Lee v. Washington

While joining the opinion of the Court, Justices Black, Harlan, and Stewart fashioned a concurrence that emphasized a point they felt was left muted in the majority opinion. They wrote: "[W]e wish to make explicit something that is left to be gathered only by implication from the Court's opinion. This is that prison authorities have the right, acting in good faith and in particularized circumstances, to take into account racial tensions in maintaining security, discipline, and good order in prisons and jails. We are unwilling to assume that state or local prison authorities might mistakenly regard such an explicit pronouncement as evincing any dilution of this Court's firm commitment to the Fourteenth Amendment's prohibition of racial discrimination."