Whether the Fourteenth Amendment permits a city to bar residential occupancy based on race when that restriction prevents an owner from selling property to a willing purchaser.
Holding
No. The ordinance violated the Fourteenth Amendment because its race-based occupancy rule unlawfully interfered with the rights to acquire and dispose of property.
Reasoning
Buchanan could challenge the ordinance because it directly impaired his own right to sell. Without the ordinance, the Kentucky courts would have enforced the contract; with it, Warley could refuse to buy because he could not occupy the lot.
The Fourteenth Amendment protects more than possession of property: it protects the ability to acquire, use, and dispose of it. Federal civil rights statutes also recognize equal property rights regardless of race. A city may regulate harmful uses of land, but its police power cannot override constitutional protections.
The ordinance turned solely on the proposed occupant’s race. By preventing a Black purchaser from living on this block, it effectively prevented Buchanan from selling him a home there. This was not an ordinary restriction on a harmful use of property.
The Court distinguished decisions allowing separate but equal accommodations in transportation and education. Those decisions did not authorize a city to deny people the ability to acquire, use, or dispose of property because of race.
The city’s stated goals—preventing racial conflict, preserving racial purity, and protecting property values—could not justify the restriction. Public peace cannot be secured by denying constitutional rights, and a neighbor’s race does not make an otherwise lawful property use a permissible target of prohibition.