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Page Number: 42.0

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303 CREATIVE LLC v. ELENIS 

SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting 

and equal enjoyment’ of certain public facilities to ‘all citi-
zens,’ ‘regardless of race, color or previous condition of ser-
vitude.’ ”  Masterpiece Cakeshop, 584 U. S., at ___–___ (slip
op., at 4–5) (quoting 1885 Colo. Sess. Laws p. 132).  “A dec-
ade later, the [State] expanded the requirement to apply to 
‘all  other  places  of  public  accommodation.’ ”    584  U. S.,  at 
___ (slip op., at 5) (quoting 1895 Colo. Sess. Laws ch. 61, p.
139).  Congress,  too,  passed  the  Civil  Rights  Act  of  1875,
which established “[t]hat all persons within the jurisdiction
of the United States shall be entitled to the full and equal 
enjoyment  of  the  accommodations,  advantages,  facilities,
and privileges of inns, public conveyances on land or water, 
theaters, and other places of public amusement . . . applica-
ble  alike  to  citizens  of  every  race  and  color,  regardless  of 
any previous condition of servitude.”  Act of Mar. 1, 1875, 
§1, 18 Stat. 336.

This Court, however, struck down the federal Civil Rights
Act  of  1875  as  unconstitutional.  Civil  Rights  Cases,  109 
U. S. 3, 25 (1883).  Southern States repealed public accom-
modations statutes and replaced them with Jim Crow laws.
And state courts construed any remaining right of access in
ways that furthered de jure and de facto racial segregation.7 
Full  and  equal  enjoyment  came  to  mean  “separate  but
equal” enjoyment.  The result of this backsliding was “the 
replacement of a general right of access with a general right 
to  exclude  . . .  in  order  to  promote  a  racial  caste  system.” 
Singer 1295. 

—————— 

7 Compare, e.g., Chesapeake, O. & S. R. Co. v. Wells, 85 Tenn. 613, 615, 
4 S. W. 5 (1887) (rejecting Ida B. Wells’s claim that she was denied “ ‘ac-
commodations equal in all respects,’ ” when she tried to enter a train car
“set  apart  for  white  ladies  and  their  gentlemen”  on  account  of  tobacco 
smoke in her car, and was forcibly removed), with Memphis & C. R. Co. 
v. Benson, 85 Tenn. 627, 632, 4 S. W. 5, 7 (1887) (accepting that a white 
man would be permitted to ride standing in the ladies’ car on account of
tobacco smoke in his car).