Jones v. Alfred H. Mayer Company
"Jones v. Alfred H. Mayer Company" is a significant Supreme Court case from 1968 that reshaped the legal landscape surrounding racial discrimination in property transactions. The case arose when Joseph Lee Jones, an African American, alleged that a real estate company refused to sell him a home due to his race. Initially, lower courts dismissed his claim based on the prevailing view that the Civil Rights Act of 1866 only addressed state discrimination, not private acts. However, the Supreme Court, in a surprising 7-2 decision, overturned this precedent. The Court held that the Thirteenth Amendment granted Congress the authority to prohibit both public and private discrimination, thus broadening the interpretation of the 1866 Civil Rights Act. Justice Potter Stewart, writing for the majority, emphasized Congress's power to identify and legislate against the "badges and incidents of slavery." This ruling diminished the traditional legal distinction between state and private actions, establishing a foundation for future civil rights cases, despite some dissent regarding the interpretation of historical statutes. The decision was pivotal not only for its immediate impacts but also for its implications on the scope of congressional authority in combating private racial discrimination.
Jones v. Alfred H. Mayer Company
Reversing many precedents, the Supreme Court held in this 1968 decision that the Civil Rights Act of 1866 prohibited both private and state-backed discrimination and that the Thirteenth Amendment authorized Congress to prohibit private acts of discrimination as “the badges of slavery.”
Joseph Lee Jones, alleging that a real estate company had refused to sell him a house because he was African American, sought relief in a federal district court. Since the case appeared before the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1968, Jones and his lawyer relied primarily on a provision of the 1866 Civil Rights Act that gave all citizens the same rights as white citizens in property transactions. Both the district court and the court of appeals dismissed the complaint based on the established view that the 1866 law applied only to state action and did not address private acts of discrimination. The US Supreme Court, however, accepted the case for review.
All the precedents of the Supreme Court supported the conclusions of the lower courts. In the Civil Rights cases (1883) the Court had ruled that the Thirteenth Amendment allowed Congress to abolish “all badges and incidents of slavery,” but the Court had narrowly interpreted these badges or incidents as not applying to private acts of discrimination. In Hodges v. United States (1906) the Court held that Congress might prohibit only private actions that marked “a state of entire subjection of one person to the will of another,” and even in Shelley v. Kraemer (1948) the Court recognized the right of individuals to make racially restrictive covenants.
In Jones, however, the Court surprised observers by voting 7 to 2 to overturn its precedents. Writing for the majority, Justice Potter Stewart asserted that Congress under the Thirteenth Amendment possessed the power “to determine what are the badges and incidents of slavery, and the authority to translate that determination into effective legislation.” In addition, the majority reinterpreted the 1866 law so that it proscribed both governmental and private discrimination in property transactions—an interpretation that is questioned by many authorities.
Justice John M. Harlan wrote a dissenting opinion which argued that the majority probably was wrong in its interpretation of the 1866 law. Harlan also wrote that the passage of the Fair Housing Act of 1968 eliminated the need to render this decision that relied on such questionable history.
Since the Jones decision was based on the Thirteenth rather than the Fourteenth Amendment, it was important in diluting the Court’s traditional distinction between state and private action, and it appeared to grant Congress almost unlimited power to outlaw private racial discrimination. Jones became a precedent for new applications of the almost forgotten post-Civil War statutes in cases such as Griffin v. Breckenridge (1971) and Runyon v. McCrary (1976). In the quarter-century after Jones, however, the Congress did not pass any major legislation based upon the authority of the Thirteenth Amendment.
Bibliography
"Jones v. Alfred H. Mayer Co." Legal Information Institute. Cornell U Law School, n.d. Web. 27 Apr. 2015.
"Jones v. Alfred H. Mayer Co.: Significance." Law Library: American Law and Legal Information. Net Industries, 2015. Web. 27 Apr. 2015.
"Jones v. Mayer." Oyez. Oyez, IIT Chicago-Kent College of Law, 2014. Web. 27 Apr. 2015.
Miller, Darrell A. H. "White Cartels, the Civil Rights Act of 1866, and the History of Jones v. Alfred H. Mayer Co." Fordham Law Rev. 77.3 (2008): 999–1050. Print.
Rabkin, Sol. Landmark Decision on Segregation in Housing: Jones v. Mayer. New York: Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith, 1970. Print.