Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/529bv.pdf
Page Number: 698

529US3

Unit: $U54

[10-04-01 09:35:40] PAGES PGT: OPIN

Cite as: 529 U. S. 598 (2000)

623

Opinion of the Court

were wrongly decided, and that Congress could under § 5
prohibit actions by private individuals. 383 U. S., at 774
(opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part). Three
other Members of the Court, who joined the opinion of the
Court, joined a separate opinion by Justice Clark which in
two or three sentences stated the conclusion that Congress
could “punis[h] all conspiracies—with or without state ac-
tion—that interfere with Fourteenth Amendment rights.”
Id., at 762 (concurring opinion). Justice Harlan, in another
separate opinion, commented with respect to the statement
by these Justices:

“The action of three of the Justices who joined the
Court’s opinion in nonetheless cursorily pronouncing
themselves on the far-reaching constitutional questions
deliberately not reached in Part II seems to me, to say
Id., at 762, n. 1 (opinion
the very least, extraordinary.”
concurring in part and dissenting in part).

Though these three Justices saw ﬁt to opine on matters
not before the Court in Guest, the Court had no occasion
to revisit the Civil Rights Cases and Harris, having deter-
mined “the indictment [charging private individuals with
conspiring to deprive blacks of equal access to state facilities]
in fact contain[ed] an express allegation of state involve-
ment.”
383 U. S., at 756. The Court concluded that the
implicit allegation of “active connivance by agents of the
State” eliminated any need to decide “the threshold level
that state action must attain in order to create rights under
the Equal Protection Clause.”
Ibid. All of this Justice
Clark explicitly acknowledged. See id., at 762 (concurring
(“The Court’s interpretation of the indictment
opinion)
clearly avoids the question whether Congress, by appro-
priate legislation, has the power to punish private con-
spiracies that interfere with Fourteenth Amendment rights,
such as the right to utilize public facilities”).