Cite as: 531 U. S. 288 (2001)
Syllabus
twined in its management or control, Evans v. Newton, 382 U. S. 296, 299, 301—unequivocally show that a legal entity's character is determined neither by its expressly private characterization in statutory law, nor by the law's failure to acknowledge its inseparability from recognized government officials or agencies. In National Collegiate Athletic Assn. v. Tarkanian, 488 U. S. 179, this Court anticipated that state action could be found when there is public entwinement in the management or control of an organization whose member public schools are all within a single State. Pp. 295-298.
(b) The necessarily fact-bound inquiry leads to the conclusion of state action here. The Association's nominally private character is over-borne by the pervasive entwinement of public institutions and public officials in its composition and workings, and there is no substantial reason to claim unfairness in applying constitutional standards to it. To the extent of 84% of its membership, the Association is an organization of public schools represented by their officials acting in their official capacity to provide an integral element of secondary public schooling, interscholastic athletics. There would be no recognizable Association without the public school officials, who overwhelmingly determine and perform all but the Association's purely ministerial acts. Only the 16% minority of private school memberships keeps the entwinement of the Association and public schools from being total and their identities totally indistinguishable. To complement the entwinement from the bottom up, the State has provided entwinement from the top down: State Board members sit ex officio on the Association's governing bodies and Association employees participate in the state retirement system. Entwinement to the degree shown here requires that the Association be charged with a public character and judged by constitutional standards. Pp. 298-302.
(c) Entwinement is also the answer to the Association's several arguments that the instant facts would not support a state-action finding under various other criteria, e. g., the public function test, Rendell-Baker v. Kohn, 457 U. S. 830, distinguished. Pp. 302-303.
(d) Although facts showing public action may be outweighed in the name of a value at odds with finding public accountability in the circumstances, e. g., Polk County v. Dodson, 454 U. S. 312, 322, no such counter-vailing value is present here. The Association's fear that reversing the judgment will trigger an epidemic of federal litigation is unfounded. Save for the Sixth Circuit, every Court of Appeals to consider a statewide athletic association like this one has found it to be a state actor, and there has been no litigation explosion in those jurisdictions. Nor should the Association have dispensation merely because the public
289
Page: Index Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 NextLast modified: October 4, 2007