the Supreme Court held that the Equal Protection Clause and other parts of the Bill of Rights don’t bind private parties, so companies were free to discriminate prior to 1964. The court upheld the Civil Rights Act on the rationale that “voluminous testimony [before Congress] presents overwhelming evidence that discrimination by hotels and motels impedes interstate travel.”24 This interpretation—that people traveling from one state to another to purchase time in a hotel room is in fact participating in commerce—was key. The
