Patterson v. McLean Credit Union

By taking a narrow reading of the Civil Rights Act, the Court left many minority employees with no redress for harassment and other forms of discrimination in employment. The public and political response to the decision helped lead to the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1991, which reversed this decision.

Immediately following the Civil War, Congress passed a number of laws and constitutional amendments designed to guarantee the newly-freed slaves the same rights and privileges enjoyed by white Americans. Although discrimination by the states was prevented by the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments, there was still widespread discrimination against African Americans by private citizens. For example, whites would not sell land to African Americans, and African Americans were beaten or killed for refusing to work for their former white slave-owners or for showing "insubordination" to whites. Among the laws passed by Congress was the Civil Rights Act of 1866. One provision of this act, commonly referred to as "section 1981," provided that all citizens, regardless of race, "shall have the same right . . . to make and enforce contracts . . . as is enjoyed by white citizens." Lyman Trumball, who was chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee at the time, expressed the sentiment of a large part of the population when he described the act as "the most important measure . . . since the adoption of the constitutional amendment abolishing slavery." Although initially limiting the law by implying that section 1981 only prohibits discrimination by the government, the Supreme Court later explicitly held that section 1981 covers discrimination by private persons. In the case Runyon v. McCrary, decided in 1976, the Court concluded that section 1981 prohibits purely private discrimination.

Brenda Patterson's case against the McLean Credit Union began as a fairly typical civil rights suit, but went on the become a rallying point for civil rights advocates. Patterson, an African American bank teller employed by the McLean Credit Union, filed a suit against the credit union in 1985. Alleging that she was subjected to a pattern of harassment during her ten years of employment, mostly by her supervisor, Patterson sought to recover under section 1981. The trial court directed a verdict in favor of the credit union, concluding that because on the job harassment does not relate to the "making" or "enforcing" of a contract, it does not fall under section 1981. Patterson appealed her case to the court of appeals, which agreed with the trial court. Patterson then sought to appeal her case to the U.S. Supreme Court through a procedure known as a petition for a writ of certiorari. The Court granted the petition, and the parties argued the case before the Court on 29 February 1988.