Why did CJ Roberts apply the Fourteenth Amendment to Harvard, a private school? In Justice Roberts's ruling in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard College overturning affirmative action in the United States, he holds that &quot;Harvard’s and UNC’s admissions programs violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.&quot; Later, he writes (all emphases added): The conclusion reached by the Brown Court was unmistakably clear: the right to a public education 'must be made available to all on equal terms'.&quot; Brown’s “fundamental principle that racial discrimination in public education is unconstitutional.” For the reasons provided above, the Harvard and UNC admissions programs cannot be reconciled with the guarantees of the Equal Protection Clause. Why would the Equal Protection Clause apply to private universities? The EPC restricts certain state actions. And other Constitutional amendments do not apply to private universities. The only opinion in this decision I could find that addressed this issue at all was Justice Gorsuch's concurrence in section II.B: Title VI says: “No person in the United States shall, on the ground of race, color, or national origin, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.” The Equal Protection Clause reads: “No State shall . . . deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” ... The Equal Protection Clause operates on States. It does not purport to regulate the conduct of private parties. By contrast, Title VI applies to recipients of federal funds—covering not just many state actors, but many private actors too. In this way, Title VI reaches entities and organizations that the Equal Protection Clause does not. ... Title VI bears independent force beyond the Equal Protection Clause. While Gorsuch is not explicitly clear on this point, I read this as saying that he believes that Harvard's policies are illegal, but under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act (42 U.S. Code § 2000d), not under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. But this seems like a pretty major departure from Roberts' position (which I don't understand) that the EPC applies to both Harvard and UNC.
Justice Gorsuch attempts to explain (at p. 20 of his concurrence): In the years following Bakke, this Court hewed to Justice Powell's and Justice Brennan's shared premise that Title VI and the Equal Protection Clause mean the same thing. ... As a result, for over four decades, every case about racial preferences in school admissions under Title VI has turned into a case about the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment. A journalist's account on scotusblog also notes that the tests under Title VI and under the 14th amendment have been understood as identical: Private universities like Harvard are not subject to the 14th Amendment, but Title VI applies the same test to private universities that receive federal funds, as Harvard does. See also commentary from a law firm blog in 2022: Harvard, as a private university, is not explicitly regulated by the Fourteenth Amendment. Instead, the case against Harvard relies on Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits any entity receiving federal financial assistance – as Harvard does – from discriminating on the basis of “race, color, or national origin.” The Supreme Court has held that Title VI’s protections match those of the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause, and thus, the analyses are essentially identical. I read the majority reasons to be a continuance of this conflated meaning. In footnote 2, Chief Justice Roberts is careful to say that the Court is evaluating Harvard's admissions program &quot;under the standards of the Equal Protection Clause&quot; (emphasis mine), rather than stating that the Equal Protection Clause applies against Harvard. Later, he does slip back into language that could be read as suggesting the Equal Protection Clause is being applied directly: &quot;For the reasons provided above, the Harvard and UNC admissions programs cannot be reconciled with the guarantees of the Equal Protection Clause,&quot; but a better reading is that he is merely recognizing that Title VI imports the same guarantees of the Equal Protection Clause. Justice Gorsuch would prefer to re-introduce the analytical clarity about the source of the constraints.
No, all text of the Canadian constitution is of equal force. The 1993 Supreme Court case New Brunswick Broadcasting Co. v. Nova Scotia (Speaker of the House of Assembly) makes this clear: It is a basic rule, not disputed in this case, that one part of the Constitution cannot be abrogated or diminished by another part of the Constitution: Reference re Bill 30, An Act to amend the Education Act (Ont.), [1987] 1 S.C.R. 1148. So if the privilege to expel strangers from the legislative assembly is constitutional, it cannot be abrogated by the Charter, even if the Charter otherwise applies to the body making the ruling. This raises the critical question: is the privilege of the legislative assembly to exclude strangers from its chamber a constitutional power? The opinion went on to determine that the privilege of the legislative assembly to exclude strangers was an unwritten constitutional principle which could not be abrogated by the written constitutional Charter (though they did not specifically call it an unwritten constitutional principle at the time, this is retroactively so through Reference Re Secession of Quebec para. 52). Edit: Following Toronto (City) v. Ontario (AG) 2021 SCC 34, it's not entirely clear New Brunswick Broadcasting Co. is still good law as the majority relegated unwritten principles to interpretive aids and filling structural gaps of the written Constitution, without referencing this case. The rule that the (written) Constitution cannot contradict itself seems logical though, and the cited Reference re Bill 30 does indeed state at para. 62 that the written Charter cannot override other parts of the Constitution (presumably we should read that as specifically written parts, since that's what was at issue in the reference).
These offer letters typically state explicitly that the offer is contingent on approval by the relevant governing board. This is sufficient to thwart promissory estoppel. Such highest-level overturning are frequent enough in the US that a reasonable person would know that the principal (for instance) does not have final authority to make a contract. There is no requirement that the board justify their decision to you. If you file a lawsuit alleging racial or religious discrimination, and if you can make a prima facie case for discrimination,you might survive the motion for dismissal, and the board might be required to say why they didn't hire you.
From what I can determine, there has not been a legal challenge to the practice that reached a high enough level to get on my radar, so it's not clearly prohibited or allowed. Turning to the relevant federal regulations, the implementation of the Fair Housing Act, the law hinges in part on an Aggrieved person includes any person who— (a) Claims to have been injured by a discriminatory housing practice; or (b) Believes that such person will be injured by a discriminatory housing practice that is about to occur. In order to sue a university because they offer sex-separated halls, floors or rooms, a plaintiff would have to show that they have been harmed by being given such a choice. Reading the prohibitions in §100.50, there is no obvious "Discriminat[ion] in the terms, conditions or privileges of sale or rental of a dwelling, or in the provision of services or facilities", and it does not "otherwise makes unavailable or denies dwellings". Cases like McLaurin v. Oklahoma State Regents, 339 U.S. 637 (a case putting an end to the "separate but equal" doctrine) include reference to the fact that appellant was harmed ("The restrictions imposed upon appellant impair and inhibit his ability to study, to engage in discussions and exchange views with other students, and, in general, to learn his profession"). Analogously, the relatively rare black-only residences of UC Davis and Cal State LA might be targeted in a discrimination suit, if plaintiffs can make the required legal argument that there is harm.
The Seventh Amendment's jury trial provision does not apply to the states. The Bill of Rights does not inherently restrain the states at all, merely the federal government. The Fourteenth Amendment does restrain the states; notably, it forbids a state from depriving any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law. Courts have read into "of law" the added requirement that the law be compatible with the fundamental rights that are implicit in the concept of ordered liberty; this means that most stuff that would violate the Bill of Rights if done by the feds violates due process if done by the states. However, not all provisions of the Bill of Rights have been incorporated (i.e. applied to the states); the requirement for a jury in a civil trial is one of the few that hasn't been incorporated, because courts do not consider it a fundamental right (merely one protected in the federal courts). Now, many traffic tickets are actually misdemeanor offenses, and a jury-trial requirement for crimes is incorporated. However, even for federal offenses, the courts have generally found that the Constitution doesn't require jury trial for petty crimes (those with a maximum sentence under 6 months).
In normal commercial situations there is the principle of freedom of contract where parties are free to contract with whom they choose. As a result of this principle, they are also free to not choose to contract with whom they choose (i.e. refuse to serve someone). There are limits, such as if it could be argued that by doing so contravenes other laws, such as those against discrimination on the basis of race, age or gender for example. When a public entity is involved, it is a branch of government and is governed by the rules that define the relationship between the individual and the state - the constitution, so principles of constitutional law apply. Decisions made by public bodies can therefore be subject to judicial review, where an affected party or someone with sufficient standing can take the matter to court to be reviewed by a judge.
It is legal. What would be illegal is for a public school to promote or inhibit a religion. You can teach all sorts of facts that touch on religion (millennia of Western history) and you can e.g. survey the major religions of the worlds as a cultural phenomenon. You can use circumlocutions or proper names. It's not illegal to confess to having personal beliefs. This is about public schools, which is an arm of the government. A person who is in a school, for example a student, is not prohibited from promoting or demoting a religion, therefore a student who clearly and openly advocates the Pastafarian faith is not to be sanctioned, except insofar as the conduct is objectively disruptive. This is because the student is clearly not acting as an agent of a government institution. Things are a little murky when it comes to teachers and guest speakers. Teachers do not lose their First Amendment rights when they enter the classroom. Here is a summary of pertinent court rulings. The main principle that comes from such cases is that school districts can direct teachers to refrain from certain actions when there is a reasonable belief that the actions would run afoul of the Establishment Clause. Individual teachers have been ordered to not engage in silent reading of prayers in school (Roberts v. Madigan). Case law on guest lecturers is probably close to zero, since guest lecturers don't have the same kind of property right to be at the school expressing themselves as teachers do.
Your assumption is incorrect -- the Bill of Rights proper does not apply to the states, and pre-14th Amendment only bound the federal government. See Barron v. Baltimore, 32 US 243. States could do whatever they wanted, subject to federal legislation on the matters given to the federal government and subject to their own constitutions. After the Civil War, the federal government was much less OK with so-called "black codes," restricting the rights of freedmen based on explicitly racial distinctions, with not even a fig leaf of justification that it applied to all citizens. The federal government could prevent federal discrimination, but no tools existed to prevent state discrimination. Hence, the 14th Amendment, which bound the states to adopt certain standards in their lawmaking and let Congress take action against those that didn't.