Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/20pdf/19-123_g3bi.pdf
Page Number: 102

Cite as:  593 U. S. ____ (2021) 

3 

GORSUCH, J., concurring in judgment 

parents” and “provides professional ‘services’ to the public.” 
Id., at 78a.  All of which would seem to block the majority’s 
way.  So how does it get around that problem? 

It  changes  the  conversation.  The  majority  ignores  the
FPO’s expansive definition of “public accommodations.”  It 
ignores  the  reason  the  district  court  offered  for  why  CSS 
falls within that definition.  Instead, it asks us to look to a 
different public accommodations law—a Commonwealth of 
Pennsylvania public accommodations statute.  See ante, at 
10–11  (discussing  Pa.  Stat.  Ann.,  Tit.  43,  §954(l)  (Purdon
Cum. Supp. 2009)).  And, the majority promises, CSS fails 
to  qualify  as  a  public  accommodation  under  the  terms  of 
that law.  But why should we ignore the City’s law and look 
to the Commonwealth’s?  No one knows because the major-
ity doesn’t say.

Even playing along with this statutory shell game doesn’t
solve the problem.  The majority highlights the fact that the
state  law  lists  various  examples  of  public  accommoda-
tions—including hotels, restaurants, and swimming pools. 
Ante, at 11.  The majority then argues that foster agencies 
fail  to  qualify  as  public  accommodations  because,  unlike 
these listed entities, foster agencies “involv[e] a customized
and selective assessment.”  Ibid.  But where does that dis-
tinction come from?  Not the text of the state statute, not 
state case law, and certainly not from the briefs.  The ma-
jority just declares it—a new rule of Pennsylvania common
law handed down by the United States Supreme Court. 

The majority’s gloss on state law isn’t just novel, it’s prob-
ably wrong.  While the statute lists hotels, restaurants, and 
swimming pools as examples of public accommodations, it 
also lists over 40 other kinds of institutions—and the stat-
ute emphasizes that these examples are illustrative, not ex-
haustive.  See §954(l).  Among its illustrations, too, the stat-
ute offers public “colleges and universities” as examples of 
public accommodations.  Ibid.  Often these institutions do 
engage in a “customized and selective assessment” of their