Comcast v. National Association of African-American-Owned Media

Comcast Corp. v. National Association of African American-Owned Media
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued November 13, 2019 Decided March 23, 2020
Full case name	Comcast Corporation v. National Association of African American-Owned Media, et al.
Docket no.	18-1171
Citations	589 U.S. ___ (more) 140 S. Ct. 1009; 206 L. Ed. 2d 356
Argument	Oral argument
Case history
Prior	Motion to dismiss granted, Nat'l Ass'n of African-American Owned Media v. Comcast Corp., No. 2:15-cv-01239, 2016 WL 11652073 (C.D. Cal. Oct. 5, 2016); reversed, 743 Fed. Appx. 106 (9th Cir. 2018).
Holding
A §1981 plaintiff bears the burden of showing that the plaintiff's race was a but-for cause of its injury, and that burden remains constant over the life of the lawsuit.
Court membership
Chief Justice John Roberts Associate Justices Clarence Thomas · Ruth Bader Ginsburg Stephen Breyer · Samuel Alito Sonia Sotomayor · Elena Kagan Neil Gorsuch · Brett Kavanaugh
Case opinions
Majority	Gorsuch, joined by Roberts, Thomas, Breyer, Alito, Sotomayor, Kagan, Kavanaugh; Ginsburg (except for the footnote)
Concurrence	Ginsburg (in part and in the judgment)
Laws applied
42 U.S.C. § 1981

Comcast v. National Association of African-American-Owned Media, 589 U.S. ___ (2020), is a United States Supreme Court case related to protections against racial discrimination in the Civil Rights Act of 1866. The case relates to whether cable television operator Comcast engaged in racial discrimination in refusing to carry channels from Entertainment Studios, a minority-owned network founded by Byron Allen. In a unanimous opinion in March 2020, the Court ruled that under the Civil Rights Act, Allen was burdened to show that race was but-for the sole reason Comcast failed to enter into a contract with his network.^[1] The parties reached a settlement after the Court's decision.