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Runyon v. McCrary

Runyon v. McCrary (1976) stands out because it was the first time the U.S. Supreme Court was asked to determine whether private schools were subject to Section 1981 of the Civil Rights Act of 1866 and therefore prohibited from discriminating on the basis of race. The Court answered in the affirmative.

Facts of the Case

Section 1981 provides all persons with an equal right to enter into and enforce contracts and prohibits racial discrimination in contract formation. While Section 1981 expressly disallowed any discriminatory practices derived from public state action, the implicit question in Runyon was whether the authority of Congress extended to prevent racial discrimination of a private nature.

Runyon originated in the 1960s, when public school systems in southeastern United States were subjected to sweeping federal court desegregation decrees opening formerly White schools to Black children. In an effort to circumvent the Supreme Court's ruling in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (1954, 1955), a number of states closed all or portions of their public school systems and offered support for students to attend private, segregated academies. In Griffin v. School Board of Prince Edward County (1963), the Supreme Court ruled that the Commonwealth of Virginia's closing of the entire Prince Edward County school system violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, and it ordered the schools reopened. Even so, the Court's order did not, and could not, compel the return of White students to the public schools from which they had fled to avoid desegregation. It was in this time period and social context that Runyon arose.

In Runyon, African American students attempted to establish contractual relationships with two private schools but were denied educational services based on their race. Neither private school ever enrolled a Black student in any of its programs. The African American families that sought admittance for their children were informed that the schools were not integrated and were subsequently denied admittance. Through their parents, the two Black students sued the schools, alleging that their policies of excluding non-Whites violated Section 1981.

The Court's Ruling

On further review of judgments in favor of the students from a federal trial court in Virginia and the Fourth Circuit, the Supreme Court affirmed that the schools violated Section 1981. In its analysis, a unanimous Court applied Section 1981 to the facts and found that the policies of the private schools that denied admittance to qualified Black students based solely on race violated Section 1981, despite the lack of state action typically required to enforce the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause.

Based on the legislative history of Section 1981, the Runyon Court reasoned that Section 1981 extended to purely private acts of racial discrimination. Further, the Court was of the opinion that the educational services of the private schools were widely advertised and offered to the general public in a contractual capacity in which educational benefits for qualified students could be exchanged for payment rendered to the facility. As such, the Court pointed out that the general offers of educational services constituted potential commercial contracts, and, as such, the private schools could not refuse to contract with otherwise qualified African American students. In 1991, Congress confirmed the application of Section 1981 to private schools by codifying the prohibition against intentional racial discrimination in private contracting set forth in Runyon in Section 1981(c).

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