''Runyon v. McCrary'', 427 U.S. 160 (1976), was a case heard before the

United States Supreme Court The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point o ...

, which held that federal law prohibited private schools from discriminating on the basis of race.. Dissenting Justice

Byron White Byron "Whizzer" Raymond White (June 8, 1917 April 15, 2002) was an American professional football player and jurist who served as an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court from 1962 until his retirement in 1993. Born and raised in Color ...

argued that the legislative history of (popularly known as the

Civil Rights Act of 1866 The Civil Rights Act of 1866 (, enacted April 9, 1866, reenacted 1870) was the first United States federal law to define citizenship and affirm that all citizens are equally protected by the law. It was mainly intended, in the wake of the Amer ...

) indicated that the Act was not designed to prohibit private racial discrimination, but only state-sponsored racial discrimination (as had been held in the ''

Civil Rights Cases The ''Civil Rights Cases'', 109 U.S. 3 (1883), were a group of five landmark cases in which the Supreme Court of the United States held that the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments did not empower Congress to outlaw racial discrimination by pr ...

'' of 1883).

Background

Two African American students filed suit believing that they were denied admission to private schools in Virginia based on their race. Michael McCrary and Colin Gonzales were denied admission to Bobbe's School; Gonzales was also denied admission to Fairfax-Brewster School. A

class action A class action, also known as a class-action lawsuit, class suit, or representative action, is a type of lawsuit where one of the parties is a group of people who are represented collectively by a member or members of that group. The class actio ...

was filed against the schools by the parents of both students. A federal district court ruled for McCrary and Gonzales, finding that the school's admission policies were racially discriminatory. The United States Court of Appeals affirmed the decision. Russell and Katheryne Runyon d.b.a Bobbe's School and Fairfax-Brewster School were schools in Northern Virginia. Bobbe's was founded in 1958 as a

segregation academy Segregation academies are private schools in the Southern United States that were founded in the mid-20th century by white parents to avoid having their children attend desegregated public schools. They were founded between 1954, when the U.S. ...

with five European-American students. By 1972 it had grown to 200, but had never admitted a black child. Fairfax-Brewster had a similar history from 1955.

Questions before the Court

# Were the admission policies of the private schools in violation of 42 U.S.C. § 1981? # Did the Ku Klux Klan Act violate the Constitutional right to privacy and free association?

Decision of the Supreme Court

In a 7–2 decision Justice Stewart wrote the opinion for the Court. The Court determined that the Ku Klux Klan Act prohibited the racially discriminatory policies of the schools. While the schools were private, ''

Jones v. Alfred H. Mayer Co. ''Jones v. Alfred H. Mayer Co.'', 392 U.S. 409 (1968), is a landmark United States Supreme Court The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate ...

'' held that the Ku Klux Klan Act applied to "purely private acts of racial discrimination". Further, Stewart wrote that the school's admission policies were "classical violation of Section 1981". The Court acknowledged that parents had the right to send their children to schools that "promote the belief fracial segregation", but that neither parents' nor students'

freedom of association Freedom of association encompasses both an individual's right to join or leave groups voluntarily, the right of the group to take collective action to pursue the interests of its members, and the right of an association to accept or decline membe ...

was violated by the application of 42 U.S.C. §1981. The Court cited ''

Pierce v. Society of Sisters ''Pierce v. Society of Sisters'', 268 U.S. 510 (1925), was an early 20th-century United States Supreme Court decision striking down an Oregon statute that required all children to attend public school. The decision significantly expanded coverage ...

'' and the right of the State "reasonably to regulate all schools" to further justify the decision.

Dissenting opinion

Justice White was concerned about the potential far-reaching impact of holding private racial discrimination illegal, which, if taken to its logical conclusion, might ban many varied forms of voluntary self-segregation, including social and advocacy groups that limited their membership to blacks. ''Runyons holding was severely limited by ''Patterson v. McLean Credit Union'',. which narrowly construed Section 1981 as not applying to any discrimination occurring ''after'' the making of a contract, such as racial harassment on the job (although the ''Patterson'' majority expressly claimed that they were ''not'' overruling ''Runyon''). In turn, ''Patterson'' was legislatively overruled by the

Civil Rights Act of 1991 The Civil Rights Act of 1991 is a United States labor law, passed in response to United States Supreme Court decisions that limited the rights of employees who had sued their employers for discrimination. The Act represented the first effort since ...

References

External links

* {{caselaw source , case = ''Runyon v. McCrary'', {{ussc, 427, 160, 1976, el=no , courtlistener =https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/109509/runyon-v-mccrary/ , findlaw = https://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-supreme-court/427/160.html , justia =https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/427/160/ , loc =http://cdn.loc.gov/service/ll/usrep/usrep427/usrep427160/usrep427160.pdf , oyez =https://www.oyez.org/cases/1975/75-62 United States school desegregation case law United States Supreme Court cases United States Supreme Court cases of the Burger Court 1976 in United States case law