Civil Rights Cases of 1883
Definition
Five cases condensed into one centralized issue for review, United States v. Stanley, 109 U.S. 3 (1883), in which the U.S. Supreme Court held that the Civil Rights Act of 1875 was unconstitutional. The Court ruled that, under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, Congress could prohibit only discrimination by state actors, not private individuals.