Opinion ID: 545493
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Patterson Decision and the Scope of Sec. 1981

Text: 16 Section 1981 provides, in pertinent part, that [a]ll persons within the jurisdiction of the United States shall have the same right ... to make and enforce contracts ... as is enjoyed by white citizens.... 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1981 (1982). In Patterson, the Supreme Court stated that this provision cannot be construed as a general proscription of racial discrimination in all aspects of contract relations, for it expressly prohibits discrimination only in the making and enforcement of contracts. Patterson, 109 S.Ct. at 2372. The Court held that an employer's alleged racial harassment of an employee involved neither the mak[ing] nor the enforce[ment] of a contract and therefore was not actionable under Sec. 1981. 17 With respect to the statute's protection of the right to make contracts, the Court stated that Sec. 1981 18 extends only to the formation of a contract, but not to problems that may arise later from the conditions of continuing employment. The statute prohibits, when based on race, the refusal to enter into a contract with someone, as well as the offer to make a contract only on discriminatory terms. But the right to make contracts does not extend, as a matter of either logic or semantics, to conduct by the employer after the contract relation has been established, including breach of the terms of the contract or imposition of discriminatory working conditions. Such postformation conduct does not involve the right to make a contract, but rather implicates the performance of established contract obligations and the conditions of continuing employment.... 19 Id. at 2372-73. While the Court recognized that conduct occurring after the contract's formation may be used as evidence that a divergence in the explicit terms of particular contracts is explained by racial animus, id. at 2376 (footnote omitted), it stated that the critical question under Sec. 1981 is whether the employer, at the time of the formation of the contract, in fact intentionally refused to enter into a contract with the employee on racially neutral terms, id. at 2376-77 (emphasis in original). Further, with respect to a claim that the defendant had, for racial reasons, denied the plaintiff a promotion, the Patterson Court noted that where a prior contractual arrangement exists, the limitations of Sec. 1981 cannot be circumvented merely by alleging that a contract was amended in a discriminatory fashion. To constitute an amendment that amounted to the making of a contract within the meaning of Sec. 1981, there must have been an opportunity for a new and distinct relation between the parties. Id. at 2377. 20