Buchanan v. Warley
Case Date: 05/19/2024
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Buchanan v. Warley, 245 U.S. 60 (1917) was a unanimous United States Supreme Court decision addressing civil government instituted racial segregation in residential areas. The Court held that a Louisville, Kentucky, city ordinance prohibiting the sale of real property to African Americans violated the Fourteenth Amendment, which protected freedom of contract. Unlike prior state court rulings that had overturned racial zoning ordinances on takings clause grounds due to those ordinances' failures to grandfather land owned prior to enactment, the Court in Buchanan ruled that the motive for the Louisville ordinance, race, was an insufficient purpose to make the prohibition constitutional.[1]
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