments of local authority." Peterson v. City of Greenville, 373 U.S. 244, 250 (1963) (Justice Harlan concurring).
1199 "Only by sifting facts and weighing circumstances can the nonobvious involvement of the State in private conduct be attributed its true significance." Burton v. Wilmington Parking Auth., 365 U.S. 715, 722 (1961).
Operation of the state action doctrine was critical in determining whether school systems were segregated unconstitutionally by race. The original Brown cases and subsequent ones arose in the context of statutorily mandated separation of the races and occasioned therefore no controversy in finding state action.1200 The aftermath in the South involved not so much state action as the determination of the remedies necessary to achieve a unitary system.1201 But if racial segregation is not the result of state action in some aspect, then its existence is not subject to constitutional remedy.1202 Distinguishing between the two situations has occasioned much controversy.
Confronting in a case arising from Denver, Colorado, the issue of a school system in which no statutory dual system had ever been imposed, the Court restated the obvious principle that racial segregation caused by "intentionally segregative school board actions" is de jure and not de facto, just as if it had been mandated by statute. "[T]he differentiating factor between de jure segregation and so-called de facto segregation . . . is purpose or intent to segregate."1203 Where it is proved that a meaningful portion of a school system is segregated as a result of official action, the official agency must bear the burden of proving that other school segregation within the system is adventitious and not the result of official action. It is not the responsibility of complainants to show that each school in a system is de jure segregated to be entitled to a system-wide desegregation plan.1204 Moreover, the Court has also apparently adopted a rule to the effect that if it can be proved that at some time in the past a school board has purposefully maintained a racially separated system, a continuing obligation to dis-mantle that system can be said to have devolved upon the agency at that earlier point so that its subsequent actions can be held to a standard of having promoted desegregation or of not having promoted it, so that facially neutral or ambiguous school board policies can form the basis for a judicial finding of intentional discrimination.1205
1200 Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483 (1954).
1201 See "Brown's Aftermath," supra.
1202 Compare Washington v. Seattle School Dist., 458 U.S. 457 (1982), with Crawford v. Los Angeles Bd. of Educ., 458 U.S. 527 (1982).
1203 Keyes v. Denver School District, 413 U.S. 189, 208 (1973) (emphasis by Court). See also Columbus Bd. of Educ. v. Penick, 443 U.S. 449, 457 n.5 (1979).
1204 413 U.S. at 208-13. The continuing validity of the Keyes shifting-of-the-burden principle, after Washington v. Davis, 426 U.S. 229 (1976), and Dayton Bd. of Educ. v. Brinkman, 433 U.S. 406 (1977), was asserted in Columbus Bd. of Educ. v. Penick, 443 U.S. 449, 455-458 & n.7, 467-68 (1979), and Dayton Bd. of Educ. v. Brinkman, 443 U.S. 526, 540-42 (1979).
1205 Columbus Bd. of Educ. v. Penick, 443 U.S. 449, 458-61 (1979); Dayton Bd. of Educ. v. Brinkman, 443 U.S. 526, 534-40 (1979).
Different results, however, follow when inter-district segregation is an issue. Disregard of district lines is permissible by a federal court in formulating a desegregation plan only when it finds an inter-district violation. "Before the boundaries of separate and autonomous school districts may be set aside by consolidating the separate units for remedial purposes by imposing a cross-district remedy, it must first be shown that there has been a constitutional violation within one district that produces a significant segregative effect in another district. Specifically it must be shown that racially discriminatory acts of the state or local school districts, or of a single school district, have been a substantive cause of inter-district segregation."1206 The de jure/ de facto distinction is thus well established in school cases and is firmly grounded upon the "state action" language of the Fourteenth Amendment.
It has long been established that the actions of state officers and agents are attributable to the State. Thus, application of a federal statute imposing a criminal penalty on a state judge who excluded African Americans from jury duty was upheld as within congressional power under the Fourteenth Amendment; the judge's action constituted state action even though state law did not authorize him to select the jury in a racially discriminatory manner.1207 The fact that the "state action" category is not limited to situations in which state law affirmatively authorizes discriminatory action was made clearer in Yick Wo v. Hopkins,1208 in which the Court found unconstitutional state action in the discriminatory administration of an ordinance fair and non-discriminatory on its face. Not even the fact that the actions of the state agents are illegal under state law makes the action nonattributable to the State for purposes of the Fourteenth Amendment.1209 "Misuse of power, possessed by virtue of state law and made possible only because the wrongdoer is clothed with the authority of state law, is action taken 'under color of' state law."1210 When the denial of equal protection is not commanded by law or by administrative regulation but is nonetheless accomplished through police enforcement of "custom"1211 or through hortatory admonitions by public officials to private parties to act in a discriminatory manner,1212 the action is state action. When a State clothes a private party with official authority, he may not engage in conduct forbidden the State.1213
1206 Milliken v. Bradley, 418 U.S. 717, 744-45 (1974).
1207 Ex parte Virginia, 100 U.S. 339 (1880). Similarly, the acts of a state governor are state actions, Cooper v. Aaron, 358 U.S. 1, 16-17 (1958); Sterling v. Constantin, 287 U.S. 378, 393 (1932), as are the acts of prosecuting attorneys, Mooney v. Holohan, 294 U.S. 103, 112, 113 (1935), state and local election officials, United States v. Classic, 313 U.S. 299 (1941), and law enforcement officials. Griffin v. Maryland, 378 U.S. 130 (1964); Monroe v. Pape, 365 U.S. 167 (1961); Screws v. United States, 325 U.S. 91 (1945). One need not be an employee of the State to act "under color of" state law; he may merely participate in an act with state officers. United States v. Price, 383 U.S. 787 (1966).
1208 118 U.S. 356 (1886).
1209 Screws v. United States, 325 U.S. 91 (1945); Williams v. United States, 341 U.S. 97 (1951); United States v. Price, 383 U.S. 787 (1966). See also United States v. Raines, 362 U.S. 17, 25 (1960). As Justice Brandeis noted in Iowa-Des Moines Nat'l Bank v. Bennett, 284 U.S. 239, 246 (1931), "acts done 'by virtue of public position under a State government . . . and . . . in the name and for the State' . . . are not to be treated as if they were the acts of private individuals, although in doing them the official acted contrary to an express command of the state law." Note that for purposes of being amenable to suit in federal court, however, the immunity of the States does not shield state officers who are alleged to be engaging in illegal or unconstitutional action. Ex parte Young, 209 U.S. 123 (1908). Cf. Screws v. United States, 325 U.S. at 147-48.
1210 United States v. Classic, 313 U.S. 299, 326 (1941).
1211 Cf. Adickes v. S.H. Kress & Co., 398 U.S. 144 (1970).
1212 Lombard v. Louisiana, 373 U.S. 267 (1963). No statute or ordinance mandated segregation at lunch counters but both the mayor and the chief of police had recently issued statements announcing their intention to maintain the existing policy of separation. Thus, the conviction of African Americans for trespass because they refused to leave a segregated lunch counter was voided.
1213 Griffin v. Maryland, 378 U.S. 130 (1964). Guard at private entertainment ground was also deputy sheriff; he could not execute the racially discriminatory policies of his private employer. See also Williams v. United States, 341 U.S. 97 (1951).
Beyond this point the discriminatory intent is that of a private individual and the question is whether a State has encouraged the effort or has impermissibly aided it.1214 Of notable importance and a subject of controversy since it was decided is Shelley v. Kraemer.1215 There, property owners brought suit to enforce a racially restrictive covenant, seeking to enjoin the sale of a home by white sellers to black buyers. The covenants standing alone, Chief Justice Vinson said, violated no rights protected 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." However, that was not all. "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."1216 Establishing that the precedents were to the effect that judicial action of state courts was state action, the Court continued to find that judicial enforcement of these covenants was forbidden. "The undisputed facts disclose that petitioners were willing purchasers of properties upon which they desire to establish homes. The owners of the properties were willing sellers; and contracts of sale were accordingly consummated…"
1214 Examples already alluded to include Lombard v. Louisiana, 373 U.S. 267 (1963), in which certain officials had advocated continued segregation, Peterson v. City of Greenville, 373 U.S. 244 (1963), in which there were segregation-requiring ordinances and customs of separation, and Robinson v. Florida, 378 U.S. 153 (1964), in which health regulations required separate restroom facilities in any establishment serving both races.
1215 334 U.S. 1 (1948).
1216 334 U.S. at 13-14.
"These are not cases . . . in which the States have merely abstained from action, leaving private individuals free to impose such discriminations as they see fit. Rather, these are cases in which the States have made available to such individuals the full coercive power of government to deny to petitioners, on the grounds of race or color, the enjoyment of property rights in premises which petitioners are willing and financially able to acquire and which the grantors are willing to sell."1217
Arguments about the scope of Shelley began immediately. Did the rationale mean that no private decision to discriminate could be effectuated in any manner by action of the State, as by enforcement of trespass laws or judicial enforcement of discrimination in wills? Or did it rather forbid the action of the State in interfering with the willingness of two private parties to deal with each other? Disposition of several early cases possibly governed by Shelley left this issue unanswered.1218 But the Court has experienced no difficulty in finding that state court enforcement of common-law rules in a way that has an impact upon speech and press rights is state action and triggers the application of constitutional rules.1219 It may be that the substantive rule that is being enforced is the dispositive issue, rather than the mere existence of state action. Thus, in Evans v. Abney,1220 a state court, asked to enforce a discriminatory stipulation in a will that property devised to a city for use as a public park should never be used by African Americans, ruled that the city could not operate the park in a segregated fashion; instead of striking the segregation requirement from the will, the court ordered return of the property to the decedent's heirs, inasmuch as the trust had failed. The Supreme Court held the decision permissible, inasmuch as the state court had merely carried out the testator's intent with no racial motivation itself, and distinguished Shelley on the basis that African Americans were not discriminated against by the reversion, because everyone was deprived of use of the park.1221
1217 334 U.S. at 19. In Hurd v. Hodge, 334 U.S. 24 (1948), the Court outlawed judicial enforcement of restrictive covenants in the District of Columbia as violative of civil rights legislation and public policy. Barrows v. Jackson, 346 U.S. 249 (1953), held that damage actions for violations of racially restrictive covenants would not be judicially entertained.
1218 Rice v. Sioux City Memorial Park Cemetery, 245 Iowa 147, 60 N.W. 2d 110 (1953), aff'd by an equally divided Court, 348 U.S. 880 (1954), rehearing granted, judgment vacated & certiorari dismissed, 349 U.S. 70 (1955); Black v. Cutter Laboratories, 351 U.S. 292 (1956). The central issue in the "sit-in" cases, whether state enforcement of trespass laws at the behest of private parties acting on the basis of their own discriminatory motivations, was evaded by the Court, in finding some other form of state action and reversing all convictions. Individual Justices did elaborate, however. Compare Bell v. Maryland, 378 U.S. 226, 255-60 (1964) (opinion of Justice Douglas), with id. at 326 (Justices Black, Harlan, and White dissenting).
1219 In New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U.S. 254 (1964), and progeny, defamation actions based on common-law rules were found to implicate First Amendment rights and Court imposed varying limiting rules on such rules of law. See id. at 265 (finding state action). Similarly, in NAACP v. Claiborne Hardware Co., 458 U.S. 886 (1982), a civil lawsuit between private parties, the application of state common-law rules to assess damages for actions in a boycott and picketing was found to constitute state action. Id. at 916 n.51.
1220 396 U.S. 435 (1970). The matter had previously been before the Court in Evans v. Newton, 382 U.S. 296 (1966).
1221 396 U.S. at 445. Note the use of the same rationale in another context in Palmer v. Thompson, 403 U.S. 217, 226 (1971). On a different result in the "Girard College" will case, see Pennsylvania v. Board of Trustees, 353 U.S. 230 (1957), discussed infra.
Similar to Shelley in controversy and the indefiniteness of its rationale, the latter element of which appears to have undergone a modifying rationalization, is Reitman v. Mulkey,1222 in which, following enactment of an "open housing" law by the California legislature, an initiative and referendum measure was passed that repealed the law and amended the state constitution to prevent any agency of the State or of local government from henceforth forbidding racial discrimination in private housing. Upholding a state court invalidation of this amendment, the Court appeared to ground its decision on two lines of reasoning, either on the state court's premise that passage of the provision encouraged private racial discrimination impermissibly or on the basis that the provision made discriminatory racial practices immune from the ordinary legislative process, while not so limiting other processes, and thus impermissibly burdened minorities in the achievement of legitimate aims in a way other classes of persons were not burdened.1223 In a subsequent case, the latter rationale was utilized in a unanimous decision voiding an Akron ordinance, which suspended an "open housing" ordinance and provided that any future ordinance regulating transactions in real property "on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin or ancestry" must be submitted to a vote of the people before it could become effective, while any other ordinance would become effective when passed, except that it could be petitioned to referendum.1224
1222 387 U.S. 369 (1967). The decision was 5-to-4, Justices Harlan, Black, Clark, and Stewart dissenting. Id. at 387.
1223 See, e.g., 387 U.S. at 377 (language suggesting both lines of reasoning). But see City of Cuyahoga Falls v. Buckeye Community Hope Found., 538 U.S. 188 (2003) (ministerial acts associated with a referendum repealing a low-income housing ordinance did not constitute state action, as the referendum process was facially neutral, and the potentially discriminatory repeal was never enforced).
That Mulkey and Hunter stand for the proposition that imposing a barrier to racial amelioration legislation is the decisive and condemning factor is evident from two recent decisions with respect to state referendum decisions on busing for integration.1225 Both cases agree that "the simple repeal or modification of desegregation or antidiscrimination laws, without more, never has been viewed as embodying a presumptively invalid racial classification."1226 It is thus not impermissible to overturn a previous governmental decision, or to defeat the effort initially to arrive at such a decision, simply because the state action may conceivably encourage private discrimination.
In other instances in which the discrimination is being practiced by private parties, the question essentially is whether there has been sufficient state involvement to bring the Fourteenth Amendment into play; that is, the private discrimination is not constitutionally forbidden "unless to some significant extent the State in any of its manifestations has been found to have become involved in it."1227 There is no clear formula. "Only by sifting facts and weighing circumstances can the nonobvious involvement of the State in private conduct be attributed its true significance."1228 State action was found in a number of circumstances. The "White Primary" was outlawed by the Court not because the party's discrimination was commanded by statute but because the party operated under the authority of the State and it in fact controlled the outcome of elections.1229 Although the City of Philadelphia was acting as trustee in administering and carrying out the will of someone who had left money for a college, admission to which was stipulated to be for white boys only, the city was held to be engaged in forbidden state action in discriminating against African Americans in admission.1230 When state courts on petition of interested parties removed the City of Macon as trustees of a segregated park that had been left in trust for such use in a will, and appointed new trustees in order to keep the park segregated, the Court reversed, finding that the City was still inextricably involved in the maintenance and operation of the park.1231 In a significant case in which the Court explored a lengthy list of contacts between the State and a private corporation, it held that the lessee of property within an off-street parking building owned and operated by a municipality could not exclude African Americans from its restaurant. It was emphasized that the building was publicly built and owned, that the restaurant was an integral part of the complex, that the restaurant and the parking facilities complemented each other, that the parking authority had regulatory power over the lessee and had made stipulations but nothing related to racial discrimination, and that the financial success of the restaurant benefited the governmental agency; "the degree of state participation and involvement in discriminatory action" was sufficient to condemn it.1232
1224 Hunter v. Erickson, 393 U.S. 385 (1969). In Lee v. Nyquist, 318 F. Supp. 710 (W.D.N.Y. 1970), aff'd, 402 U.S. 935 (1971), New York enacted a statute prohibiting the assignment of students or the establishment of school districts for the purpose of achieving racial balance in attendance, unless with the express approval of a locally elected school board or with the consent of the parents, a measure designed to restrict the state education commissioner's program to ameliorate de facto segregation. The federal court held the law void, holding in reliance on Mulkey that the statute encouraged racial discrimination and that by treating educational matters involving racial criteria differently than it treated other educational matters it made more difficult a resolution of the de facto segregation problem.
1225 Washington v. Seattle School Dist., 458 U.S. 457 (1982); Crawford v. Los Angeles Bd. of Educ., 458 U.S. 527 (1982). A five-to-four majority in Seattle found the fault to be a racially-based structuring of the political process making it more difficult to undertake actions designed to improve racial conditions than to undertake any other educational action. An 8-to-1 majority in Crawford found that repeal of a measure to bus to undo de facto segregation, without imposing any barrier to other remedial devices, was permissible.
1226 Crawford, 458 U.S. at 539, quoted in Seattle, 458 U.S. at 483. See also Dayton Bd. of Educ. v. Brinkman, 433 U.S. 406, 414 (1977).
1227 Burton v. Wilmington Parking Authority, 365 U.S. 715 (1961).
1228 365 U.S. at 722.
1229 Smith v. Allwright, 321 U.S. 649 (1944).
1230 Pennsylvania v. Board of Trustees, 353 U.S. 230 (1957). On remand, the state courts substituted private persons as trustees to carry out the will. In re Girard College Trusteeship, 391 Pa. 434, 138 A. 2d 844, cert. denied, 357 U.S. 570 (1958). This expedient was, however, ultimately held unconstitutional. Brown v. Pennsylvania, 392 F.2d 120 (3d Cir.), cert. denied, 391 U.S. 921 (1968).
1231 Evans v. Newton, 382 U.S. 296 (1966). Justices Black, Harlan, and Stewart dissented. Id. at 312, 315. For the subsequent ruling in this case, see Evans v. Abney, 396 U.S. 435 (1970).
1232 Burton v. Wilmington Parking Authority, 365 U.S. 715 (1961).
The question arose, then, what degree of state participation was "significant"? Would licensing of a business clothe the actions of that business with sufficient state involvement? Would regulation? Or provision of police and fire protection? Would enforcement of state trespass laws be invalid if it effectuated discrimination? The "sit-in" cases of the early 1960's presented all these questions and more but did not resolve them.1233 The basics of an answer came in Moose Lodge No. 107 v. Irvis,1234 in which the Court held that the fact that a private club was required to have a liquor license to serve alcoholic drinks and did have such a license did not bar it from discriminating against African Americans. It denied that private discrimination became constitutionally impermissible "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 any such rule would eviscerate the state action doctrine. Rather, "where the impetus for the discrimination is private, the State must have 'significantly involved itself with invidious discrimination."'1235 Moreover, while the State had extensive powers to regulate in detail the liquor dealings of its licensees, "it cannot be said to in any way foster or encourage racial discrimination. Nor can it be said to make the State in any realistic sense a partner or even a joint venturer in the club's enterprise."1236 And there was nothing in the licensing relationship here that approached "the symbiotic relationship between lessor and lessee" which the Court had found in Burton.1237
1233 See, e.g., the various opinions in Bell v. Maryland, 378 U.S. 226 (1964).
1234 407 U.S. 163 (1972). One provision of the state law was, however, held unconstitutional. That provision required a licensee to observe all its by-laws and therefore mandated the Moose Lodge to follow the discrimination provision of its bylaws. Id. at 177-79.
1235 407 U.S. at 173.
1236 407 U.S. at 176-77.
1237 407 U.S. at 174-75.
The Court subsequently made clear that governmental involvement with private persons or private corporations is not the critical factor in determining the existence of "state action." Rather, "the inquiry must be whether there is a sufficiently close nexus between the State and the challenged action of the regulated entity so that the action of the latter may be fairly treated as that of the State itself."1238 Or, to quote Judge Friendly, who first enunciated the test this way, the "essential point" is "that the state must be involved not simply with some activity of the institution alleged to have inflicted injury upon a plaintiff but with the activity that caused the injury. Putting the point another way, the state action, not the private, must be the subject of the complaint."1239 Therefore, the Court found no such nexus between the State and a public utility's action in terminating service to a customer. Neither the fact that the business was subject to state regulation, nor that the State had conferred in effect a monopoly status upon the utility, nor that in reviewing the company's tariff schedules the regulatory commission had in effect approved the termination provision included therein (but had not required the practice, had "not put its own weight on the side of the proposed practice by ordering it")1240 operated to make the utility's action the State's action.1241 Significantly tightening the standard further against a finding of "state action," the Court asserted that plaintiffs must establish not only that a private party "acted under color of the challenged statute, but also that its actions are properly attributable to the State…"1242 And the actions are to be attributable to the State apparently only if the State compelled the actions and not if the State merely established the process through statute or regulation under which the private party acted. Thus, when a private party, having someone's goods in his possession and seeking to recover the charges owned on storage of the goods, acts under a permissive state statue to sell the goods and retain his charges out of the proceeds, his actions are not governmental action and need not follow the dictates of the due process clause.1243 Or, where a state worker's compensation statute was amended to allow, but not require, an insurer to suspend payment for medical treatment while the necessity of the treatment was being evaluated by an independent evaluator, this action was not fairly attributable to the state, and thus pre-deprivation notice of the suspension was not required.1244 In the context of regulated nursing home situations, in which the homes were closely regulated and state officials reduced or withdrew Medicaid benefits paid to patients when they were discharged or transferred to institutions providing a lower level of care, the Court found that the actions of the homes in discharging or transferring were not thereby rendered the actions of the government.1245
1238 Jackson v. Metropolitan Edison Co., 419 U.S. 345, 351 (1974) (under the due process clause).
1239 Powe v. Miles, 407 F.2d. 73, 81 (2d Cir. 1968). See also NCAA v. Tarkanian, 488 U.S. 179 (1988) (where individual state has minimal influence over national college athletic association's activities, the application of association rules leading to a state university's suspending its basketball coach could not be ascribed to the state.). But see Brentwood Academy v. Tennessee Secondary School Athletic Association, 531 U.S. 288 (2001) (where statewide public school scholastic association is "overwhelmingly" composed of public school officials for that state, this "entwinement" is sufficient to ascribe actions of association to state).
1240 Jackson v. Metropolitan Edison Co., 419 U.S. 345, 357 (1974). In dissent, Justice Marshall protested that the quoted language marked "a sharp departure" from precedent, "that state authorization and approval of 'private' conduct has been held to support a finding of state action." Id. at 369. Note that in Cantor v. Detroit Edison Co., 428 U.S. 579 (1976), the plurality opinion used much the same analysis to deny antitrust immunity to a utility practice merely approved but not required by the regulating commission, but most of the Justices were on different sides of the same question in the two cases.
1241 Jackson v. Metropolitan Edison Co., 419 U.S. 345, 351-58 (1974). On the due process limitations on the conduct of public utilities, see Memphis Light, Gas & Water Div. v. Craft, 436 U.S. 1 (1978).
1242 Flagg Bros. v. Brooks, 436 U.S. 149, 156 (1978) (due process).
1243 436 U.S. at 164-66. If, however, a state officer acts with the private party in securing the property in dispute, that is sufficient to create the requisite state action and the private party may be subjected to suit if the seizure does not comport with due process. Lugar v. Edmondson Oil Co., 457 U.S. 922 (1982).
1244 American Mfrs. Mut. Ins. Co. v. Sullivan, 526 U.S. 40 (1999).
1245 Blum v. Yaretsky, 457 U.S. 991 (1982).
In a few cases, the Court has indicated that discriminatory action by private parties may be precluded by the Fourteenth Amendment if the particular party involved is exercising a "public function." This rationale is one of those which emerges from the various opinions in Terry v. Adams.1246 In Marsh v. Alabama,1247 a Jehovah's Witness had been convicted of trespass after passing out literature on the streets of a company-owned town and the Court reversed. It is not at all clear from the opinion of the Court what it was that made the privately-owned town one to which the Constitution applied. In essence, it appears to have been that the town "had all the characteristics of any other American town," that it was "like" a State. "The more an owner, for his advantage, opens up his property for use by the public in general, the more do his rights become circumscribed by the statutory and constitutional rights of those who use it."1248 Subsequent efforts to expand upon Marsh were at first successful and then turned back, and the "public function" theory in the context of privately-owned shopping centers was sharply curtailed.1249
1246 345 U.S. 461 (1953).
1247 326 U.S. 501 (1946).
1248 326 U.S. at 506.
1249 See Amalgamated Food Employees Union v. Logan Valley Plaza, 391 U.S. 308 (1968), limited in Lloyd Corp. v. Tanner, 407 U.S. 551 (1972), and overruled in Hudgens v. NLRB, 424 U.S. 507 (1976). The Marsh principle is good only when private property has taken on all the attributes of a municipality. Id. at 516-17.
Attempts to apply such a theory to other kinds of private conduct, such as to private utilities,1250 to private utilization of permissive state laws to secure property claimed to belong to creditors,1251 to the operation of schools for "problem" children referred by public institutions,1252 to private insurance companies providing worker's compensation coverage,1253 and to the operations of nursing homes the patients of which are practically all funded by public resources,1254 proved unavailing. The "public function" doctrine is to be limited to a delegation of "a power 'traditionally exclusively reserved to the State."'1255 Therefore, the question is not "whether a private group is serving a 'public function.'. . . That a private entity performs a function which serves the public does not make its acts state action."1256 Public function did play an important part, however, in the Court's finding state action in exercise of peremptory challenges in jury selection by non-governmental parties.
In finding state action in the racially discriminatory use of peremptory challenges by a private party during voir dire in a civil case,1257 the Court applied tests developed in an earlier case involving garnishment and attachment.1258 The Court first asks "whether the claimed constitutional deprivation resulted from the exercise of a right or privilege having its source in state authority," and then "whether the private party charged with the deprivation could be described in all fairness as a state actor." In answering the second question, the Court considers three factors: "the extent to which the actor relies on governmental assistance and benefits, whether the actor is performing a traditional governmental function, and whether the injury caused is aggravated in a unique way by the incidents of governmental authority."1259 There was no question that exercise of peremptory challenges derives from governmental authority (either state or federal, as the case may be); exercise of peremptory challenges is authorized by law, and the number is limited. Similarly, the Court easily concluded that private parties exercise peremptory challenges with the "overt" and "significant" assistance of the court. So too, jury selection is the performance of a traditional governmental function: the jury "is a quintessential governmental body, having no attributes of a private actor," and it followed, so the Court majority believed, that selection of individuals to serve on that body is also a governmental function whether or not it is delegated to or shared with private individuals.1260 Finally, the Court concluded that "the injury caused by the discrimination is made more severe because the government permits it to occur within the courthouse itself."1261 Dissenting Justice O'Connor complained that the Court was wiping away centuries of adversary practice in which "unrestrained private choice" has been recognized in exercise of peremptory challenges; "[i]t is antithetical to the nature of our adversarial process," the Justice contended, "to say that a private attorney acting on behalf of a private client represents the government for constitutional purposes."1262
1250 Jackson v. Metropolitan Edison Co., 419 U.S. 345, 352 (1974).
1251 Flagg Bros. v. Brooks, 436 U.S. 149, 157-159 (1978).
1252 Rendell-Baker v. Kohn, 457 U.S. 830, 842 (1982).
1253 American Mfrs. Mut. Ins. Co. v. Sullivan, 526 U.S. 40 (1999).
1254 Blum v. Yaretsky, 457 U.S. 991, 1011-1012 (1982).
1255 Flagg Bros. v. Brooks, 436 U.S. 149, 157 (1978) (quoting Jackson v. Metropolitan Edison Co., 419 U.S. 345, 352 (1974)).
1256 Rendell-Baker v. Kohn, 457 U.S. 830, 842 (1982).
1257 Edmonson v. Leesville Concrete Co., 500 U.S. 614 (1991).
1258 Lugar v. Edmondson Oil Corp., 457 U.S. 922 (1982).
1259 Edmonson v. Leesville Concrete Co., 500 U.S. 614, 620-22 (1991) (citations omitted).
1260 500 U.S. at 624, 625.
1261 500 U.S. at 628.
1262 500 U.S. at 639, 643.
Even though in a criminal case it is the government and the defendant who are adversaries, rather than two private parties, as is ordinarily the case in civil actions, the Court soon applied these same principles to hold that exercise of peremptory challenges by the defense in a criminal case also constitutes state action.1263 The same generalities apply with at least equal force: there is overt and significant governmental assistance in creating and structuring the process, a criminal jury serves an important governmental function and its selection is also important, and the courtroom setting intensifies harmful effects of discriminatory actions. An earlier case1264 holding that a public defender was not a state actor when engaged in general representation of a criminal defendant was distinguished, the Court emphasizing that "exercise of a peremptory challenge differs significantly from other actions taken in support of a defendant's defense," since it involves selection of persons to wield governmental power.1265
1263 Georgia v. McCollum, 505 U.S. 42 (1992). It was, of course, beyond dispute that a prosecutor's exercise of peremptory challenges constitutes state action. See Swain v. Alabama, 380 U.S. 202 (1965); Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79 (1986).
1264 Polk County v. Dodson, 454 U.S. 512 (1981).
1265 505 U.S. at 54. Justice O'Connor, again dissenting, pointed out that the Court's distinction was inconsistent with Dodson's declaration that public defenders are not vested with state authority "when performing a lawyer's traditional functions as counsel to a defendant in a criminal proceeding." Id. at 65-66. Justice Scalia, also dissenting again, decried reduction of Edmonson "to the terminally absurd: A criminal defendant, in the process of defending himself against the state, is held to be acting on behalf of the state." Id. at 69-70. Chief Justice Rehnquist, who had dissented in Edmonson, concurred in McCollum in the belief that it was controlled by Edmonson, and Justice Thomas, who had not participated in Edmonson, expressed similar views in a concurrence.
The rules developed by the Court for business regulation are that (1) the "mere fact that a business is subject to state regulation does not by itself convert its action into that of the State for purposes of the Fourteenth Amendment,"1266 and (2) "a State normally can be held responsible for a private decision only when it has exercised coercive power or has provided such significant encouragement, either overt or covert, that the choice must be deemed to be that of the State."1267
Previously, the Court's decisions with respect to state "involvement" in the private activities of individuals and entities raised the question whether financial assistance and tax benefits provided to private parties would so clothe them with state action that discrimination by them and other conduct would be subjected to constitutional constraints. Many lower courts had held state action to exist in such circumstances.1268 However the question might have been answered under the older cases, it is evident that a negative answer flows from the premises of the more recent cases. In Rendell-Baker v. Kohn,1269 the private school received "problem" students referred to it by public institutions, it was heavily regulated, and it received between 90 and 99% of its operating budget from public funds. In Blum v. Yaretsky,1270 the nursing home had practically all of its operating and capital costs subsidized by public funds and more than 90% of its residents had their medical expenses paid from public funds; in setting reimbursement rates, the State included a formula to assure the home a profit. Nevertheless, in both cases the Court found that the entities remained private, and required plaintiffs to show that as to the complained of actions the State was involved, either through coercion or encouragement. "That programs undertaken by the State result in substantial funding of the activities of a private entity is no more persuasive than the fact of regulation of such an entity in demonstrating that the State is responsible for decisions made by the entity in the course of its business."1271
1266 Jackson v. Metropolitan Edison Co., 419 U.S. 345, 350 (1974); Blum v. Yaretsky, 457 U.S. 991, 1004 (1982). Cf. Moose Lodge No. 107 v. Irvis, 407 U.S. 163 (1972).
1267 Blum v. Yaretsky, 457 U.S. 991, 1004 (1982); Flagg Bros. v. Brooks, 436 U.S. 149, 166 (1978); Jackson v. Metropolitan Edison Co., 419 U.S. 345, 357 (1974).
1268 On funding, see Simkins v. Moses H. Cone Memorial Hosp., 323 F.2d 959 (4th Cir. 1963), cert. denied, 376 U.S. 938 (1964); Kerr v. Enoch Pratt Free Library, 149 F.2d 212 (4th Cir.), cert. denied, 326 U.S. 721 (1945); Christhilf v. Annapolis Emergency Hosp. Ass'n, 496 F.2d 174 (4th Cir. 1974). But cf. Greco v. Orange Mem. Hosp. Corp., 513 F.2d 873 (5th Cir.), cert. denied, 423 U.S. 1000 (1975). On tax benfits, see Green v. Connally, 330 F. Supp. 1150 (D.D.C.) (three-judge court), aff'd. sub nom. Coit v. Green, 404 U.S. 997 (1971); McGlotten v. Connally, 338 F. Supp. 448 (D.D.C. 1972); Jackson v. Statler Foundation, 496 F.2d 623 (2d Cir. 1974). But cf. New York City Jaycees v. United States Jaycees, 512 F.2d 856 (2d Cir. 1976); Greenya v. George Washington Univ., 512 F.2d 556 (D.C. Cir.), cert. denied, 423 U.S. 995 (1975).
1269 457 U.S. 830 (1982).
1270 457 U.S. 991 (1982).
1271 457 U.S. at 1011.
In the social welfare area, the Court has drawn a sharp distinction between governmental action subject to substantive due process requirements, and governmental inaction, not so constrained. There being "no affirmative right to governmental aid," the Court announced in DeShaney v. Winnebago County Social Services Department1272 that "as a general matter, . . . a State's failure to protect an individual against private violence simply does not constitute a violation of the Due Process Clause." Before there can be state involvement creating an affirmative duty to protect an individual, the Court explained, the state must have taken a person into its custody and held him there against his will so as to restrict his freedom to act on his own behalf. Thus, while the Court had recognized due process violations for failure to provide adequate medical care to incarcerated prisoners,1273 and for failure to ensure reasonable safety for involuntarily committed mental patients,1274 no such affirmative duty arose from the failure of social services agents to protect an abused child from further abuse from his parent. Even though possible abuse had been reported to the agency and confirmed and monitored by the agency, and the agency had done nothing to protect the child, the Court emphasized that the actual injury was inflicted by the parent and "did not occur while [the child] was in the State's custody."1275 While the State may have incurred liability in tort through the negligence of its social workers, "[not] every tort committed by a state actor [is] a constitutional violation."1276 "[I]t is well to remember . . . that the harm was inflicted not by the State of Wisconsin, but by [the child's] father."1277
1272 489 U.S. 189, 197 (1989).
1273 Estelle v. Gamble, 429 U.S. 97 (1976).
1274 Youngberg v. Romeo, 457 U.S. 307 (1982).
Judicial inquiry into the existence of "state action" may be directed toward the implementation of either of two remedies, and this may well lead to some difference in the search. In the cases considered here suits were against a private actor to compel him to halt his discriminatory action, to enjoin him to admit blacks to a lunch counter, for example. But one could just as readily bring suit against the government to compel it to cease aiding the private actor in his discriminatory conduct. Recurrence to the latter remedy might well avoid constitutional issues that an order directed to the private party would raise.1278 In any event, it must be determined whether the governmental involvement is sufficient to give rise to a constitutional remedy; in a suit against the private party it must be determined whether he is so involved with the government as to be subject to constitutional restraints, while in a suit against the government agency it must be determined whether the government's action "impermissibly fostered" the private conduct.
Thus, in Norwood v. Harrison,1279 the Court struck down the provision of free textbooks by the State to private schools set up as racially segregated institutions to avoid desegregated public schools, even though the textbook program predated the establishment of these schools. "[A]ny tangible state assistance, outside the generalized services government might provide to private segregated schools in common with other schools, and with all citizens, is constitutionally prohibited if it has 'a significant tendency to facilitate, reinforce, and support private discrimination.'. . . The constitutional obligation of the State requires it to steer clear, not only of operating the old dual system of racially segregated schools, but also of giving significant aid to institutions that practice racial or other invidious discriminations."1280 And in a subsequent case, the Court approved a lower court order that barred the city from permitting exclusive temporary use of public recreational facilities by segregated private schools because that interfered with an outstanding order mandating public school desegregation. But it remanded for further factfinding with respect to permitting nonexclusive use of public recreational facilities and general government services by segregated private schools so that the district court could determine whether such uses "involve government so directly in the actions of those users as to warrant court intervention on constitutional grounds."1281 Unlike the situation in which private club discrimination is attacked directly, "the question of the existence of state action centers in the extent of the city's involvement in discriminatory actions by private agencies using public facilities…" Receipt of just any sort of benefit or service at all does not by the mere provision—electricity, water, and police and fire protection, access generally to municipal recreational facilities—constitute a showing of state involvement in discrimination and the lower court's order was too broad because not predicated upon a proper finding of state action. "If, however, the city or other governmental entity rations otherwise freely accessible recreational facilities, the case for state action will naturally be stronger than if the facilities are simply available to all comers without condition or reservation." The lower court was directed to sift facts and weigh circumstances on a case-by-case basis in making determinations.1282
1275 489 U.S. at 201.
1276 489 U.S. at 202.
1277 489 U.S. at 203.
1278 For example, rights of association protected by the First Amendment. See Moose Lodge No. 107 v. Irvis, 407 U.S. 163, 179-80 (1972) (Justice Douglas dissenting); Gilmore v. City of Montgomery, 417 U.S. 556, 575 (1974); Norwood v. Harrison, 413 U.S. 455, 470 (1973). The right can be implicated as well by affirmative legislative action barring discrimination in private organizations. See Runyon v. McCrary, 427 U.S. 160, 175-79 (1976).
1279 413 U.S. 455 (1973).
1280 Gilmore v. City of Montgomery, 417 U.S. 556, 568-69 (1974) (quoting Norwood v. Harrison, 413 U.S. 455, 466, 467 (1973)).
1281 Gilmore v. City of Montgomery, 417 U.S. 556, 570 (1974).
1282 417 U.S. at 573-74. In Blum v. Yaretsky, 457 U.S. 991 (1982), plaintiffs, objecting to decisions of the nursing home in discharging or transferring patients, sued public officials, but they objected to the discharges and transfers, not to the changes in Medicaid benefits made by the officials.
It should be noted, however, that the Court has interposed, without mentioning these cases, a potentially significant barrier to utilization of the principle set out in them. In a 1976 decision, which it has expanded since, it held that plaintiffs, seeking disallowal of governmental tax benefits accorded to institutions that allegedly discriminated against complainants and thus involved the government in their actions, must in order to bring the suit show that revocation of the benefit would cause the institutions to cease the complained-of conduct.1283
1283 Simon v. Eastern Kentucky Welfare Rights Organization, 426 U.S. 26 (1976). See id. at 46, 63-64 (Justice Brennan concurring and dissenting).
"Person".—In the case in which it was first called upon to interpret this clause, the Court doubted whether "any action of a State not directed by way of discrimination against the [N]egroes as a class, or on account of their race, will ever be held to come within the purview of this provision."1284 Nonetheless, in deciding the Granger Cases shortly thereafter, the Justices seemingly entertained no doubt that the railroad corporations were entitled to invoke the protection of the clause.1285 Nine years later, Chief Justice Waite announced from the bench that the Court would not hear argument on the question whether the equal protection clause applied to corporations. "We are all of the opinion that it does."1286 The word has been given the broadest possible meaning. "These provisions are universal in their application, to all persons within the territorial jurisdiction, without regard to any differences of race, of color, or of nationality. . ."1287 The only qualification is that a municipal corporation cannot invoke the clause against its State.1288
"Within Its Jurisdiction".—Persons "within its jurisdiction" are entitled to equal protection from a State. Largely because Article IV, § 2, has from the beginning guaranteed the privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States, the Court has rarely construed the phrase in relation to natural persons.1289 It was first held that a foreign corporation not doing business in a State under conditions that subjected it to process issuing from the courts of that State was not "within the jurisdiction" and could not complain of the preferences granted resident creditors in the distribution of assets of an insolvent corporation,1290 but this holding was subsequently qualified, the Court holding that a foreign corporation which sued in a court of a State in which it was not licensed to do business to recover possession of property wrongfully taken from it in another State was "within the jurisdiction" and could not be subjected to unequal burdens in the maintenance of the suit.1291 The test of amenability to service of process within the State was ignored in a later case dealing with discriminatory assessment of property belonging to a nonresident individual.1292 When a State has admitted a foreign corporation to do business within its borders, that corporation is entitled to equal protection of the laws but not necessarily to identical treatment with domestic corporations.1293
1284 Slaughter-House Cases, 83 U.S. (16 Wall.) 36, 81 (1873). Cf. Weber v. Aetna Casualty & Surety Co., 406 U.S. 164, 177 (1972) (Justice Rehnquist dissenting).
1285 Chicago, B. & Q. R.R. v. Iowa, 94 U.S. 155 (1877); Peik v. Chicago & Nw. Ry., 94 U.S. 164 (1877); Chicago, M. & St. P. R.R. v. Ackley, 94 U.S. 179 (1877); Winona & St. Peter R.R. v. Blake, 94 U.S. 180 (1877).
1286 Santa Clara County v. Southern Pac. R.R., 118 U.S. 394, 396 (1886). The background and developments from this utterance are treated in H. GRAHAM, EVERYMAN'S CONSTITUTION—HISTORICAL ESSAYS ON THE FOURTEENTH AMENDMENT, THE "CONSPIRACY THEORY", AND AMERICAN CONSTITUTIONALISM chs. 9, 10, and pp. 566-84 (1968). Justice Black, in Connecticut General Life Ins. Co. v. Johnson, 303 U.S. 77, 85 (1938), and Justice Douglas, in Wheeling Steel Corp. v. Glander, 337 U.S. 562, 576 (1949), have disagreed that corporations are persons for equal protection purposes.
1287 Yick Wo v. Hopkins, 118 U.S. 356, 369 (1886). For modern examples, see Levy v. Louisiana, 391 U.S. 68, 70 (1968); Graham v. Richardson, 403 U.S. 365, 371 (1971).
1288 City of Newark v. New Jersey, 262 U.S. 192 (1923); Williams v. Mayor of Baltimore, 289 U.S. 36 (1933).
1289 See Plyler v. Doe, 457 U.S. 202, 210-16 (1982) (explicating meaning of the phrase in the context of holding that aliens illegally present in a State are "within its jurisdiction" and may thus raise equal protection claims).
1290 Blake v. McClung, 172 U.S. 239, 261 (1898); Sully v. American Nat'l Bank, 178 U.S. 289 (1900).
1291 Kentucky Finance Corp. v. Paramount Auto Exchange Corp., 262 U.S. 544 (1923).
Last modified: June 9, 2014