Runyon v. McCrary
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Runyon v. McCrary 427 U.S. 160 (1976), was a case heard before the United States Supreme Court which held that federal law prohibited private schools from discriminating on the basis of race. Dissenting Justice White argued that the legislative history of (popularly known as the "Ku Klux Klan Act") 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 of 1883). 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. See Runyon, 427 U.S. 160, 212 (White, J., dissenting) ("Whether such conduct should be condoned or not, whites and blacks will undoubtedly choose to form a variety of associational relationships pursuant to contracts which exclude members of the other race. Social clubs, black and white, and associations designed to further the interests of blacks or whites are but two examples"). Runyon was essentially overruled by 1989's Patterson v. McLean Credit Union, which itself was overruled by the Civil Rights Act of 1991.
