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2021 Mich. St. L. Rev. 1377 (2021)
The Feminist Movement's State Action Doctrine

handle is hein.journals/mslr2021 and id is 1451 raw text is: THE FEMINIST MOVEMENT'S STATE ACTION DOCTRINE Elizabeth Sepper* 2021 MICH. ST. L. REv. 1377 TABLE OF CONTENTS IN TR O D U CTIO N ..............................................................................1377 I. SEX DISCRIMINATION IN PUBLIC IN THE 1960s AND 1970s ...1381 II. FEMINIST EXPANSION OF STATE ACTION...............................1383 A. The Legal Challenges Begin ..........................................1383 B. The Landmark Case of Seidenberg v. McSorley's Old Ale House .......................................................................1387 III. THE SUPREME COURT'S RETRENCHMENT OF STATE ACTION AND LOWER COURTS' REINFORCEMENT AND RESISTANCE ...1395 A. Retrenchment of State Action ........................................1396 B. Resistance from Federal District Courts ........................1399 1. L icensing Theories...................................................1400 2. Recourse to Police ...................................................1401 3. Constitutionalization oflnterscholastic Leagues and A th le tics ...................................................................14 0 4 4. Sanctioning Theories ...............................................1405 C. Development of State Action Hierarchies......................1407 IV. MEN-ONLY ORGANIZATIONS AND THE END OF FEMINIST STATE ACTION........................................................................1409 CONCLUSION.................................................................................1413 INTRODUCTION There is a conventional story of the state action doctrine. It begins with the Supreme Court's 1883 decision in the The Civil Rights Cases, holding that Congress did not have the power to forbid discrimination in hotels, trains, and other places open to the public. In reaching that conclusion, the Court sharply distinguished between * Professor of Law, University of Texas School of Law. I was honored to give this keynote for the MSU Law Review symposium on the theme of Property Ownership & Entitlement: Gender, Religion & Culture. I am grateful for comments from Deborah Dinner and James D. Nelson. My thanks to the Michigan State Law Review staff, in particular Magy Shenouda, Fatima Abdallah, and Brandon Cross.