Facts
- Rotary International is a nonprofit association of local Rotary Clubs organized to provide humanitarian service, encourage ethical standards, and support peace and goodwill.
- Rotary’s constitution barred women from membership, though women could participate in some club-related activities.
- The Rotary Club of Duarte (California) admitted women as active members in 1977.
- Rotary International revoked Duarte’s charter and terminated its affiliation for violating the gender restriction.
- Duarte and two women members sued in California state court, alleging violation of the Unruh Civil Rights Act, which guarantees equal access in “business establishments” regardless of sex.
Issues
- Whether applying California’s Unruh Civil Rights Act to require California Rotary Clubs to admit women violates the First Amendment freedom of intimate association.
- Whether the same application violates the First Amendment freedom of expressive association.
Decision
- The Supreme Court affirmed the judgment requiring California Rotary Clubs to admit women.
- Rotary Clubs were not the type of small, selective, secluded relationships that receive strong protection as intimate associations.
- The record did not show that admitting women would materially affect members’ ability to carry out the clubs’ protected expressive and service activities.
- Any limited burden on association was justified by California’s compelling interest in eliminating sex discrimination in places treated as business establishments under state law.
- Vote: 7–0; Justice Powell wrote the opinion; Justices Blackmun and O’Connor did not participate.
Legal Principles
- Intimate-association protection depends on factors including size, selectivity, seclusion, purpose, and exclusion of outsiders from central activities; large, inclusive groups oriented toward public service generally receive reduced protection.
- An expressive-association claim requires a concrete showing that compelled inclusion would significantly impair the group’s ability to express its viewpoints or carry out protected activities.
- A state’s interest in eradicating discrimination, including discrimination against women in major social and economic spheres, can justify applying a generally applicable public-accommodations law to a large, publicly oriented membership organization.
- When a state court interprets a state civil rights statute to cover an organization, federal review focuses on whether that application violates federal constitutional rights, not on reinterpreting state-law coverage.
Conclusion
The Court held that enforcing California’s nondiscrimination law to require Rotary Clubs in California to admit women did not violate Rotary International’s First Amendment rights because the clubs lacked the characteristics of intimate associations, inclusion did not significantly burden expressive activity, and the State’s interest in eliminating sex discrimination justified any minimal interference with association.