Hughes v. Superior Court of Cal. for Contra Costa Cty.

Background

A citizen group called Progressive Citizens of America picketed a Lucky Stores grocery in Richmond to demand that the store hire Black clerks until the share of Black employees matched the share of Black customers (about half). Lucky asked the state court for an injunction to stop picketing aimed at forcing that racial quota. After the injunction, the picketers continued, were held in contempt, and the California Supreme Court reinstated the contempt judgment. The case reached the United States Supreme Court on claims that the injunction violated the Fourteenth Amendment’s protection of free speech.

Reasoning

The Court explained that picketing is more than ordinary speech because it involves patrolling a place and exerting pressure on a business. The Court said a State may forbid picketing when its specific purpose and effects justify disallowing it. California’s courts had found the picketing was aimed at enforcing race-based hiring quotas, which the State could lawfully oppose. The Supreme Court therefore concluded the Fourteenth Amendment does not prevent California from issuing a narrow injunction against picketing that seeks to compel racially proportional hiring, and it affirmed the judgment.

Real world impact

The decision allows state courts to stop picketing that is designed to force employers to adopt hiring quotas based on race, and it permits contempt enforcement when such narrow injunctions are violated. The ruling is limited to picketing of the kind and purpose described; it does not say all protest or picketing is unlawful and leaves employers free to adopt hiring practices voluntarily.

Dissents or concurrances

Justices Black and Minton joined the judgment on the same principles; Justice Reed wrote separately agreeing the picketing sought unlawful racial discrimination under California law.