Runyon v. McCrary
Case Date: 11/04/1976
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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 42 U.S.C. § 1981 (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.[1]
Runyon's holding was severely limited by Patterson v. McLean Credit Union, 491 U.S. 164 (1989), which narrowly construed Section 1981 to not apply 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.
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