Cite as: 506 U. S. 263 (1993)
Stevens, J., dissenting
III
The Court bypasses the statute's history, intent, and plain language in its misplaced reliance on prior precedent. Of course, the Court has never before had occasion to construe the second clause of § 1985(3). The first clause, however, has been narrowly construed in Collins v. Hardyman, 341 U. S. 651 (1951), Griffin v. Breckenridge, 403 U. S. 88 (1971), and Carpenters v. Scott, 463 U. S. 825 (1983). In the first of these decisions, the Court held that § 1985(3) did not apply to wholly private conspiracies.12 In Griffin the Court rejected that view but limited the application of the statute's first clause to conspiracies motivated by discriminatory intent to deprive plaintiffs of rights constitutionally protected against private (and not just governmental) deprivation. Finally, Carpenters reemphasized that the first clause of § 1985(3) offers no relief from the violation of rights protected against only state interference. 463 U. S., at 830-834. To date, the Court has recognized as rights protected against private encroachment (and, hence, by § 1985(3)) only the constitutional right of interstate travel and rights granted by the Thirteenth Amendment.
For present purposes, it is important to note that in each of these cases the Court narrowly construed § 1985(3) to avoid what it perceived as serious constitutional problems with the statute itself. Because those problems are not at issue here, it is even more important to note a larger point about our precedent. In the course of applying Civil War era legislation to civil rights issues unforeseeable in 1871, the Court has adopted a flexible approach, interpreting the statute to reach current concerns without exceeding the bounds of its intended purposes or the constitutional powers
12 The Court subsequently noted that the constitutional concerns that had supported the limiting construction adopted in Collins would not apply to "a private conspiracy so massive and effective that it supplants [state] authorities and thus satisfies the state action requirement." Griffin, 403 U. S., at 98, and n. 5.
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