The formation for citizenship in the public sphere. Quasi-public legal relations in the case of racial desegregation in United States schools

Abstract

Racial desegregation in American schools raised the discussion about whether and under what conditions the horizontal effect of the right to equality in relations between individuals can be admitted. In principle, under the terms of the state action doctrine, the discriminatory behavior of individuals would be outside the scope of application of the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, since it is only applicable against State action. We wonder if it is possible to verify the existence of intermediate spaces between public and private law, in which the validity of fundamental rights against third parties occurs.