## Facts

- The Enoch Pratt Free Library operated a library-training class that served as the practical entry route to permanent library staff positions.
- Louise Kerr, a qualified Black applicant, applied for admission to the training class and was denied.
- Kerr alleged the Library maintained a uniform policy excluding Black applicants from the training class and that this discrimination was carried out under color of state law.
- The Library, though organized as a corporation, received substantial annual appropriations from the City of Baltimore, submitted its budget to city authorities, and operated in city-owned buildings; the city funded construction and other expenses.
- Kerr sought damages under federal civil rights statutes, an injunction against race-based exclusion, and declaratory relief requiring nondiscriminatory consideration of her application.
- Kerr’s father, as a Baltimore taxpayer, asserted in the alternative that if the Library were purely private, city appropriations to support it would be unauthorized and unconstitutional.

## Issues

1. Whether the Library’s funding, supervision, and public function made it a municipal instrumentality whose actions constituted state action subject to the Fourteenth Amendment.
2. Whether Kerr was excluded from the training class solely because of her race.
3. If the Library were private, whether municipal appropriations to it were unauthorized and unconstitutional as applied to a discriminatory institution.

## Decision

- The Fourth Circuit reversed the dismissal of the complaint.
- The court held the Library functioned as a municipal agency; its denial of admission to the training class was state action within the Fourteenth Amendment.
- The court found Kerr was rejected because of her race pursuant to an established policy of excluding Black applicants.
- The court concluded that race-based exclusion from the training class denied equal protection and ordered relief consistent with requiring nondiscriminatory consideration.
- Because the Library was treated as a public instrumentality, the taxpayer theory premised on the Library’s private status was not determinative.

## Legal Principles

- An entity nominally organized as private may be treated as a governmental instrumentality when it is primarily supported by public funds, subject to municipal supervision, and performs a public function for the community.
- When such an entity acts as an arm of the government, its discriminatory policies constitute state action and are constrained by the Equal Protection Clause.
- Excluding qualified applicants from public programs that serve as a gateway to public employment solely on the basis of race violates equal protection and is actionable under federal civil rights statutes providing remedies for deprivations of constitutional rights under color of state law.

## Conclusion

A library corporation that is financially and operationally integrated into city government may be treated as a municipal agency, and its policy of excluding a qualified Black applicant from a training program tied to public library employment constitutes state action that violates the Fourteenth Amendment’s guarantee of equal protection.


Kerr v. Enoch Pratt Free Library of Balt. City, 149 F.2d 212 (4th Cir. 1945)