In 1948, in a 6-0 decision in the case of Shelley vs. Kraemer, 334 U.S. 1 (1948), the United States Supreme Court held that racially restrictive covenants in deeds violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and could not be enforced. The court did hold that while private parties may abide by the terms of a racially restrictive covenant, they could not seek judicial enforcement of the same.
In the decision, the Court also consolidated and decided the case of McGhee vs. Sipes from Detroit, Michigan where the same issue had presented itself. The case for the McGhees was argued by Thurgood Marshall, who would later be the lead counsel in the Court’s landmark 1954 decision of Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, 347 U.S. 483 (1954), and who would in 1967 be appointed to the Court as an Associate Justice by President Lyndon Johnson.
