Opinion ID: 109509
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Freedom of Association

Text: In NAACP v. Alabama, 357 U. S. 449, and similar decisions, the Court has recognized a First Amendment right to engage in association for the advancement of beliefs and ideas . . . . Id., at 460. That right is protected because it promotes and may well be essential to the [e]ffective advocacy of both public and private points of view, particularly controversial ones that the First Amendment is designed to foster. Ibid. See Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U. S. 1, 15; NAACP v. Button, 371 U. S. 415. From this principle it may be assumed that parents have a First Amendment right to send their children to educational institutions that promote the belief that racial segregation is desirable, and that the children have an equal right to attend such institutions. But it does not follow that the practice of excluding racial minorities from such institutions is also protected by the same principle. As the Court stated in Norwood v. Harrison, 413 U. S. 455, the Constitution . . . places no value on discrimination, id., at 469, and while [i]nvidious private discrimination may be characterized as a form of exercising freedom of association protected by the First Amendment . . . it has never been accorded affirmative constitutional protections. And even some private discrimination is subject to special remedial legislation in certain circumstances under § 2 of the Thirteenth Amendment; Congress has made such discrimination unlawful in other significant contexts. Id., at 470. In any event, as the Court of Appeals noted, there is no showing that discontinuance of [the] discriminatory admission practices would inhibit in any way the teaching in these schools of any ideas or dogma. 515 F. 2d, at 1087.