Jones v. Alfred H. Mayer Co.
The Supreme Court ruled that a Reconstruction-era federal law, 42 U.S.C. § 1982, bars all racial discrimination in the sale or rental of property, including purely private refusals to sell, not just discrimination carried out by the government.
The decision meant a Black couple turned away from buying a home in a St. Louis suburb could sue the developer directly under an 1866 civil rights law, and it established that Congress can rely on the Thirteenth Amendment to reach purely private conduct, not just government-sponsored discrimination.
“So long as a Negro citizen who wants to buy or rent a home can be turned away simply because he is not white, he cannot be said to enjoy "the same right . . . as is enjoyed by white citizens . . . to . . . purchase [and] lease . . . real and personal property."”
The Court's core reasoning for why private refusals to sell violate the statute.
How it got here: A federal trial court dismissed the couple's complaint; the Eighth Circuit affirmed, holding the statute reached only government-backed discrimination; the Supreme Court agreed to hear the case.
The Case in Depth
What happened
Joseph Lee Jones and his wife tried to buy a house in the Paddock Woods subdivision of St. Louis County, Missouri. The company developing the subdivision refused to sell them the home solely because Mr. Jones is Black. The Joneses sued, arguing the refusal violated an 1866 federal civil rights law guaranteeing citizens the same right as white citizens to buy and sell property.
The question before the Court
Could Congress use its power to enforce the Thirteenth Amendment to stop a private home seller from refusing to sell a house to a Black family because of their race?
The Court's answer
Yes — the Court ruled that 42 U.S.C. § 1982, a Reconstruction-era civil rights law, bars all racial discrimination in buying and selling property, whether committed by the government or by purely private individuals like a real estate developer. Because the statute's text guarantees Black citizens "the same right" to purchase and lease property "as is enjoyed by white citizens," the Court held that a private seller's refusal to sell violates the law just as much as a discriminatory government policy would.
The Court also held that Congress had the constitutional power to pass such a sweeping law under the Thirteenth Amendment, which lets Congress eliminate not just slavery itself but its lingering "badges and incidents," including racial exclusion from property ownership.
Curious how the Court got there? See the step-by-step legal reasoning →
Why it matters
The ruling gave private citizens a federal tool, separate from the newly passed 1968 Fair Housing Act, to sue individuals and companies who refuse to sell or rent homes because of race. It also confirmed that Congress can regulate private conduct, not just government action, when eliminating the lingering effects of slavery, broadening the reach of civil rights enforcement well beyond housing.
What changes now
This is a final merits decision, and the judgment of the Court of Appeals was reversed, letting the Joneses' claim proceed under § 1982. The ruling stands alongside the newly enacted 1968 Fair Housing Act as a separate, broader tool against private housing discrimination, though it lacks that Act's administrative machinery and damages remedies.
What this does not decide
The Court did not decide whether the developer's conduct also violated the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause, since it resolved the case entirely under the 1866 statute and the Thirteenth Amendment. It also did not address discrimination based on religion or national origin, which the statute does not cover.
Concurrences and dissents
Concurrence — Justice Douglas
Justice Douglas agreed with the Court's holding but wrote separately to catalog decades of continuing racial discrimination in voting, education, housing, and public life. He argued that housing exclusion is one of many surviving 'badges of slavery,' emphasizing that discriminatory customs persisted well beyond slavery's formal abolition and that the Court's broad reading of the statute was necessary to address that reality.
Dissent — Justice Harlan
“The decision in this case appears to me to be most ill-considered and ill-advised.”Harlan's opening objection to the majority's approach in the case.
Justice Harlan argued the majority's reading of § 1982 as reaching purely private discrimination was contrary to the statute's legislative history and prior precedent, which he read as limiting the law to government-sanctioned discrimination. He also warned that deciding the Thirteenth Amendment constitutional question was unnecessary and unusually difficult. Since the newly passed 1968 Fair Housing Act would soon provide similar relief to others, he argued the Court should have dismissed the writ as improvidently granted rather than resolve such a hard case.
How the Court got there
The legal reasoning, step by step
- The Court began with the statute's text, which grants all citizens 'the same right ... as is enjoyed by white citizens' to buy and sell property, and found this language plain enough to cover discrimination by private sellers, not just by government officials.
- Looking at the 1866 Civil Rights Act's structure, the Court reasoned that the law's separate criminal-penalty section, which applied only to discrimination committed under color of law, would have made no sense if the underlying civil right in the first section already applied only to government action - the narrower criminal section implied the civil right itself was broader.
- The Court reviewed the legislative debates and found extensive evidence that Congress in 1866 was responding to widespread private mistreatment of freed Black Americans, not just discriminatory state laws, supporting a reading of the statute that covered private conduct.
- Having concluded the statute reached private discrimination, the Court asked whether Congress had constitutional authority for such a sweeping law, and located that authority in the Thirteenth Amendment's Enabling Clause, which lets Congress pass legislation abolishing 'all badges and incidents of slavery,' not just formal bondage itself.
- Applying that badges-and-incidents theory, the Court held Congress could rationally treat racial exclusion from property ownership as a lingering vestige of slavery, making a law banning such discrimination by private individuals an appropriate exercise of the Thirteenth Amendment power.
Doctrinal impact
Cases affected by this decision
Overrules Hodges v. United States (203 U.S. 1)
Overruled the narrow view that Congress's Thirteenth Amendment power reaches only actual enslavement, not private racial exclusion.
Distinguishes Corrigan v. Buckley (271 U.S. 323)
Clarified that this earlier case never actually decided whether the statute reaches purely private discrimination.