Week 1: The Heart of Atlanta Motel v. United States

The Heart of Atlanta Motel v. United States
Name
Institution
The Heart of Atlanta Motel v. United States
The Heart of Atlanta Motel v. U.S marks one of the most challenging cases of the last century. The case brought before the U.S Supreme Court by Moreton Rolleston challenged the power of the U.S Congress to implement the Commerce Clause under the newly established Civil Rights Act of 1964. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 had brought up important questions on the power of the Congress to control how people managed their private businesses. This in itself was a landmark case since there had not been a similar case challenging the power of Congress as far as meddling in private businesses was concerned (Oren, 2009).
The Heart of Atlanta Motel v. U.S. was a 1964 case that sought to block the Congress from enforcing the Commerce Clause provided for in the constitution to guide the newly formed Civil Rights Act of 1964. According to the Commerce Clause, any public place was supposed to allow people from any ethnicity. Ideally, this clause was only applicable to public establishments and did not affect private businesses in any way (Dempsey, 2015). However, the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 changed this and the clause was ex...