In the case of Barr et al. v. City of Columbia, 1963, the U.S Supreme Court ruled in favor of five African American petitioners who were arrested for trespassing after refusing to leave a restaurant in South Carolina that was racially segregated. The court held that their convictions violated constitutional rights under the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause because they were based on state action supporting racial discrimination. The decision emphasized that while private entities have some latitude to choose with whom they do business, when those decisions are enforced by courts and police - effectively making them state actions - they must comply with constitutional requirements against racial discrimination.

In the dissenting opinion for Barr et al. v. City of Columbia, Justice Harlan argued that the majority's decision was a departure from established principles of constitutional law and an intrusion into state affairs. He contended that there were no federal questions involved in this case as it revolved around trespassing charges under South Carolina law, which should be left to state courts to interpret and apply their own laws unless they impinge on individual rights protected by the U.S Constitution. The defendants' conduct at issue here did not involve any federally protected right since private property owners have a constitutional right to select their customers without interference from government or individuals based on Fourteenth Amendment jurisprudence up until then. Therefore, he believed that this case should have been dismissed for lack of jurisdiction instead of being used as an opportunity to change existing legal standards regarding racial discrimination in public accommodations.