The U.S. Supreme Court case Jones v. Alfred H. Mayer Co., 1968, centered on the issue of racial discrimination in housing sales, a violation of the Civil Rights Act of 1866 which prohibits racial discrimination in property transactions. The plaintiffs, an African American couple named Joseph and Barbara Jones, sued real estate developer Alfred H. Mayer Company for refusing to sell them a house in a St Louis suburb because they were black. The defendant argued that Congress lacked authority to regulate private sales under the Thirteenth Amendment which abolished slavery but did not explicitly prohibit other forms of racial discrimination. However, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously (7-2) against Mayer Co., asserting that Congress does have power under this amendment to legislate against all racially discriminatory actions affecting constitutional rights - including those by private individuals or organizations - thus upholding Section 1982's applicability to purely private acts of race-based housing discrimination.

In the dissenting opinion for Jones v. Alfred H. Mayer Co., Justice Potter Stewart, joined by Justices Byron White and John Marshall Harlan II, argued that Congress did not have the authority under the Thirteenth Amendment to regulate private acts of racial discrimination in property sales. They contended that while the amendment clearly abolished slavery and gave Congress power to enforce this abolition, it did not grant broader powers to regulate all racially discriminatory behavior. The dissenters also disagreed with majority's interpretation of Section 1982 of Title 42 as applying to purely private transactions; they believed this section was intended only to prohibit government-sanctioned discrimination. In their view, interpreting it more broadly would be an unwarranted expansion of federal power into a realm traditionally regulated by states - real estate transactions.