Court Opinion

ID: 9424625
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:12:11.041935+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:22:51.469212
License: Public Domain

Me. Chief Justice Burger,
concurring.
I join the opinion of Mr. Justice Black, but add a brief comment.
The' elimination of any needed or useful public ac*228commodation or service is surely undesirable and this is particularly so of public recreational facilities. Unfortunately the growing burdens and shrinking revenues of municipal and state governments may lead to more and more curtailment of desirable services. Inevitably every such constriction will affect some groups or segments of the community more than others^ To find an equal protection issue in every closing of public swimming pools, tennis courts, or golf courses would distort beyond reason the meaning of that important constitutional guarantee. To hold, as petitioners would have us do, that every public facility or service,, once opened, constitutionally “locks in” the public sponsor so that it may not be dropped (see the footnote to Me. Justice Blackmun’s concurring opinion), would plainly discourage the expansion and enlargement of needed services in the long-run.
We are, of course, not dealing with the wisdom or desirability of public swimming pools; we are asked( to hold on a very meager record that the Constitution requires that public swimming pools, once opened, may not be closed. But all that is good is not commanded by the Constitution and all that is bad is not forbidden by it. We would do a grave disservice, both to elected officials and to the public, were we to require that every decision , of local governments to terminate a desirable service be subjected to a microscopic scrutiny for forbidden motives rendering the decision- unconstitutional.