crimination must be shown. An erroneous performance of a statutory
duty, although a violation of the statute, is not without more a denial
of equal protection of the laws.[1008] This clause is also violated by
the withholding of equal access to the courts,[1009] or by inequality of
treatment in the courts.[1010] In Shelley _v._ Kraemer[1011] the use of
judicial power to enforce private agreements of a discriminatory
character was held unconstitutional. Holding that restrictive covenants
prohibiting the sale of homes to Negroes could not be enforced in the
courts, Chief Justice Vinson said: "These are not cases, as has been
suggested, in which the States have merely abstained from action,
leaving private individuals free to impose such discriminations as they
see fit. Rather, these are cases in which the States have made available
to such individuals the full coercive power of government to deny to
petitioners, on the grounds of race or color, the enjoyment of property
rights in premises which petitioners are willing and financially able to
acquire and which the grantors are willing to sell. The difference
between judicial enforcement and nonenforcement of the restrictive
covenants is the difference to petitioners between being denied rights
of property available to other members of the community and being
accorded full enjoyment of those rights on an equal footing."[1012] The
action of the curators of a state university in refusing admission to an
applicant on account of race is regarded as State action.[1013] A State
cannot avoid the impact of the clause by the delegation of
responsibility to a private body. After a period of vacillation, the
Supreme Court has determined that the action of a political party in
excluding Negroes from membership is unlawful when such membership is an
essential qualification for voting in a primary conducted pursuant to
State law.[1014]

"Persons"

In the case in which it was first called upon to interpret this clause
the Court expressed doubt whether "any action of a State not directed by
way of discrimination against the Negroes as a class, or on account of
their race, will ever be held to come within the purview of this
provision."[1015] That view was soon abandoned. In 1877 it took
jurisdiction of a series of cases, popularly known as the Granger cases,
in which railroad corporations sought protection under the due process
and equal protection clauses.[1016] Although every case was