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Abstract

As a result of the decision of the Supreme Court in the Civil Rights Cases in 1883, the principle has become firmly embedded in our constitutional law that the action inhibited by the first section of the fourteenth amendment is only such action as may fairly be said to be that of the states. "The amendment erects no shield against merely private conduct, however discriminatory or wrongful." Thus private conduct, no matter how discriminatory, in no way violates the equal protection clause of the fourteenth amendment unless the state, to some significant extent, becomes involved in this conduct.

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