# May a private club exclude blacks? What if a state law said it could? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [June 4, 2007, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/may-a-private-club-exclude-blacks-what-if-a-state-law-said-it-could/406752 "2007-06-04T20:40:34Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2007, 11:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/may-a-private-club-exclude-blacks-what-if-a-state-law-said-it-could/406752/21 "2007-06-04T23:22:39Z")
[QUOTE=Contrapuntal] According to the following article, if the reporter is to be trusted, it is what you might call unofficial policy. But apparently policy nonetheless. [http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0107/2389.html](http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0107/2389.html) Emphasis mine. [/QUOTE] That sounds more like the reporter’s interpretation rather than a strict relaying of the facts. **Algher** : I’m surprised that there was any wink-wink necessary back in 1960… well before the Civil Rights Act of 1964. I was too young to remember 1960, but I can remember things back to 1963, and no one worried about being PC when talking about excluding Blacks. ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2007, 11:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/may-a-private-club-exclude-blacks-what-if-a-state-law-said-it-could/406752/22 "2007-06-04T23:23:39Z")
[QUOTE=InvisibleWombat] The Elks club excludes atheists. [/QUOTE] The Moose Lodge excludes Communists. ---
**Author:** ![Contrapuntal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e274bd/32.png) [@Contrapuntal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Contrapuntal)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2007, 11:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/may-a-private-club-exclude-blacks-what-if-a-state-law-said-it-could/406752/23 "2007-06-04T23:26:52Z")
[QUOTE=John Mace] That sounds more like the reporter’s interpretation rather than a strict relaying of the facts. [/QUOTE] What’s interpretive about this? > [@](#): > > Cohen said he became convinced that joining the caucus would be “a social faux pas” after seeing news reports that former Rep. William Lacy Clay Sr., D-Mo., a co-founder of the caucus, had circulated a memo telling members it was “critical” that the group remain “exclusively African-American.” Or this? > [@](#): > > Other members, including the new chairwoman, Rep. Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick, D-Mich., and Clay’s son, Rep. William Lacy Clay, D-Mo., agreed. > > “Mr. Cohen asked for admission, and he got his answer. … It’s time to move on,” the younger Clay said. “It’s an unwritten rule. It’s understood. It’s clear.” One is a paraphrase of a quote by Cohen, the other a direct quote. Where’s the spin? ---
**Author:** ![toadspittle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c0e974/32.png) [@toadspittle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/toadspittle)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2007, 11:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/may-a-private-club-exclude-blacks-what-if-a-state-law-said-it-could/406752/24 "2007-06-04T23:28:21Z")
[QUOTE=InvisibleWombat] I’m a member of an organization that excludes people who haven’t published at least one children’s book. [/QUOTE] What organization is that? ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2007, 11:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/may-a-private-club-exclude-blacks-what-if-a-state-law-said-it-could/406752/25 "2007-06-04T23:30:38Z")
[QUOTE=col\_10022] Its pretty hard to discriminate based on race. States can’t issue liquor licenses to organizations that discriminate based on race. States cannot allow public funds or assets to subsidize any part of the discriminatory club’s acitivites. [/QUOTE] In New York you don’t need to have a liquor license if the club is private as far as I am aware. Perhaps you do. As a party promoter one of the ways we would get around needing a liquor license was by making the party ‘private’, which of course meant only the people who knew about the party were allowed to come. ---
**Author:** ![pravnik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/8edcca/32.png) [@pravnik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pravnik)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2007, 11:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/may-a-private-club-exclude-blacks-what-if-a-state-law-said-it-could/406752/26 "2007-06-04T23:42:14Z")
[QUOTE=col\_10022] States can’t issue liquor licenses to organizations that discriminate based on race. [/QUOTE] Do you mean it violates a specific federal statute, or the U.S. Constitution? The SCOTUS has said the issuance of a liquor license to a discriminatory organization doesn’t implicate the Equal Protection clause: > [@](#): > > However detailed this type of [liquor] regulation may be in some particulars, it cannot be said to in any way foster or encourage racial discrimination. Nor can it be said to make the State in any realistic sense a partner or even a joint venturer in the club’s enterprise. The limited effect of the prohibition against obtaining additional club licenses when the maximum number of retail licenses allotted to a municipality has been issued, when considered together with the availability of liquor from hotel, restaurant, and retail licensees, falls far short of conferring upon club licensees a monopoly in the dispensing of liquor in any given municipality or in the State as a whole. We therefore hold that, with the exception hereafter noted, the operation of the regulatory scheme enforced by the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board does not sufficiently implicate the State in the discriminatory guest policies of Moose Lodge to make the latter “state action” within the ambit of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. [_Moose Lodge No. 107 v. Irvis_](http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/historics/USSC_CR_0407_0163_ZO.html), 407 U.S. 163 (1972). It’s unconstitutonal if there’s a significant “nexus” between the state and the discriminatory organization (like, say, the state owns the parking garage that serves the organization, as was the case in [_Burton v. Wilmington Parking Authority_](http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=US&vol=365&invol=715), 365 U.S. 715 (1961)), but the granting of a liquor license isn’t a “state action” that would cause an Equal Protection violation. To my knowledge, most civil rights laws and state public accomodation laws forbid discrimination in housing, education, public accomodations, and employment, but still give considerable latitude to truly private clubs to discriminate. I’ll confess I haven’t looked at it in a while, though. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2007, 12:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/may-a-private-club-exclude-blacks-what-if-a-state-law-said-it-could/406752/27 "2007-06-05T00:42:16Z")
[QUOTE=Contrapuntal] What’s interpretive about this? Or this? One is a paraphrase of a quote by Cohen, the other a direct quote. Where’s the spin? [/QUOTE] OK, those are clear. The first one about “whites need not apply” was not a direct quote. I still think Bill Clinton would be allowed in, but that is just my opinion, and we’ll probably never know for sure. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2007, 1:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/may-a-private-club-exclude-blacks-what-if-a-state-law-said-it-could/406752/28 "2007-06-05T01:13:13Z")
This came up several times with clubs on the PGA and Olympics circuits. Two notable cases are [Shoal Creek & Augusta National](http://www.usatoday.com/sports/golf/2003-04-09-club-policies_x.htm) in Alabama and Georgia respectively. (These clubs tend to charge $25k to $40k for a membership, incidentally, so there’s very few people of any color who’d have both the money and the interest to join.) Some acquiesced and accepted token members, others remained adamantly opposed. > [@](#): > > Hall Thompson, founder of Shoal Creek, then an exclusive, all-white club in Birmingham, Ala., and the site of the 1990 PGA Championship, proclaimed his club wouldn’t be pressured into accepting African-American members. > > “This is our home, and we pick and choose who we want,” Thompson told the Birmingham Post Herald. “We have the right to associate or not associate with whomever we choose.” I recently read an article about a black woman in Mobile who along with her husband (who is white) participates in Civil War reenactments as a Confederate nurse (which is historically valid: there were both enslaved and free blacks who fought for and aided the Confederacy). She said that the unit she and her husband belonged to could not have been more welcoming and accepting of her but that there were southern units who were adamantly opposed to her membership and even tried to have their unit “blacklisted”. ---
**Author:** ![Cryptoderk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f4b2a3/32.png) [@Cryptoderk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cryptoderk)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2007, 2:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/may-a-private-club-exclude-blacks-what-if-a-state-law-said-it-could/406752/29 "2007-06-05T02:08:21Z")
[QUOTE=Zsofia] Well, I mean, women can’t join the Masons and such and that seems to be perfectly legal. I thought as long as you’re private you can make any rules you want to. (Technically, a Mason can’t be deformed, either, although in practice I understand that’s no longer the case.) Black men may now be non-Prince Hall Masons in the South, although generally they don’t care to - but that’s a decision made as far as I know by individual Grand Lodges, not by law. [/QUOTE] There is no prohibition AFAIK against “deformity”. The phrase used in most American lodges, as I understand it, is generally “able bodied”, and in practice what does “able bodied” mean? The phrase that would be used under UGLE juristriction would be along the lines of “Just, upright and free men of mature age, sound judgment, and strict morals.” Nothing about deformities there… Note that only “free men” are permitted to join - but I couldn’t see a problem with someone who had been a slave in Eritrea or another of those godforsaken places where slavery still goes on joining if they were lucky enough to escape. Although then again, I must be cautious, as I don’t know much about it. ---
**Author:** ![Contrapuntal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e274bd/32.png) [@Contrapuntal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Contrapuntal)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2007, 8:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/may-a-private-club-exclude-blacks-what-if-a-state-law-said-it-could/406752/30 "2007-06-05T08:01:33Z")
[QUOTE=John Mace] I still think Bill Clinton would be allowed in, but that is just my opinion, and we’ll probably never know for sure. [/QUOTE] He probably would be allowed in. ---
**Author:** ![DSYoungEsq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c6cbf5/32.png) [@DSYoungEsq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSYoungEsq)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2007, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/may-a-private-club-exclude-blacks-what-if-a-state-law-said-it-could/406752/31 "2007-06-05T19:58:02Z")
Here is the analysis: 1. Nothing in the United States Constitution would require private clubs accept members who are “black.” 2. Current rulings from the Supreme Court of the United States would not preclude the federal government from passing laws precluding private clubs from barring members who are “black.” However, it might be difficult for Congress to find one of its enumerated powers under which to justify such a law. 3. Most states allow private clubs to restrict membership on the basis of “race” and other less than acceptable dividing lines because there is a sense that we should have the right to associate with whomever we please (one could almost assert that such a right should be held to exist). 4. “Private club” is a litigatable term, and often is litigated. For example, California has a very strong anti-discrimination in business law (the Unruh Civil Rights Act, codified at Civil Code §61, IIRC). The California Supreme Court determined that a private golf club in the San Francisco Bay Area was actually a business covered by the Unruh Act, because it sold goods and services to the general public through the pro shop, etc. This determination was used to bar the club from refusing to grant membership to a female. So far as I know, Cypress Point Golf Club still refuses to adopt a policy eliminating race as a consideration in membership, as a result of which, the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am is still relegated to Poppy Hills for its third course. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2007, 8:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/may-a-private-club-exclude-blacks-what-if-a-state-law-said-it-could/406752/32 "2007-06-05T20:19:35Z")
[QUOTE=InvisibleWombat] I think the NAACP excludes whites. [/QUOTE] No, I don’t believe so. ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2007, 8:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/may-a-private-club-exclude-blacks-what-if-a-state-law-said-it-could/406752/33 "2007-06-05T20:24:17Z")
You can apply for membership in the NAACP online; [the application has no race-based requirements.](https://www.naacp.org/contribute/join.php) ---
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2007, 8:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/may-a-private-club-exclude-blacks-what-if-a-state-law-said-it-could/406752/34 "2007-06-05T20:45:54Z")
Another gray area are country clubs that cater to corporate execs and provide facilities (golf courses) where business deals are made. If you are a black executive and you’re literally barred from the club, you can’t smooze your clients the way your rivals can and your career takes a hit. Ellis Cose talks about this in his book _Rage of the Middle Class_. ---
**Author:** ![Kalhoun](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/3bc359/32.png) [@Kalhoun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kalhoun)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2007, 9:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/may-a-private-club-exclude-blacks-what-if-a-state-law-said-it-could/406752/35 "2007-06-05T21:59:46Z")
My father’s boss’s club barred blacks and jews from attending back in the 60s. My dad wouldn’t let us swim there either. ---
**Author:** ![Gary\_Robson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gary_robson/32/3448_2.png) [@Gary\_Robson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gary_Robson)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2007, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/may-a-private-club-exclude-blacks-what-if-a-state-law-said-it-could/406752/36 "2007-06-06T18:35:58Z")
[QUOTE=monstro] The NAACP has never banned whites. [/QUOTE] I stand corrected. Four times. [QUOTE=toadspittle] What organization is that? [/QUOTE] The [Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators](http://scbwi.org/). To explain fully, there is an associate membership class for unpublished authors, but full membership requires you to be published. There’s a similar group for science fiction authors. ---
**Author:** ![toadspittle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c0e974/32.png) [@toadspittle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/toadspittle)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2007, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/may-a-private-club-exclude-blacks-what-if-a-state-law-said-it-could/406752/37 "2007-06-06T20:52:20Z")
[QUOTE=InvisibleWombat] The [Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators](http://scbwi.org/). To explain fully, there is an associate membership class for unpublished authors, but full membership requires you to be published. There’s a similar group for science fiction authors. [/QUOTE] Oh. I’m in SCBWI, but never knew there was a difference. (Can’t say I’m a huge fan of SCBWI, in general…haven’t seen any real benefits from my membership.) ---
**Author:** ![Gary\_Robson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gary_robson/32/3448_2.png) [@Gary\_Robson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gary_Robson)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2007, 11:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/may-a-private-club-exclude-blacks-what-if-a-state-law-said-it-could/406752/38 "2007-06-06T23:06:48Z")
The information in SCBWI’s membership packet about contract negotiations, agents, and what kind of advances and royalties to expect is worth the price of membership if you’re a newcomer to the game. The agent list they maintain is handy. I haven’t made any of their events (they don’t do any in this area), but I’ve heard some of their workshops are good. ---
**Author:** ![toadspittle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c0e974/32.png) [@toadspittle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/toadspittle)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2007, 2:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/may-a-private-club-exclude-blacks-what-if-a-state-law-said-it-could/406752/39 "2007-06-07T02:57:31Z")
[QUOTE=InvisibleWombat] The information in SCBWI’s membership packet about contract negotiations, agents, and what kind of advances and royalties to expect is worth the price of membership if you’re a newcomer to the game. The agent list they maintain is handy. I haven’t made any of their events (they don’t do any in this area), but I’ve heard some of their workshops are good. [/QUOTE] I didn’t join until after I was published and agent-ified, and I’m not really the workshop type. I joined mostly out of appearances (just about everyone else in the biz is in SCBWI), and in the hope that I might get some leads on school visits, etc. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2007, 3:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/may-a-private-club-exclude-blacks-what-if-a-state-law-said-it-could/406752/40 "2007-06-07T03:13:43Z")
[QUOTE=pravnik] Do you mean it violates a specific federal statute, or the U.S. Constitution? The SCOTUS has said the issuance of a liquor license to a discriminatory organization doesn’t implicate the Equal Protection clause. [/QUOTE] I’m kinda fuzzy too but I remember something about liquor licenses from con law that touched on discrimination. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/may-a-private-club-exclude-blacks-what-if-a-state-law-said-it-could/406752.md?page=1)