In Runyon v. McCrary, 427 U.S. 160 (1976), the Supreme Court held 7–2 that 42 U.S.C. § 1981 prohibits private, commercially operated, nonsectarian schools from refusing to admit students because they are Black. Justice Potter Stewart’s majority opinion read the Reconstruction-era statute’s guarantee of an equal right to make contracts as reaching private admissions decisions, not just state-sponsored discrimination. The ruling remains a foundation of federal civil rights law, and its logic extends well past the schoolhouse door.
The Families and the Schools
Two for-profit Virginia schools were at the center of the case. Fairfax-Brewster School in Fairfax County and Bobbe’s School in Arlington both advertised in the Yellow Pages and mailed brochures to residents throughout their neighborhoods. Neither was affiliated with a church.
The Gonzales family responded to that outreach in 1969, contacting Fairfax-Brewster after a brochure and directory listing and later reaching out to Bobbe’s School. In 1972, Mrs. McCrary called Bobbe’s School after seeing its telephone directory ad. Both schools refused to enroll the children solely because they were Black. Academic and financial qualifications were not in dispute.
The McCrary and Gonzales families filed a class action. The district court found the schools had discriminated on the basis of race, ruled the practice unlawful under § 1981, awarded compensatory damages, and enjoined future discrimination. The Fourth Circuit affirmed the core ruling, and the Supreme Court took the case to decide whether § 1981 truly reaches private school admissions.
What Section 1981 Says
The families’ claim rested on a statute first enacted as part of Reconstruction civil rights legislation. Section 1981 provides that all persons within the United States “shall have the same right in every State and Territory to make and enforce contracts … as is enjoyed by white citizens.”1Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 42 USC 1981 – Equal Rights Under the Law Its text does not limit itself to government action.
Paying tuition for schooling is a contract. The families argued that when a school solicits the public and then refuses an applicant on racial grounds, it denies that person the equal right to contract that the statute guarantees.
The Holding
The Court agreed. Section 1981, Justice Stewart wrote, “prohibits private, commercially operated, nonsectarian schools from denying admission to prospective students because they are Negroes.”2Justia Law. Runyon v McCrary, 427 US 160 (1976) If all persons have the same right as white citizens to make contracts, a business that holds itself out to the public cannot sort applicants by race.
The Court drew a careful line between operating a private school and discriminating in admissions. Parents keep their constitutional right to choose private education, and schools keep the right to design their own curriculum. What no school has, the Court said, is “a constitutional right to provide their children with private school education unfettered by reasonable government regulation.”2Justia Law. Runyon v McCrary, 427 US 160 (1976) Section 1981 fit that description. It left the schools free to teach whatever they wished to any student who qualified academically, so long as race was not the filter.
The Freedom-of-Association Argument
The schools argued the First Amendment let them associate only with people of their choosing. The Court rejected the claim. Excluding racial minorities, the majority held, “has never been accorded affirmative constitutional protections.”2Justia Law. Runyon v McCrary, 427 US 160 (1976) A school could teach a segregationist ideology; that did not entitle it to practice racial exclusion in admissions.
The schools’ public-facing character mattered to this analysis. Because they advertised to the general community, they functioned as commercial enterprises, not intimate private associations. The government’s interest in eliminating racial discrimination in commercial transactions outweighed any associational claim they could raise.
What the Ruling Did Not Reach
The Court deliberately limited its holding, and two categories of institutions stayed outside it.
Religious schools were not addressed. Neither Bobbe’s School nor Fairfax-Brewster School claimed a religious basis for its admissions policy, and the Free Exercise Clause provides distinct protections for religious institutions.3Congress.gov. Constitution Annotated – Relationship Between the Establishment and Free Exercise Clauses How § 1981 interacts with religious school admissions has largely been left for later cases.
Genuinely private clubs also fell outside the ruling. The Court’s reasoning turned on the schools’ open solicitation of the public; they were “private only in the sense that they are managed by private persons.” An organization with meaningful membership requirements that does not advertise to the general public sits on different ground.
The Dissent
Justice White, joined by Justice Rehnquist, read the statute differently. The guarantee is that all persons have the “same right” to contract “as is enjoyed by white citizens.” White citizens, the dissent argued, have no legal right to force an unwilling party into a contract. So the statute, read literally, gave everyone the same limited right rather than creating a new right to be free from private racial discrimination in contracting.
White also contested the statute’s constitutional footing. He tied § 1981 to the Fourteenth Amendment, which restricts government action, rather than to the Thirteenth Amendment’s broader power over the “badges and incidents of slavery.” On that view, the majority’s reliance on Jones v. Alfred H. Mayer Co. (1968), a Thirteenth Amendment housing-discrimination case involving a sister statute, was misplaced.
How the Law Developed After Runyon
Runyon’s core holding survived a direct challenge in Patterson v. McLean Credit Union (1989), where the Court “reaffirm[ed] that § 1981 prohibits racial discrimination in the making and enforcement of private contracts.”4Legal Information Institute. Patterson v McLean Credit Union But Patterson narrowed the statute in another direction, holding that § 1981 covered only contract formation, not racial harassment or discrimination that occurred after a contract was already in place.
Congress rewrote that outcome in 1991. New subsection (b) defines “make and enforce contracts” to include “the making, performance, modification, and termination of contracts, and the enjoyment of all benefits, privileges, terms, and conditions of the contractual relationship.”1Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 42 USC 1981 – Equal Rights Under the Law Subsection (c) confirms that the statute reaches “nongovernmental discrimination.” The amendments overrode Patterson’s narrow reading while leaving Runyon’s foundation in place.
In Comcast Corp. v. National Association of African American-Owned Media, 589 U.S. ___ (2020), the Court set the causation standard for § 1981 claims. A plaintiff must show that race was a “but-for” cause of the injury, meaning the discrimination would not have occurred without it.5Justia Law. Comcast Corp v National Association of African-American Owned Media That is a higher bar than the “motivating factor” test used under Title VII, and it applies at every stage of litigation, from complaint through trial.6Oyez. Comcast Corp v National Association of African American-Owned Media In a case like Runyon, where school officials named race as the reason for denial, the standard would be easy to meet. It matters most where a defendant offers race-neutral explanations alongside evidence of bias.
What a Section 1981 Plaintiff Can Recover
Section 1981 provides a broader damages toolkit than several other federal anti-discrimination statutes. A successful plaintiff can recover compensatory damages for economic harm and emotional distress, punitive damages for especially egregious conduct, and injunctive relief. Unlike Title VII, the ADA, and GINA, § 1981 has no statutory caps scaling with employer size. Attorney’s fees are generally available to prevailing civil rights plaintiffs under 42 U.S.C. § 1988, which helps make these cases financially viable.
Why the Case Still Matters
Runyon’s reach extends well beyond private schools. By confirming that § 1981 governs private contracts, the decision opened the statute to racial discrimination claims in employment, retail, insurance, housing, and every other setting where a contract is formed. The 1991 amendments then extended that protection across the whole life of a contractual relationship. Section 1981 has become one of the most powerful federal tools against private racial discrimination, and Runyon v. McCrary is the ruling that unlocked it.