Brentwood Academy v. Tennessee Secondary School Athletic Ass’n

531 U.S. 288 (2001)

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Nature of the Case

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Facts

D is a not-for-profit membership corporation organized to regulate interscholastic sport among the public and private high schools in Tennessee that belong to it. No school is forced to join. It enjoys the memberships of almost all the State's public high schools (84% of the Association's voting membership), far outnumbering the private schools that belong. The voting membership of each of D's nine-person committees is limited under the Association's bylaws to high school principals, assistant principals, and superintendents elected by the member schools, and the public school administrators who so serve typically attend meetings during regular school hours. D's staff members are not paid by the State, but they are eligible to join the State's public retirement system for its employees. Member schools pay dues to D. The bulk of its revenue is gate receipts at member teams' football and basketball tournaments, many of them held in public arenas rented by D. D has the power 'to suspend, to fine, or otherwise penalize any member school for the violation of any of the rules of the Association or for other just cause.' D's board of control found that Brentwood violated a rule prohibiting 'undue influence' in recruiting athletes when it wrote to incoming students and their parents about spring football practice. D placed P's athletic program on probation for four years, declared its football and boys' basketball teams ineligible to compete in playoffs for two years, and imposed a $3,000 fine. All the voting members of the board of control and legislative council were public school administrators. P sued D claiming that enforcement of the Rule was state action and a violation of the First and Fourteenth Amendments. The District Court entered summary judgment for P. The relationship between D and its public school members was symbiotic. The Sixth Circuit reversed. D was neither engaging in a traditional and exclusive public function nor responding to state compulsion. The Supreme granted certiorari.