Shelley V. Kraemer (Paperback)

High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Shelley v. Kraemer, 334 U.S. 1 (1948), is a United States Supreme Court case which held that courts could not enforce racial covenants on real estate. The United States Supreme Court held that racially-based restrictive covenants are, on their face, not invalid under the Fourteenth Amendment. Private parties may voluntarily abide by the terms of a restrictive covenant, but they may not seek judicial enforcement of such a covenant, because enforcement by the courts would constitute state action. Since such state action would necessarily be discriminatory, the enforcement of a racially-based restrictive covenant in a state court would violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. There is an interesting story regarding the brief filed on behalf of the United States government. It was written by four Jewish lawyers: Philip Elman, Oscar Davis, Hilbert Zarky, and Stanley Silverberg.