In the 1969 case, Adickes v. S.H. Kress & Co., Sandra Adickes, a white school teacher from New York, sued the retail store S.H. Kress & Co under Title II of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 for racial discrimination after she was refused service in Mississippi because she was accompanied by African American students. The Supreme Court ruled in favor of Adickes and held that if a private individual engages in discriminatory conduct as part of a conspiracy with state officials to deny another person's constitutional rights, then they can be held liable under Section 1983 even though they are not state actors themselves. This ruling expanded protections against racial discrimination by holding private entities accountable for conspiring with public entities to violate civil rights.

In the dissenting opinion for ADICKES v. S. H. KRESS & CO., Justice Harlan argued that there was not enough evidence to support Adickes' claim of a conspiracy between the restaurant and police officers, which led to her arrest for violating segregation laws in Mississippi during 1964. He believed that it was wrong to assume such a conspiracy existed based on circumstantial evidence alone, especially when no direct proof had been presented at trial. Furthermore, he contended that even if there were some form of agreement between the parties involved, this did not necessarily mean they intended or anticipated an unlawful arrest would occur as a result - another key element required to prove conspiracy under federal law (42 U.S.C §1983). Therefore, according to Justice Harlan's interpretation of events and legal standards applicable in this case, Adickes failed to meet her burden of proof and should not have prevailed against S.H Kress & Co.