The passage tells us that in disallowing racially restrictive covenants, the Court relied on the equal protection clause of the 14th amendment, which normally applies only to state rather than private action (line 19). The Court justified its decision by arguing that responsibility for a contract's substantive provisions should be attributed to the state when a court enforces it, thus the courts could only enforce such contractual provisions that could have been enacted into general law (lines 24-30). Thus, the most relevant question is "to what agent can performance of the action be ascribed?" If the action can be attributed to the state - as is the case with enforcement of the contractual provisions - then it can be classified as the "state action" according to the Supreme Court.
JabesJanuary 13, 2022
Wouldn't the range of people affected also be relevant? A law can apply to the people living in a state or it can apply to all of the people in the US. If it only applies to people within a state, would that not make it a "state action"?
Jordan-SchlingerJanuary 17, 2022
Hey @jabes great questio! So in this instance a state action could refer to either the federal or state government as a state action just means that a government body is making the action. It goes back to the idea of a state just being a government- technically the USA itself a state as well as the states that make it up. Thus if the federal government intervened it could be viewed as a state action as well.
