Palmer v. Thompson

Mr. Justice White,

with whom Mr. Justice Bren- • nan and Mr. Justice Marshall join, dissenting.

I agree with the majority that the central purpose of the Fourteenth Amendment is to protect Negroes from invidious discrimination. Consistent with this view, I had thought official policies forbidding or discouraging joint use of public facilities by Negroes and whites were at war with the Equal Protection Clause. Our cases make it unquestionably clear, as all of us agree, that a city or State may not énforce such a policy by maintaining officially separate facilities for the two races. It is also my view, but apparently not that of the majority, that a State may. not have an official stance against desegregating public-facilities and implement it by closing-those facilities in response to a desegregation order.

Let us assume a city has been maintaining segregated swimming'pools and- is ordered to desegregate them. Its . express response is an official resolution declaring desegregation to be contrary to the city’s policy and ordering the facilities .closed rather than continued in service on a desegregated basis. To me it is beyond cavil that on such facts the city is adhering to an unconstitutional policy and is implementing it by abandoning the facilities. It will not do in such circumstances to say that whites and Negroes are being treated alike because both are denied use of public services. The fact is that closing the pools is an expression of official policy that Negroes *241aré unfit to associate with whites. Closing pools to prevent interracial swimming is little different from laws or customs forbidding Negroes and whites from eating together or from cohabiting or intermarrying. See Adickes v. S. H. Kress & Co., 398 U. S. 144 (1970); Loving v. Virginia, 388 U. S. 1 (1967); McLaughlin v. Florida, 379 U. S. 184 (1964); Lombard v. Louisiana, 373 U. S. 267 (1963). The Equal Protection Clause is a hollow promise if it does not forbid such official denigrations of the race the Fourteenth Amendment was designed to. protect.

The case before us is little, if any, different from ' case just described. Jackson, Mississippi, closed its ming pools when a district judge struck down the city’s tradition of segregation in municipal services and made clear his expectation that public facilities would be integrated. The circumstances surrounding this action and the absence of other credible reasons for the closings leave little doubt that shutting down thé pools was nothing more or less than a most effective expression of official policy that Negroes and whites must not be permitted to mingle together when using the services provided- by the city. ,k

I am quite unpersuaded by the majority’s assertion that it is impermissible to impeach the otherwise valid act of closing municipal swimming pools by resort to evidence of invidious purpose or motive. Congress has long provided civil and criminal remedies for a variety of official and private conduct. In various' situations these ■ statutes and our interpretátions of them provide that such conduct falls within the federal- proscription only upon proof, of forbidden racial motive or animus. An otherwise valid refusal to contract the sale of'real estate falls within the ban of 42 U. S. C. § 1982 upon proof that the refusal was racially motivated. Jones v. Alfred H. Mayer Co., 392 U. S. 409 (1968). A restau- \ *242rant’s refusal to serve a white customer is actionable under 42 U. S. C. § 1983 where the evidence shows that refusal occurred because the white was accompanied by-Negroes and was pursúant to a state-enforced custom of racial segregation. Adickes, supra. Just last week in Griffin v. Breckenridge, ante, p. 88, we construed 42 U. S. C. § 1985 (3) to reach, wholly private conspiracies — in that, case to commit assault on Negroes— where sufficient!,, evidence of “racial . . . animus” or “invidiously discriminatory motivation” accompanied the conspirators’ actions. Griffin v. Breckenridge, supra, at 102. ■ In rejecting the argument that § 1985 (3) was subject to an implied state action limitation, we indicated that racially motivated conspiracies or activities would be actionable under § 1983 if done under color of law. Id., at 98-99. Official conduct is no more immune to'Characterization based on its motivation than is private conduct, and we have so held many times. The police are vulnerable under § 1983 if they subject a person “to false arrest for vagrancy for the purpose of harassing and punishing [him] for attempting to eat with black people,” Adickes, supra, at 172, or if they “intentionally tolerate violence or threats of violence directed toward those who violated the practice of segregating the races at restaurants.” Ibid..

In another decision last week, we reversed a three-judge court ruling in a suit under § 1983 that the multi-member apportionment plan there involved operated to minimise or dilute the voting strength of Negroes in an identifiable ghetto area. However, in an opinion joined by four members of the majority in the instant case, we cautioned that:

“[T]he courts have been vigilant in scrutinizing schemes allegedly conceived or operated as purposeful devices to further racial discrimination. . . . But there is no suggestion here that Marion' County’s *243multi-member district, of similar districts throughout the State, were conceived or operated as’purposeful devices to further racial or economic discrimination.” Whitcomb v. Chavis, ante, p. 124, at 149 (emphasis added).

Further, motivation analysis has assumed great importance in suits under 42 U. S. C. § 1983 as 'a result of this Court's opinions in Younger v. Harris, 401 U. S. 37 (1971), and its companion cases. There the. Court held that even though a state criminal prosecution was pending, federal relief would be appropriate on allegations in a complaint to the effect that state officials were utilizing state criminal statutes in bad faith, with no hope of obtaining valid convictions under them, in an effort to harass individuals in the exercise of their constitutional rights. Obviously, in order to determine its jurisdiction in each such case, a federal court ihust examine and make a determination of the same kind of official motivation which the Court today holds unreviewable.

In thus pursuing remedies under the federal .civil rights laws, as petitioners are doing under §§ 1981 and 1983 here, Negro plaintiffs should have every right to prove that the action of the city officials was motivated by nothing but racial ■ considerations. In examining their contentions, it will be helpful to re-create the context in which this case arises.

In May 1954, this Court held that “[sjeparate educational facilities are inherently unequal.” Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U. S. 483, 495. In a series of opinions following closely in time, the Court emphasized the universality and permanence of the principle that segregated public facilities of any kind were no longer permissible under the Fourteenth Amendment. *244Muir v. Louisville Park Theatrical Assn., 347 U. S. 971 (1954), decided one week after Brown, saw the Court review a decision of the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit which had affirmed a district court order holding that Negro plaintiffs were entitled to the use of public golf courses and a public fishing lake in Iroquois Park in Louisville, but that the privately owned theatrical association that leased a city-owned amphitheater in the' same park was not guilty of discrimination proscribéd by the Fourteenth Amendment in refusing to admit Negroes to its operatic performances. The Court vacated the judgment and remanded “for consideration in the light of the Segregation Cases decided May 17, 1954 . . . and conditions that now prevail.” Ibid.1

At the beginning of the October 1955 Term, the Court resolved any possible ambiguity about the action taken in Muir. In a pair of summary decisions, the Court made it clear that state-sanctioned segregation in .the operation of public recreational facilities was prohibited. Mayor and City Council of Baltimore v. Dawson, 350 U. S. 877 (1955), was a summary affirmance of a decision by the Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit that officials of the State and city could not enforce a policy of racial segregation at public beaches and bathhouses. On the same day, the Court confirmed that use of a public golf course could not be denied to any person on account of his race. Holmes v. City of Atlanta, 350 U. S. 879 (1955).

The lower federal courts played a very important role in this ongoing process. ' For example, in June 1956, *245a three-judge district court in Alabama, relying on Brown, Dawson, and Holmes, held that:

“[T]he statutes and ordinances requiring segregation of the white and colored races on the motor buses of a common carrier of passengers in the City of Montgomery' and its police jurisdiction violate the due process and equal protection of the law clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment . . .

Browder v. Gayle, 142 F. Supp. 707, 717 (MD Ala.). Again this Court affirmed summarily, citing Brown, Dawson, and Holmes. 352 U. S. 903 (1956). Some public officials remained unconvinced. In early 1958, the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit summarily rejected as without merit an appeal by the New Orleans City Park Improvement Association from a summary judgment including a permanent injunction prohibiting the Association, a municipal corporation, from denying Negroes the usevof the facilities of the New Orleans City Park. New Orleans City Park Improvement Assn. v. Detiege, 252 F. 2d 122 (CA5 1958). When the Association took a further appeal to this Court, the judgment was affirmed in a one-line opinion. New Orleans City Park Improvement Assn. v. Detiege, 358 U. S. 54 (1958). Other decisions in this Court and the lower federal courts demonstrated the pervasive idea that officially segregated public facilities were not equal.2

*246Throughout the same period, this Court and other courts rejected attempts by various public bodies to evade their clear duty under Brown and its progeny by employing delaying tactics or other artifices short of open defiance. Cooper v. Aaron, 358 U. S. 1 (1958); Burton v. Wilmington Parking Authority, 365 U. S. 715 (1961); Watson v. City of Memphis, 373 U. S. 526 (1963); Griffin v. County School Board bf Prince Edward County, 377 U. S. 218 (1964).3 Meanwhile, countless class suits seeking desegregation orders were successfully prosecuted by Negro plaintiffs in the lower federal courts. Many public facilities were opened to all citizens, regardless of race, without direct intervention by this Court. Several of these local suits are relevant to the present case.

The city of Jackson was one of many places where the consistent line of decisions following from Brown had little or no effect.4 Public recreational facilities were *247not desegregated although it had become clear that such action was required by the Constitution. As respondents state in their brief in this case:

“In 1963 the City of Jackson was operating equal but separate recreational facilities such as parks and golf links, including swimming pools. A suit was brought in the Southern District of Mississippi to enjoin the segregated operation of these facilities. The City of Jackson took the position in that litigation that the segregation of recreational facilities, if separate but equal recreational facilities were provided and if citizens voluntarily used segregated facilities, was constitutional.” Respondents’ Brief 2.

This was nearly nine years after Brown and more than seven years after Dawson and Holmes:

The suit respondents refer to was instituted in 1962 as a class action by three Negro plaintiffs who alleged that some city facilities — parks, libraries, zoo, golf courses, playgrounds, auditoriums, and other recreational complexes — were closed to them because of their race. The defendants were Jackson city officials, including Mayor Allen C. Thompson and Director of Parks and Recreation George Kurts, both respondents in the present case. The plaintiffs in that suit were successful. The District Court’s opinion began by stating that Jackson *248was a city “noted for its low crime rate and lack of racial friction except for the period in 1961 when the self-styled Freedom Riders made their visits.” Clark v. Thompson, 206 F. Supp. 539, 541 (SD Miss. 1962). It was also stated that'Jackson had racially exclusive neighborhoods, that as this residential pattern had developed the city had “duplicated” its recreational facilities in white and Negro areas, and that members of each race “have customarily used the recreational facilities located in close proximity to their homes.” Ibid. The final finding of fact was that the “defendants are not enforcing separation of the races in. public recreational facilities in the City of Jackson. The defendants do encourage voluntary separation of. the races.” Ibid.5

Among the District Court’s conclusions of law were the following: (1) that the suit was not a proper class action since the Negro plaintiffs had failed to show that their interests were not antagonistic to or-incompatible with those^of the purported class;6 (2) that the three original plaintiffs were entitled to an adjudication by declaratory judgment of “their personal claims of right to unsegregated use of public recreational facilities,” 206 F. Supp., *249at 542; (3) that injunctive relief was inappropriate as a matter of law;-7 and (4) that

“The individual defendants in this case are all outstanding, high class gentlemen and in my opinion will not violate the terms of the declaratory judgment issued herein. They know now what the law is and what their obligations are, and I am definitely of the opinion that they, will conform to the ruling of this Court without being coerced so to do by an injunction. The City of Jackson, a municipality, of course is operated by some of these high class citizens. I am further of the opinion that during this period of turmoil the time now has arrived when the judiciary should not issue injunctions perfunctorily, but should place trust in men of high character that they will obey the mandate of the Court without an injunction hanging over their heads.” 206 F. Supp., at 543.

As the city has stressed in its brief here, it did not appeal from this judgment, which was entered in May 1962. The Negro plaintiffs, however, did appeal, claiming that the relief afforded was inadequate. The Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit affirmed per curiam, 313 F. 2d 637 (CA5 1963). On December-16, 1963, this-Court denied certiorari, 375 U. S. 951. \

It must be noted here that none of Jackson’s public recreational facilities was desegregated until after the appellate proceedings in Clark v. Thompson were fully concluded.8 This was true despite the fact that under this-.Court’s prior decisions the only possible result of such review would have been a broadening of the relief *250granted by the District Judge. Moreover, from the time of the trial court’s decision in. Clark v. Thompson, the mayor of Jackson made public statements, of record in this case, indicating his dedication to maintaining segregated facilities. On May 24, 1962, nine days after the District Court’s decision in Clark v. Thompson, the Jackson Daily News quoted Mayor Thompson as saying:

“ ‘We will do all right this year at the swimming pools . . . but if these agitators keep up their pressure, we would have five colored swimming pools because we are not going to have any intermingling.’ . . . He said the City now has legislative authority to sell the pools or close them down .if they can’t be sold.” App. 15.

A year passed while the appeals in Clark v. Thompson were pending, but the city’s official attitude did not change. On May 24, 1963, the- Jackson Daily News reported that “Governor Ross Barnett today commended Mayor Thompson for his pledge to maintain Jackson’s present separation of the races.” App. 15. On the next day, the same newspaper carried a front page article stating that “Thompson said neither agitators nor President Kennedy will change the determination of Jackson to retain segregation.” App. 16.

During May and June 1963, the Negro citizens of Jackson organized to present their grievances to city officials. On May 27, a committee representing the Negro community met with the mayor and two city commissioners. Among the grievances presented was a specific demand that the city desegregate public facilities, including the city-operated parks and swimming pools.

On the day following this meeting, the Jackson Daily News quoted the mayor as saying:

“ ‘In spite of the current agitation, the Commissioners and I shall continue to plan and seek money *251for additional parks for our Negro citizens. Tomorrow we are discussing with local. Negro citizens plans to immediately begin a new clubhouse and library in the Grove Park area, and other park and recreational facilities for Negroes throughout the City. We cannot proceed, however, on the proposed $100,000 expenditure for a Negro swimming pool in the Grove Park area as long as there is the threat of -racial disturbances.’ ” App. 15.

On May 30, 1963, the same paper reported that the ■ mayor had announced that “[pjublic swimming pools would not .be opened on schedule this year due to some minor water difficulty.” App. 5.

The city at this-time operated five swimming facilities on a segregated basis: the Livingston Lake swimming facility, in reality a lake with beach facilities, at Livingston Park; a swimming pool in Battlefield Park; a swimming pool and a wading pool in Riverside Park; a pool that, the city leased from the YMCA in Leavéll Woods Park; a swimming pool and a wading pool for Negroes, in College Park.9 In literature describing its Department of Parks and Recreation, the city stressed that “[o]ur, $.1.0- and $.20 charge for swimming- . -. . [is], the lowest to be found anywhere in the-country. The fees are kept low in order to serve as many people as possible.’,’ In one of two affidavits that he filed below, Parks Director Kurts stated that for the years 1960, 1961, and 1962,. the average annual expense to the city of operating each of the pools, in Battlefield, Riverside, and College Park was $10,000. The average annual revenue from the pools in Battlefield *252and Riverside Parks was $8,000 apiece; the average annual revenue from the Negro pool in College Park ' was $2,300. Thus, for these three facilities, the city . was absorbing, an annual loss of approximately $11,700; and was doing so “in order to serve as many people as possible.”

From the time of the announcement of “minor water difficulty” at the end of May 1963, none of these swimming facilities has operated under public aegis. The city, canceled its lease on the Leavell Woods pool, and it has since been operated on a “whites only” basis by its owner, the YMCA, • apparently without city involvement.10 At oral argument, counsel for the city informed us- that the pool that was located in the Negro neighborhood — the College Park pool — “was sold by the City to the Y. The YMCA opened it up and the black people boycotted so it wasn’t being used, then the YMCA sold it to Jackson State College, Jackson State now owns it and operates it . . . for the students at Jackson State and their guests . . . .” Tr. of Oral Arg. 31. According to the record below, the Battlefield Park and Riverside Park pools, both in white neighborhoods, have remained closed but have been properly maintained and *253prevented from falling into disrepair by the city, although they produce no offsetting revenue. The Livingston Lake facility has apparently remained in its natural state.11

In August 1965, petitioners brought the present class action in the Southern • District of Mississippi. They challenged the closing of the pools and racial segregation in the city jail, seeking both declaratory and injunctive relief. The case was tried on affidavits and stipulations and submitted to the District Judge. In addition to the evidence, summarized above, Mayor Thompson filed an affidavit which stated:

“Realizing that the personal safety of all of the •citizens of the' City and the maintenance of law and order would prohibit the operation of swimming pools on an integrated basis, and realizing that the said pools could not be operated economically on an integrated basis, the City made the decision subsequent to the Clark case to close all pools owned and operated by the City to members of both races.” App. 21.12

Parks Director Kurts filed a similar affidavit, averring:

“That after the decision of the Court in the case of Clark v. Thompson, it became apparent that the swimming-pools owned and operated by the City of Jackson could not be operated peacefully, safely, or economically on an integrated basis, and the City *254decided that the best interest of all citizens required the closing of all public swimming pools owned and operated by the City . . . App. 18.13

Based on these affidavits, the District Judge found as a fact that the decision to close the pools was made after Clark v. Thompson and that the pools could not be operated safely or economically on an integrated basis. Accordingly, he held that petitioners were not entitled to any relief and dismissed the complaint. On appeal, a panel of the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit affirmed. Palmer v. Thompson, 391 F. 2d 324 (1967). On rehearing en banc, the Court of Appeals, by a seven-to-six vote, again affirmed dismissal of the complaint. 419 F. 2d 1222 (1969). Both courts below rejected petitioners’ argument that because the pools were closed to avoid court orders that would require their desegregation, the city’s action was a denial of equal protection. We granted certiorari to decide that issue, 397 U. S. 1035 (1970), and for the reasons that follow I would reverse.

There is no dispute that the closing of the pools constituted state action. Similarly, there can be no disagreement that the desegregation ruling in Clark v. Thompson was the event that precipitated the city’s decision to cease furnishing public swimming facilities to its citizens.14 Although the secondary evidence of what the city officials thought and believed about the wisdom of desegregation is relevant, it is not necessary to rely on it to establish the causal link between Clark v. Thompson and the closings. The officials’ sworn affidavits, *255accepted by the courts below, stated that loss of revenue and danger to the citizens would obviously result from operating the pools on an integrated basis. Desegregation, and desegregation alone, was the catalyst that would produce these undesirable consequences. . Implicit in this official judgment were assumptions that the citizens of Jackson were of such a mind that they would no longer pay the 10- or 20-cent fee imposed by the city if their swimming and wading had to be done with their neighbors of another race, that some citizens would direct violence against their neighbors for using pools previously closed to them, and that the anticipated violence would not be controllable by the authorities. _ Stated more simply, although the city officials knew what the Constitution required after Clark v. Thompson became final, their judgment was that compliance with that mandate, at least with respect to swimming pools, would be intolerable to Jackson’s citizens.

Predictions such as this have been presented here before. One year after the District Court’s opinion in Clark v. Thompson, this Court reviewed a case in which municipal officials had made the same assumption and had acted upon it. In Memphis, Tennessee, Brown and the cases discussed above had little effect until May 1960, when Negro residents sued for declaratory and injunctive relief directing immediate desegregation of the municipal parks and other city-owned and city-operated recreational facilities. The city agreed that the Fourteenth Amendment required all facilities to be opened to citizens regardless of race and that the majority of cit3r-run facilities remained segregated at the time of suit, six years after Brown. It was nevertheless asserted that desegregation was under way and that further delay in achieving full desegregation was the wise and proper course. Both of the lower courts denied plaintiffs relief, the net resultvbeing an order directing the city to submit *256within six months a plan providing for gradual desegregation of all the city’s recreational facilities.

This Court unanimously rejected further delay in integrating these facilities. Watson v. City of Memphis, 373 U. S. 526 (1963). It did so although the city asserted its good-faith attempt to comply'with the Constitution and its honest belief that gradual desegregation, facility by facility, was necessary to prevent interracial strife. The Court’s “compelling answer to this contention [was] that constitutional rights may not be denied simply because of hostility to their assertion or exercise.” Id., at 535. See also Buchanan v. Warley, 245 U. S. 60, 81 (1917); Brown v. Board of Education, 349 U. S. 294, 300 (1955); Cooper v. Aaron, 358 U. S., at 16; Wright v. Georgia, 373 U. S. 284, 291-293 (1963) v The record in the case was reviewed in some detail. I quote at length because of the pertinence of the Court’s observations.

“Beyond this, however, neither the asserted fears of violence and tumult nor the asserted inability to preserve the peace was demonstrated at trial to be anything more than personal speculations or vague disquietudes of city officials. There is no indication that there had been any violence or meaningful disturbances when other recreational facilities had been desegregated. In fact, the only evidence in the record was that such prior • transitions had been peaceful. The Chairman of the Memphis Park Commission indicated that the city had ‘been singularly blessed by the absence of turmoil up to this time on this race question’; notwithstanding the prior desegregation of numerous recreational facilities, the same witness could point as evideneé of the unrest or turmoil which would assertedly occur upon complete desegregation of such facilities only to a number of anonymous letters and phone calls *257which he had received. The Memphis Chief of Police mentioned without further description some ‘troubles’ at the time bus service was desegregated and referred to threatened violence in connection with a ‘sit-in’ demonstration at a local store, but, beyond making general predictions, gave no concrete indication of any inability of authorities to maintain the peace. The only violence referred to at any park or recreational facility occurred in segregated parks and was not the product of attempts at desegregation. Moreover, there was no factual evidence to support the bare testimonial speculations that authorities would be unable to cope successfully with any problems which in fact might arise or to meet the need for additional protection should the occasion demand.

“The existing and commendable goodwill between the races in Memphis, to which both the District Court and some of the witnesses at trial made express and emphatic reference as in some inexplicable fashion supporting the need for further delay, can best be preserved and extended by the observance and protection, not the denial, of the basic constitutional rights here asserted. The best guarantee of civil peace is adherence to, and respect for, the law.

“The other justifications for delay urged by the city or relied upon by the courts below are no more substantial, either legally or practically. It was, for example, asserted that immediate desegregation of playgrounds and parks would deprive a number of children — both Negro and white — of recreational facilities; this contention was apparently based on the premise that a number of such facilities would have to be closed because of the inadequacy of the ‘present’ park budgetto provide additional ‘supervision’ assumed to be nee^ssary to operate unsegregated *258playgrounds. As already noted, however, there is no warrant in this record for assuming that such added supervision would, in fact, be required, much less that police and recreation personnel would be unavailable to meet such needs if they should arise. More significantly, however, it is obvious that vindication of conceded constitutional rights cannot be made dependent upon any theory that it is less expensive to deny than to afford them. We will not ássume that the citizens of Memphis accept the questionable premise implicit in this argument or that either the resources of the city are inadequate, or its government unresponsive, to the needs of all of its citizens.” 373 U. S., at 536-538 (footnotes omitted).

So it is in this case. The record before us does not include live testimony. It was stipulated by the parties after the District Judge had entered his order denying relief that the “parties had an opportunity to offer any and all evidence desired.” The official affidavits filed were even less compelling than the evidence presented by city officials in Watson. The conclusion of city officials that integrated pools would not be “economical” was no more than “pergonal speculation.” The city made no showing that integrated operation would increase the annual loss of at least $11,700 — a loss that, prior to 1963, the city purposely accepted for the benefit of its citizens as long as segregated facilities could be maintained. The prediction that the pools could not be operated safely if they were desegregated was nothing more than a “vague disquietude.” In Watson, the record reflected that the parks commissioner had received a number of anonymous phone calls and letters presumably threatening violence, and that the chief of police had testified about troubles in connection with ajsit-in demonstration and desegregation of the city buses.' Here, Mayor Thomp*259son’s affidavit, filed in 1965, refers only to a time in 1961 “when racial tensions were inflamed by the visits of the freedom riders to Jackson.” Both the Thompson and Kurts affidavits assert that all other public recreational facilities in Jackson were desegregated following Clark v. Thompson. Neither affidavit contains the. slightest hint — in general or specific terms — that this transition caused disorder or violence.15 As in Watson, there is no factual evidence that city law enforcement authorities would be unable to cope with any disturbances that might arise; unlike Watson, however, there is' in this record not even a “bare testimonial speculation” that this would be the case.

With all due respect, I am quite unable to agree with the majority’s assertion, ante, at 225, that there is “substantial evidence in the record” to support the conclusion of the lower courts that the pools could not be operated safely and economically on an integrated basis. Officials may take effective action to control violence or to prevent it when it is reasonably imminent. But the anticipation of violence in this case rested only on unsupported assertion, to which the permanent closing of swimming pools was a wholly unjustified response. The city seems to fear that even if some or all of the pools suffered a sharp decline in revenues from the levels pertaining before 1963 because Negro and white neighbors refused to use integrated facilities, the city could never close the pools for that reason. I need only ob*260serve that such a case, if documented by objective record evidence, would, present different considerations. As Judge Wisdom stated below, “We do not say that a city may never abandon a previously rendered municipal service. If the facts show that the city has acted in good faith for economic or other nonracial reasons, the action would have no overtones of racial degradation, and would therefore not offend the Constitution.” 419 F. 2d, at 1237 n. 16 (dissenting opinion). It is enough for the present case to re-emphasize that the only evidence in this record is the conclusions of the officials themselves, unsupported by even a scintilla of added proof.

Watson counsels us to reject the vague speculation that the citizens of Jackson will not obey the law, as well as the correlative assumption that they would prefer no public pools to pools open to all residents who come in peace. The argument based on economy is ho more than a claim that a major portion of the city’s population will not observe constitutional norms. The argument based on potential violence, as counsel for the city indicated at oral argument, unfortunately reflects the views of a few immoderates who purport to speak for the white population of the city of Jackson. Tr. of Oral Arg. 36. Perhaps it could have been presented, but there is no evidence now before us that there exists any group among the citizens of Jackson that would employ lawless violence to prevent use of swimming pools by Negroes and whites together. In my view, the Fourteenth Amendment does not permit any official act— whether in the form of open refusal to desegregate facilities that continue to operate, decisions to delay complete desegregation, or closure of facilities — to be predicated on so weak a reed. Public officials sworn to uphold the Constitution may not avoid a constitutional duty by bowing to the hypothetical effects of private racial prejudice that they assume to be both widely and deeply *261held. Surely the promise of the Fourteenth Amendment demands more than nihilistic surrender.. As Mr. Justice Frankfurter observed more than 12 years ago:

“The process of ending unconstitutional exclusion of pupils from the common school system — ‘common’ meaning shared alike — solely because of color is no doubt not an easy, overnight task in a few States where a drastic alteration in the . ways of communities is involved. Deep emotions have, no doubt, been stirred. They will not be calmed by letting violence loose — -violence and defiance employed and encouraged by those upon whom • the' duty of law observance should have the strongest claim — nor by submitting to it under whatever guise employed. Only the constructive use of time will-achieve what an advanced civilization demands and the Constitution confirms.” Cooper v. Aaron, 358 U. S., at 25 (concurring opinion).

I thus arrive at the question of whether closing public facilities to citizens of both races, whatever the reasons for such action, is a special kind of state action somehow insulated from scrutiny under the Fourteenth Amendment. As the opinions of the majority and Mr. Justice Douglas show, most of our prior decisions, because of their facts, do not deal with this precise issue.

Bush v. Orleans Parish Bchool Board, 187 F. Supp. 42 (ED La. 1960), aff’d, 365 U. S. 569 (1961), is releyant. In that case, a three-judge court declared unconstitutional a number of Louisiana statutes designed to avoid desegregation of the public schools in that State. Among the laws stricken down was a statute giving the Governor the right to close any school ordered to integrate, a statute giving the Governor the right to. close all schools if one was integrated, and a statute giving the Governor *262the right to close any school threatened with violence or disorder. We affirmed the District Court summarily and without dissent. Ibid.16 See also Hall v. St. Helena *263Parish School Board, 197 F. Supp. 649 (ED La. 1961), aff’d, 368 U. S. 515 (1962).

Griffin v. County School Board of Prince Edward County, 377 U. S. 218 (1964), is perhaps distinguishable, *264but only if one ignores its basic rationale and the purpose and direction of this Court’s decisions since Brown. First, and most importantly, Griffin stands for the proposition that the reasons underlying certain official acts are highly relevant in assessing the constitutional validity of those acts. We stated:

“But the record in the present case could not be • clearer that Prince Edward’s public schools were closed and private schools operated in their place with state and county assistance, for one reason, and one reason only: to ensure, through measures taken by the county and the State, that white and colored children in Prince Edward County would not, under any circumstances, go to the same school. Whatever nonracial grounds might support a State’s allowing a county to abandon public schools, the object must be a constitutional one; and grounds of race and opposition to desegregation do not qualify as constitutional.” 377 U. S., at 231.

See also Gomillion v. Lightfoot, 364 U. S. 339, 346-348 (1960); Board of Education v. Allen, 392 U. S. 236, 243 (1968); Epperson v. Arkansas, 393 U. S. 97, 109 (1968); Ely, Legislative and Administrative Motivation in Constitutional Law, 79 Yale L. J. 1205 (1970); Note, Legislative Purpose and Federal Constitutional Adjudication, 83 Harv. L. Rev. 1887 (1970). Second, *265Griffin contains much that is relevant to the kind of decree that would be appropriate if the decision below is reversed. See 377 U. S., at 232-234.

The majority, conceding the relevance of the quoted passage from Griffin, states that the ‘‘focus in [both Griffin and Gomillion] was on the actual effect of the enactments, not upon the motivation which led the States to behave as they did.” Respondents agree, and argue further that the present record shows only that Jackson has closed facilities that were once open on a segregated basis and that the closing operates equally on. Negroes and whites alike.

But if effect was all that the Court considered relevant in Griffin, there was no need to mention underlying purpose and to stress the delay that took place in Virginia in implementing Brown.17 More importantly, Griffin was only one case in a series stressing that the Fourteenth Amendment rights “declared by this Court in the Brown case can neither be nullified openly and directly by state legislators or state executive or judicial officers, nor nullified indirectly by them through evasive schemes for segregation whether attempted ‘ingeniously or ingenuously.’ Smith v. Texas, 311 U. S. 128, 132.” Cooper v. Aaron, supra, at 17. It seems to me neither wise nor warranted to limit this principle in a case where the record is as clear as is the one presently before us.

State action predicated solely on opposition to a lawful court order to desegregate is a denial of equal protection of the laws. As Judge Wisdom said in dissent below, the argument that the closing of the pools operated equally on Negroes and whites “is a tired.contention, one that has been overworked in civil rights cases.” 419 F. 2d, at 1232 (dissenting opinion). It was made and rejected in Griffin. See, e. g., Brief of Respondent Board of Super*266visors of Prince Edward County in Griffin 57-84.18 It was advanced and rejected in different contexts in Anderson v. Martin, 375 U. S. 399 (1964) (designation of race on ballots), and Loving v. Virginia, 388 U. S. 1 (1967) ('miscegenation law). The same argument was rejected in Hunter v. Erickson, 393 U. S. 385, 391 (1969), where we stated that “although the law on its face treats Negro and white, Jew and gentile in an identical manner, the reality is that the law’s impact falls on the minority. The majority needs' no protection against discrimination and if it did, a referendum might be bothersome but no more than ■ that.”

Here, too, the reality is that the impact of the. city’s act falls on the minority. Quite apart from the question whether the white citizens of Jackson have a better chance to swim than do their Negro neighbors absent city pools, there are deep and troubling effects on the racial minority that should give us all pause. As stated at the outset of this opinion, by closing the pools solely because of the order to desegregate, the city is expressing its official view that Negroes are so inferior that they are unfit to share with whites this particular type of public facility, though pools were long a feature of the city’s segregated recreation program. But such an official position may not be enforced by designating certain pools for use by whites and others for the use of Negroes. Closing the pools without a colorable nondiscriminatory reason was every bit as much an official endorsement of *267the notion that Negroes are not equal to whites as was the use of state National Guard troops in 1957 to bar the entry of nine Negro students into Little Rock’s Central High School, a public facility that was ordered desegregated in the- wake of Brown. See Cooper v. Aaron, 358 U. S., at 11. Both types of state actions reflect implementation of the same official conclusion: Negroes cannot be permitted to associate with whites. But that notion had begun to break down as this Court struggled with the “separate but equal” doctrine, see Brown, 347 U. S., at 491-494,19 and I had thought it was emphatically laid to rest in Brown itself, where we quoted with approval the finding of a district judge that:

“ ‘Segregation of white and colored children in public schools has a detrimental effect upon the colored children. The impact is greater when it has the sanction of the law; for the policy of separating the races is usually interpretéd as denoting the inferiority of the negro group. A sense of inferiority affects the motivation of a child to learn. Segregation with the sanction of law, therefore, has a tendency to [retard] the educational and mental development of the negro children and to deprive them of some of the benefits they would receive in a racial[ly] integrated school system.’ ” 347 U. S., at 494.

*268These considerations were not abandoned as Br.own was applied in other contexts, and it is untenable to suggest that the closing of the'swimming pools — a pronouncement that Negroes are. somehow unfit to swim with whites — operates equally on Negroes and whites. Whites feel nothing but disappointment and perhaps anger at the loss of the facilities. Negroes feel that and more. They are stigmatized by official implementation of a policy that the Fourteenth Amendment condemns as illegal. And the closed pools stand as mute reminders to the community of the official view of Negro inferiority.

Moreover, this Court has carefully guarded the. rights of Negroes to attack state-sanctioned segregation through the peaceful channels of the judicial process. This Court has recently discussed and analyzed various provisions of the Reconstruction civil rights statutes, and there is little need here to repeat anything more than the most recent observation that “[t]he approach of this Court. .. has been to 'accord [these statutes] a sweep as broad as [their] language.’ ” Griffin v. Breckenridge, ante, p. 88, at 97.20 Of course, 42 U. S. C. § 1981 specifically declares that “[a] 11 persojis . . . shall have the same right ... to sue ... as is enjoyed by' white citizens. . . .” Congress has supplemented this early legislation, and this Court has commented on the importance of private plaintiffs in enforcing civil rights statutes. Newman v. Piggie Park Enterprises, Inc., 390 U. S. 400, 401-402 (1968); see also NAACP v. Alabama, 357 U. S. 449 (1958). The Civil Rights Act of 1964 provided an additional avenue for a potential private plaintiff to follow. Provisions of that Act authorize the Attorney General to bring a civil suit in the name of the. United States whenever he receives a signed complaint in writing *269from an individual that such person is-being denied equal protection of the laws by being denied equal utilization of any public facilities such as those involved in the present case. 42 U. S. C. § 2000b (a). The Attorney General may bring such a suit if he believes the complaint to be meritorious and certifies that the signer of the complaint is unable, in his judgment, to initiate and maintain an appropriate private suit. Ibid. The statute further defines when the Attorney General may deem a complainant unable to initiate or maintain a private action, specifying inability to bear the expense of private litigation and the possibility that “the institution of such litigation would jeopardize the personal safety, employment, or economic standing of such person or persons, their families, or their property.” 42 U. S. C. § 2000b (b).

It is evident that closing a public facility after a court has ordered its desegregation has an unfortunate impact on the; minority considering initiation of further suits or filing complaints with the Attorney General. As Judge Wisdom said, “[T]he price of protest is high. Negroes ... now know that they risk losing even segregated public facilities if they dare to protest. . . segregated public parks, segregated public libraries, or other segregated facilities. They must first decide whether they wish to risk living without the facility altogether . . . .” 419 F. 2d, at 1236 (dissenting opinion). It is difficult to measure the extent of this impact, but it is surely present and surely we should not ignore it. The action of the city in this case interposes a major deterrent to seeking judicial or executive help in eliminating racial restrictions on the use of public facilities.21 As such, it is illegal under the *270Fourteenth Amendment. See Shapiro v. Thompson, 394 U. S. 618, 631 (1969); United States v. Jackson, 390 U. S. 570, 581 (1968); Dombrowski v. Pfister, 380 U. S. 479, 486-487 (1965); see also Oregon v. Mitchell, 400 U. S. 112, 292 (1970) (Stewart, J., concurring and dissenting).

From what has been stated above, it is clear that the city’s action in closing the pools because of opposition to the decision in Clark v. Thompson was “ah exercise of the state police power which trenches upon the constitutionally protected freedom from invidious official discrimination based on race.” McLaughlin v. Florida, 379 *271U. S. 184, 196 (1964). As such, it “bears a heavy burden of justification ... and will be upheld only if it is necessary, 'and not merely rationally related, to the accomplishment of a permissible state policy.” Ibid.; see also Loving v. Virginia, 388 U. S. 1 (1967). The city has only opposition to desegregation to offer as a justification for closing the pools, and this opposition operates both to demean the Negroes of Jackson and to deter them from exercising their constitutional and statutory rights. The record is clear that these public facilities had been maintained and would have been maintained but for one event: a court order to open them to all citizens without regard to race. I would reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeals and remand the cause for further proceedings.

See Burton v. Wilmington Parking Authority, 365 U. S. 715 (1961) (segregated restaurant operated under lease in municipal facility).

See, e. g., Boynton v. Virginia, 364 U. S. 454 (1960) (application of Interstate Commerce Act); Burton, supra, n. 1; Turner v. City of Memphis, 369 U. S. 350 (1962) (public restaurant in municipal airport); Johnson v. Virginia, 373 U. S. 61 (1963) (courtrooms); Brown v. Louisiana, 383 U. S. 131, 139 (1966) (libraries); City of St. Petersburg v. Alsup, 238 F. 2d 830 (CA5 1956) (beach and swimming pool); Department of Conservation & Development v. Tate, 231 F. 2d 615 (CA4), cert. denied, 352 U. S. 838 (1956) (state park); Willie v. Harris County, 202 F. Supp. 549 (SD Tex. 1962) *246(county park); Shuttlesworth v. Gaylord, 202 F. Supp. 59 (ND Ala. 1961), aff’d sub nom. Hanes v. Shuttlesworth, 310 F. 2d 303 (CA5 1962) (parks, tennis courts, swimming pools, zoo, golf courses, baseball parks, museum, auditorium); Moorhead v. City of Ft. Lauderdale, 152 F. Supp. 131 (SD Fla.), aff'd, 248 F. 2d 544 (CA5 1957) (golf course); Ward v. City of Miami, 151 F. Supp. 593 (SD Fla. 1957) (golf course); Holley v. City of Portsmouth, 150 F. Supp. 6 (ED Va. 1957) (golf course); Fayson v. Beard, 134 F. Supp. 379 (ED Tex. 1955) (city parks).

See also Green v. County School Board of New Kent County, 391 U. S. 430 (1968).

See Thomas v. Mississippi, 380 U. S. 524 (1965); NAACP v. Thompson, 357 F. 2d 831 (CA5 1966); Bailey v. Patterson, 199 F. Supp. 595 (SD Miss. 1961), vacated, 369 U. S. 31 (1962); United States v. City of Jackson, 206 F. Supp. 45 (SD Miss. 1962), rev’d, 318 F. 2d 1, 5-6 (CA5 1963) (common carrier terminals), where the Court of Appeals stated:'

“We again take judicial notice that the State of Mississippi has a steel-hard, inflexible, undeviating official policy of segregation. The policy is stated in its laws. It is rooted in custom. The segregation signs at the terminals in Jackson carry out that policy. The Jackson *247police add muscle, bone, and sinew to the- signs.” (Footnotes omitted.)

See also Singleton v. Jackson Municipal Separate School Dist., 348 F. 2d 729 (CA5 1965); Singleton v. Jackson Municipal Separate School Dist., 355 F. 2d 865 (CA5 1966); Singleton v. Jackson Municipal Separate School Dist., 419 F. 2d 1211 (CA5 1969), rev’d in part sub nom. Carter v. West Feliciana Parish School Board, 396 U. S. 290 (1970); Singleton v. Jackson Municipal Separate School Dist., 426 F. 2d 1364 (CA5), modified, 430 F. 2d 368 (CA5 1970); Singleton v. Jackson Municipal Separate School Dist., 432 F. 2d 927 (CA5 1970).

In an affidavit filed August 18, 1965, in the District Court in the present case, Mayor Thompson stated, “I believe that the welfare of both races would have best been served if [the custom that members of each race would use the recreational facilities near their homes] had continued.”

But see Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U. S. 483, 495 (1954) ; Dawson v. Mayor and City Council of Baltimore, 220 F. 2d 386 (CA4), aff’d, 350 U. S. 877 (1955); Holmes v. City of Atlanta, 223 F. 2d 93, 94-95 (CA5), rev’d, 350 U. S. 879 (1955); Browder v. Gayle, 142 F. Supp. 707, 714 (MD Ala.), aff’d, 352 U. S. 903 (1956); New Orleans City Park Improvement Assn. v. Detiege, 252 F. 2d 122, 123 (CA5), aff’d, 358 U. S. 54 (1958); see also Carter v. Jury Comm’n of Greene County, 396 U. S. 320, 329-330 (1970).

But see eases cited n. 6, supra.

See Respondents’ Brief 3; Affidavit of Allen C. Thompson, App. 21: Affidavit of George T. Kurts, App. 18.

At the time Clark v. Thompson was decided, the population of Jackson consisted of approximately 100,000 whites and 50,000 Negroes. Despite this 2:1 ratio in population,-there were four swimming facilities for whites and only one for Negroes.

I agree fully with the majority that if a city or State becomes involved in any way in the operation of facilities on a segregated basis by private parties, the Fourteenth Amendment is violated. See Burton v. Wilmington Parking Authority, supra, n. 1; Hampton v. City of Jacksonville, 304 F. 2d 320 (CA5), cert. denied sub nom. Ghioto v. Hampton, 371 U. S. 911 (1962); Smith v. Young Men’s Christian Assn. of Montgomery, 316 F. Supp. 899 (MD Ala. 1970) (city agreement with YMCA to coordinate city and YMCA recreational activities to eliminate duplication of services had as its primary purpose and effect _ encouragement and assistance of YMCA in maintaining segregated recreational facilities ■ and programs)-; Chinn v. Canton, Civ. No. 3764 (SD Miss., Nov. 18, 1965) (unreported) (town leased municipal pool to private all-white association; pool ordered desegregated).

During the proceedings in this case, it was developed that the benches, in the Livingston Park Zoo were removéd in 1961, and that the public rest rooms in the Municipal Court Building were closed at some point in time. See Palmer v. Thompson, 419 F. 2d 1222, 1231 (CA5 1969) (dissenting opinion); affidavit of Allen C. Thompson, App. 21.

The Mayor’s affidavit makes no mention of “minor water difficulty.”

The Parks Director’s affidavit makes no mention of “minor water difficulty.”

At oral argument, counsel for the city so conceded. Tr. of Oral Arg. 28-29.

In its brief, the city argues: “This Court will take judicial knowledge of the fact that there still exists a serious danger of violent clashes between young people of different racial groups, whether stemming from acts of or promoted by one group or the other.” Respondents’ Brief 10. But this is,- as noted in the text, contrary to the record developed in the courts below. Moreover, at oral argument counsel for the respondents stated that to his knowledge there has been no interracial violence in Jackson since the 1961 Freedom Rider incidents. See Tr. of Oral Arg. 36.

I cannot agree with the majority’s attempt to discount the significance of Bush. First, the action taken in Bush in no sense depended on our conclusion in Brown that the provision of public education was an especially important state function. Had that been the case, and had. recreational facilities somehow been considered less essential, the Court should have accepted the argument made by some States that Brown not be extended to recreational facilities. This we did not do. See Dawson, supra, and Holmes, supra. Simi- ' larly, if such a distinction was at all tenable, the extension of the “all deliberate speed” approach to desegregating public facilities might have been appropriate. But this argument was also emphatically rejected. See Watson, supra, at 529-530. When a public agency furnishes a service — regardless of whether or not it is an “essential” one — it must act in a nondiscriminatory manner with regard to that service.

Second, even accepting the majority’s characterization of public schools as “important,” there is much in our previous decisions to contradict its implication that providing swimming pools and' other public recreational facilities is not a significant state function. In Evans v. Newton, 382 U. S. 296, 302 (1966), the Court stated:

“A park ... is more like a fire department or police department that traditionally serves the community. Mass recreation through the use of parks is plainly in the public domain, Watson v. Memphis, 373 U. S. 526; and state courts that aid private parties to perform that public function on a segregated basis implicate the State in conduct proscribed by the Fourteenth Amendment.”

See also Evans v. Abney, 396 U. S. 435, 443-444, 445 (1970), where Me. Justice Black, writing for-the Court, stated:

“When a city park is destroyed because the Constitution requires it to be integrated, there is reason for everyone to be disheartened. We agree with petitioners that in such a case it is not enough to find that the state court’s result was reached through the application of established principles of state law. No state law or act can prevail in the face of contrary federal law, and the federal courts must search out the fact and truth of any proceeding or transaction to determine if the Constitution has been violated.

A second argument for petitioners stresses the similarities be*263tween this case and the case in which a city holds an absolute fee simple title to a public park and then closes that park of its own accord solely to avoid the effect of a prior court order directing that the park be integrated as the Fourteenth Amendment commands. Yet, assuming arguendo that the closing of the park would in those circumstances violate the Equal Protection Clause, that case would be clearly distinguishable from the case at bar because there it is the State and not a private party which is injecting the racially discriminatory motivation. In _ the case at bar there is not the slightest indication that any of the Georgia judges involved were motivated by racial animus or discriminatory intent of any sort in construing and enforcing Senator Bacon’s will.”

This was the inquiry made in Bush, and it led to striking down the statutes in question. We affirmed that ruling, and the record here is no less clear. And as the majority concedes, ante, at 221 n. 6; surely it is not irrelevant in considering the context in which Jackson’s pools were closed, that a statute of the State of Mississippi, in effect since 1956, provides:

“That the entire executive branch of the government of the State of Mississippi, and of its subdivisions, and all persons responsible thereto, including the governor, the lieutenant governor, the heads of state departments, sheriffs, boards of supervisors, constables, mayors, boards of aldermen and other governing officials of municipalities by whatever name known . . . whether specifically named herein or not . . . shall give full force and effect in the performance of their official and political duties, to the Resolution of Interposition . . . and all of said members of the executive branch be and they are hereby . . . directed and required to prohibit, by any lawful, peaceful and constitutional means, the implementation of or the .compliance with the Integration Decisions of the United States Supreme Court of May 17, 1954 (347 US 483), . . . and of May 31, 1955 (349 US 294), . . . and to prohibit by any lawful, peaceful, and constitutional means, the causing of a mixing or integration of the white and Negro races in public schools, public parks, public waiting rooms, public places of amusement, recreation or assembly in this state, by any branch of the federal government, any person employed by the federal government, any commission, board or *264agency of the federal government, or any subdivision of the federal government, and to prohibit, by any lawful, peaceful and constitutional means, the implementation of any orders, rules or regulations, of any board, commission or agency of the federal government, based on the supposed authority of said Integration Decisions, to cause a mixing or integration of the white and Negro races in public schools, public parks, public waiting rooms, public places of amusement, recreation or assembly in this state.” Miss. Code Ann. § 4065.3 (1957); see United States v. City of Jackson, 318 F. 2d 1, 5-6 (CA5 1963). (judicial notice taken of this statute).

Palmer v. Thompson

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