312
Thomas, J., dissenting
Because I do not believe that the TSSAA's action of enforcing its recruiting rule is fairly attributable to the State of Tennessee, I would affirm.
II
Although the TSSAA's enforcement activities cannot be considered state action as a matter of common sense or under any of this Court's existing theories of state action, the majority presents a new theory. Under this theory, the majority holds that the combination of factors it identifies evidences "entwinement" of the State with the TSSAA, and that such entwinement converts private action into state action. Ante, at 296-297. The majority does not define "entwinement," and the meaning of the term is not altogether clear. But whatever this new "entwinement" theory may entail, it lacks any support in our state-action jurisprudence. Although the majority asserts that there are three examples of entwinement analysis in our cases, there is no case in which we have rested a finding of state action on entwinement alone.
Two of the cases on which the majority relies do not even use the word "entwinement." See Lebron v. National Railroad Passenger Corporation, supra; Pennsylvania v. Board of Directors of City Trusts of Philadelphia, supra. Lebron concerned the status of Amtrak, a corporation that Congress created and placed under Government control for the specific purpose of achieving a governmental objective (namely, to avert the threatened extinction of passenger train service in the United States). 513 U. S., at 383, 386. Without discussing any notion of entwinement, we simply held that, when "the Government creates a corporation by special law, for the furtherance of governmental objectives, and retains for itself permanent authority to appoint a majority of the directors of that corporation, the corporation is part of the Government for purposes of the First Amendment." Id., at 400. Similarly, in
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