Other Decisions

>The rules of the Loyal Order of Moose (national membership: 900,000) restrict membership or guest privileges to "male persons of the Caucasian or White race above the age of 21 years, and not married to someone of other than the Caucasian or White race, who are of good moral character, physically and mentally normal, who shall profess a belief in a Supreme Being." Refused service as a guest in both the bar and the dining room of Lodge 107 in Harrisburg, Pa., K. Leroy Irvis, a black Pennsylvania legislator, brought a test suit under the 14th Amendment's equal-protection clause.

The Supreme Court Justices were broadly agreed that the Constitution does not prohibit private individuals from forming "allwhite, all-black, all-brown and all-yellow clubs." The issue was whether Pennsylvania, by issuing a liquor license to the lodge, was illegally supporting discrimination through state action. Justices Brennan, Douglas and Marshall said it was, since the state issues only a limited number of liquor licenses which it uses to regulate record keeping, physical conditions and even behavior on the premises. Justice Rehnquist, writing for the 6 to 3 majority, disagreed. He declared that the court should not "utterly emasculate the distinction between private [and] state conduct." The license regulations, he concluded, "cannot be said to in any way foster or encourage racial discrimination." The Moose are thus free to go on drinking and discriminating.

-- Four years ago the Warren Court ruled, in Terry v. Ohio, that a policeman investigating suspicious behavior may "stop and frisk" a person for weapons when he "is justified in believing the individual is armed and presently dangerous." The policeman's personal observation was thus a key justification for such a search. But Justice Rehnquist, again writing for the 6 to 3 majority, ruled that a "stop and frisk" action was also justified when a Connecticut policeman learned from an informant that a man sitting in a car at 2:15 a.m. in a high crime area was carrying a gun as well as some narcotics. The suspect failed to get out of the car as ordered, so the officer reached through the window and found the gun where the tipster said it would be. (The car was subsequently searched and narcotics found in it.) The officer's action under these circumstances, said Rehnquist, "was designed to ensure his safety, and we conclude that it was reasonable." Dissenting, Brennan, Douglas and Marshall worried about the ease with which a policeman could search anyone and then say that an informant had "told" him what to look for. Said Marshall: "Today's decision invokes the specter of a society in which innocent citizens may be stopped, searched and arrested at the whim of police officers."

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