U.S. Jaycees v. McClure
| Decision Date | 01 August 1983 |
| Docket Number | No. 82-1493,82-1493 |
| Citation | 709 F.2d 1560 |
| Parties | The UNITED STATES JAYCEES, a non-profit Missouri corporation, on behalf of itself and its qualified members, Appellant, v. Marilyn E. McCLURE, Commissioner, Minnesota Department of Human Rights; Warren Spannaus, Attorney General of the State of Minnesota; and George A. Beck, Hearing Examiner of the State of Minnesota, Appellees. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit |
Warren Spannaus, Atty. Gen., State of Minn., Richard L. Varco, Jr., Sp. Asst. Atty. Gen., Saint Paul, Minn., for appellees McClure, Spannaus, and Beck.
Clay R. Moore, Mackall, Crounse & Moore, Minneapolis, Minn., Carl D. Hall, Jr., Tulsa, Okl., for appellant The United States Jaycees.
NOW Legal Defense and Education Fund, Inc., Phyllis N. Segal, Judith I. Avner, New York City, Kramer, Levin, Nessen, Kamin & Soll, Charlotte M. Fischman, Miriam R. Best, Edward H. Rosenthal, New York City, for the National Organization for Women, Minnesota State Chapter, as amicus curiae.
Robert A. Yothers, Seattle, Wash., for amicus curiae.
Before LAY, Chief Judge, HENLEY, Senior Circuit Judge, and ARNOLD, Circuit Judge.
The United States Jaycees, a young men's civic and service organization, does not admit women to full membership. A Minnesota statute, as amended in 1972, forbids discrimination on the basis of sex in "places of public accommodation." Minn.Stat.Ann. Secs. 363.01 subd. 18, 363.03 subd. 3. The Supreme Court of Minnesota has interpreted this phrase to include the Jaycees, and the Minnesota Department of Human Rights has ordered the Jaycees to admit women to its local chapters in Minnesota. In this suit brought by the Jaycees, we are asked to declare the statute, as so applied and interpreted, unconstitutional, as in violation of the rights of speech, petition, assembly, and association guaranteed by the First and Fourteenth Amendments.
We hold that the Jaycees, a substantial part of whose activities involve the expression of social and political beliefs and the advocacy of legislation and constitutional change, does have a right of association protected by the First Amendment. In our opinion, the interest of the state, in the circumstances of this case, is not strong enough to deserve the label "compelling," so as to override this right. In addition, the state law is unconstitutionally vague. The Jaycees is therefore entitled to an injunction restraining the state from efforts to prohibit its membership policy under state law as presently written. This is not to say that no state law could be written to redress this kind of nongovernmental discrimination. Still less do we intend to express our own view of what the Jaycees is doing. But if, in the phrase of Justice Holmes, the First Amendment protects "the thought that we hate," it must also, on occasion, protect the association of which we disapprove. The First Amendment guarantees freedom of choice in a certain area. That freedom must, on occasion, include the freedom to choose what the majority believes is wrong. For reasons to be described, we think this is one of those occasions. 1
The United States Jaycees is a nonprofit corporation organized under the laws of Missouri. Its national headquarters is in Tulsa, Oklahoma. It is a private (in the sense of nongovernmental) membership organization. It receives no federal or state funds, though it is exempt from federal income taxation under Section 501 of the Internal Revenue Code. At the time of the trial before the District Court in August of 1981, the Jaycees had about 295,000 regular members in 7400 local chapters. Article 2 of the Jaycees' By-Laws sets out the organization's purpose:
A. This Corporation shall be a non-profit Corporation, organized for such educational and charitable purposes as will promote and foster the growth and development of young men's civic organizations in the United States, designed to inculcate in the individual membership of such organization a spirit of genuine Americanism and civic interest, and as a supplementary education institution to provide them with opportunity for personal development and achievement and an avenue for intelligent participation by young men in the affairs of their community, state and nation, and to develop true friendship and understanding among young men of all nations.
B. Towards these ends, this Corporation shall adopt the following as its Creed:
We believe
That faith in God gives meaning and purpose to human life;
That the brotherhood of man transcends the sovereignty of nations;
That economic justice can best be won by free men through free enterprise;
That government should be of laws rather than of men;
That earth's great treasure lies in human personality;
And that service to humanity is the best work of life.
This case centers around the Jaycees' requirements for membership. Article 4 of the By-Laws creates seven classes of membership, including Individual Members, also known as regular members, Associate Individual Members, and Local Organization Members, that is, local chapters. Between 1975 and 1978 women were permitted to become regular members in a few states 2 as part of a "pilot program," but the experiment was discontinued in 1978. As matters now stand, Article 4-2 of the By-Laws establishes the following requirements for regular membership:
Young men between the ages of eighteen (18) and thirty-five (35), inclusive, of Local Organization Members in good standing in this Corporation shall be considered Individual Members of this Corporation (unless the ages for membership shall have been changed by the State Organization Member as hereinabove permitted by By-Law 4-4.A.). 3 Such Individual Members shall be qualified by, and represented through, the Local Organization Member so long as he shall pay the dues to the Local Organization Member specified in its by-laws, constitution or articles of incorporation (which shall include a subscription to FUTURE magazine).
Associate Individual Members may be businesses, associations, groups, or individuals, such as men over 35 or women, who are not eligible for regular membership. Associate members may not vote or hold office, but they may otherwise participate fully in Jaycee activities, except that they may not receive certain national awards. Local chapters must be "young men's organization[s] of good repute ... organized for purposes similar to and consistent with those of this Corporation ...." By-Laws Art. 4-4A. The constitution, certificate of incorporation, and by-laws of local chapters must be consistent with and subject to the national and State by-laws, id. Art. 4-4C2; local chapters that change their rules so as to be inconsistent with the national by-laws may have their charters revoked, id. Art. 4-4F; and local chapters who lose their charter are forbidden to continue using the name "Jaycees," id. Art. 4-4I.
In 1974 the Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota, local chapters began accepting women as full-fledged individual members. The U.S. Jaycees threatened to revoke the charters of these local organizations because of this infraction of its rules. Members of the Minneapolis and St. Paul chapters then, late in 1978, filed complaints with the Minnesota Department of Human Rights, a state agency created by statute to enforce the Minnesota Human Rights Act, Minn.Stat.Ann. Secs. 363.01-.14. The complaints alleged that the Jaycees' exclusion of women from full membership violated Minn.Stat.Ann. Sec. 363.03 subd. 3, which reads as follows:
Subd. 3. Public accommodations. It is an unfair discriminatory practice:
To deny any person the full and equal enjoyment of the goods, services, facilities, privileges, advantages, and accommodations of a place of public accommodation because of race, color, creed, religion, disability, national origin or sex. It is an unfair discriminatory practice for a taxicab company to discriminate in the access to, full utilization of or benefit from service because of a person's disability.
The term "place of public accommodation" is defined in Minn.Stat.Ann. Sec. 363.01 subd. 18:
Subd. 18. Public accommodations. "Place of public accommodation" means a business, accommodation, refreshment, entertainment, recreation, or transportation facility of any kind, whether licensed or not, whose goods, services, facilities, privileges, advantages or accommodations are extended, offered, sold, or otherwise made available to the public.
On January 25, 1979, the Commissioner of the Department of Human Rights found probable cause to believe that the statute had been violated and ordered that an evidentiary hearing be held before a state hearing examiner. On February 27, 1979, the Jaycees brought suit in the United States District Court for the District of Minnesota, seeking declaratory and injunctive relief against the enforcement of the Human Rights Act. The plaintiff claimed that application of the Act to force it to accept women as regular members would violate its rights of speech and association under the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution of the United States. It asked the District Court to abstain from deciding the constitutional question until the state administrative agency had decided whether the Jaycees fit the definition of "place of public accommodation" in the state law. The District Court, with the agreement of all parties, dismissed the suit without prejudice, stating that it could be renewed if the state administrative decision turned out to be adverse to the Jaycees. The parties continue to agree on this procedure, under which the state forum decides the meaning of the statute, and the federal courts decide its validity under the federal Constitution. 4
The state agency proceeding thereupon went forward, and an evidentiary hearing was held before a hearing...
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SADOMASOCHISTIC JUDGING.
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