BRENTWOOD ACADEMY v. TENNESSEE SECONDARY SCHOOL ATHLETIC ASSOCIATION et al.

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BRENTWOOD ACADEMY v. TENNESSEE SECONDARY
SCHOOL ATHLETIC ASSOCIATION et al.
certiorari to the united states court of appeals for
the sixth circuit
No. 99–901. Argued October 11, 2000—Decided February 20, 2001
Respondent not-for-profit athletic association (Association) regulates in-
terscholastic sport among Tennessee public and private high schools.
Most of the State’s public high schools are members, representing 84%
of the Association’s membership. School officials make up the voting
membership of the Association’s governing council and control board,
which typically hold meetings during regular school hours. The Associ-
ation is largely funded by gate receipts. Association staff, although not
state employees, may join the state retirement system. The Associa-
tion sets membership standards and student eligibility rules and has the
power to penalize any member school that violates those rules. The
State Board of Education (State Board) has long acknowledged the
Association’s role in regulating interscholastic competition in public
schools, and its members sit as nonvoting members of the Association’s
governing bodies. When the Association penalized petitioner Brent-
wood Academy for violating a recruiting rule, Brentwood sued the Asso-
ciation and its executive director under 42 U. S. C. § 1983, claiming that
the rule’s enforcement was state action that violated the First and Four-
teenth Amendments. The District Court granted Brentwood summary
judgment, enjoining the rule’s enforcement, but the Sixth Circuit found
no state action and reversed.
Held: The Association’s regulatory activity is state action owing to the
pervasive entwinement of state school officials in the Association’s
structure, there being no offsetting reason to see the Association’s acts
in any other way. Pp. 295–305.
(a) State action may be found only if there is such a “close nexus
between the State and the challenged action” that seemingly private
behavior “may be fairly treated as that of the State itself.” Jackson v.
Metropolitan Edison Co., 419 U. S. 345, 351. No one fact is a necessary
condition for finding state action, nor is any set of circumstances suffi-
cient, for there may be some countervailing reason against attributing
activity to the government. The facts that can bear on an attribution’s
fairness—e. g., a nominally private entity may be a state actor when it
is entwined with governmental policies or when government is en-

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twined in its management or control, Evans v. Newton, 382 U. S. 296,
299, 301—unequivocally show that a legal entity’s character is deter-
mined neither by its expressly private characterization in statutory law,
nor by the law’s failure to acknowledge its inseparability from recog-
nized government officials or agencies. In National Collegiate Athletic
Assn. v. Tarkanian, 488 U. S. 179, this Court anticipated that state ac-
tion could be found when there is public entwinement in the manage-
ment or control of an organization whose member public schools are all
within a single State. Pp. 295–298.
(b) The necessarily fact-bound inquiry leads to the conclusion of state
action here. The Association’s nominally private character is over-
borne by the pervasive entwinement of public institutions and public
officials in its composition and workings, and there is no substantial
reason to claim unfairness in applying constitutional standards to it. To
the extent of 84% of its membership, the Association is an organization
of public schools represented by their officials acting in their official
capacity to provide an integral element of secondary public schooling,
interscholastic athletics. There would be no recognizable Association
without the public school officials, who overwhelmingly determine and
perform all but the Association’s purely ministerial acts. Only the 16%
minority of private school memberships keeps the entwinement of the
Association and public schools from being total and their identities to-
tally indistinguishable. To complement the entwinement from the bot-
tom up, the State has provided entwinement from the top down: State
Board members sit ex officio on the Association’s governing bodies and
Association employees participate in the state retirement system. En-
twinement to the degree shown here requires that the Association be
charged with a public character and judged by constitutional stand-
ards. Pp. 298–302.
(c) Entwinement is also the answer to the Association’s several argu-
ments that the instant facts would not support a state-action finding
under various other criteria, e. g., the public function test, Rendell-
Baker v. Kohn, 457 U. S. 830, distinguished. Pp. 302–303.
(d) Although facts showing public action may be outweighed in the
name of a value at odds with finding public accountability in the circum-
stances, e. g., Polk County v. Dodson, 454 U. S. 312, 322, no such counter-
vailing value is present here. The Association’s fear that reversing the
judgment will trigger an epidemic of federal litigation is unfounded.
Save for the Sixth Circuit, every Court of Appeals to consider a state-
wide athletic association like this one has found it to be a state actor,
and there has been no litigation explosion in those jurisdictions. Nor
should the Association have dispensation merely because the public

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schools themselves are state actors subject to suit under § 1983 and Title
IX of the Education Amendments of 1972. Pp. 303–305.
180 F. 3d 758, reversed and remanded.
Souter, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Stevens,
O’Connor, Ginsburg, and Breyer, JJ., joined. Thomas, J., filed a dis-
senting opinion, in which Rehnquist, C. J., and Scalia and Kennedy,
JJ., joined, post, p. 305.
James F. Blumstein argued the cause for petitioner.
With him on the briefs were H. Lee Barfield II and G.
Thomas Nebel.
Deputy Solicitor General Underwood argued the cause for
the United States as amicus curiae urging reversal. With
her on the brief were Solicitor General Waxman, Acting
Assistant Attorney General Lee, Irving L. Gornstein, Den-
nis J. Dimsey, and Gregory B. Friel.
Richard L. Colbert argued the cause and filed a brief for
respondents.*
Justice Souter delivered the opinion of the Court.
The issue is whether a statewide association incorporated
to regulate interscholastic athletic competition among public
and private secondary schools may be regarded as engaging
in state action when it enforces a rule against a member
school. The association in question here includes most pub-
lic schools located within the State, acts through their repre-
sentatives, draws its officers from them, is largely funded
*Briefs of amici curiae urging reversal were filed for the National
Women’s Law Center et al. by Marcia D. Greenberger, Barbara A. Burr,
and Neena K. Chaudhry; for the Southeast Law Institute by A. Eric John-
ston; and for the Tennessee Lawyers’ Association for Women by Linda
Carver Whitlow Knight.
Briefs of amici curiae urging affirmance were filed for the Florida High
School Activities Association, Inc., by Leonard E. Ireland, Jr.; for the
Interscholastic Associations by Wayne F. Plaza, Daniel M. Noland, Mal-
lory V. Mayse, and Edmund J. Sikorski, Jr.; and for the Kentucky High
School Athletic Association by Danny C. Reeves and David A. French.
David A. Wilson, John C. Bonifaz, and Brenda Wright filed a brief for
the National Voting Rights Institute as amicus curiae.

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by their dues and income received in their stead, and has
historically been seen to regulate in lieu of the State Board
of Education’s exercise of its own authority. We hold that
the association’s regulatory activity may and should be
treated as state action owing to the pervasive entwinement
of state school officials in the structure of the association,
there being no offsetting reason to see the association’s acts
in any other way.
I
Respondent Tennessee Secondary School Athletic Associa-
tion (Association) is a not-for-profit membership corporation
organized to regulate interscholastic sport among the public
and private high schools in Tennessee that belong to it. No
school is forced to join, but without any other authority actu-
ally regulating interscholastic athletics, it enjoys the mem-
berships of almost all the State’s public high schools (some
290 of them or 84% of the Association’s voting membership),
far outnumbering the 55 private schools that belong. A
member school’s team may play or scrimmage only against
the team of another member, absent a dispensation.
The Association’s rulemaking arm is its legislative council,
while its board of control tends to administration. The vot-
ing membership of each of these nine-person committees is
limited under the Association’s bylaws to high school princi-
pals, assistant principals, and superintendents elected by the
member schools, and the public school administrators who so
serve typically attend meetings during regular school hours.
Although the Association’s staff members are not paid by the
State, they are eligible to join the State’s public retirement
system for its employees. Member schools pay dues to the
Association, though the bulk of its revenue is gate receipts
at member teams’ football and basketball tournaments, many
of them held in public arenas rented by the Association.
The constitution, bylaws, and rules of the Association set
standards of school membership and the eligibility of stu-
dents to play in interscholastic games. Each school, for

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example, is regulated in awarding financial aid, most coaches
must have a Tennessee state teaching license, and players
must meet minimum academic standards and hew to limits
on student employment. Under the bylaws, “in all matters
pertaining to the athletic relations of his school,” App. 138,
the principal is responsible to the Association, which has the
power “to suspend, to fine, or otherwise penalize any mem-
ber school for the violation of any of the rules of the Associa-
tion or for other just cause,” id., at 100.
Ever since the Association was incorporated in 1925, Ten-
nessee’s State Board of Education (State Board) has (to use
its own words) acknowledged the corporation’s functions “in
providing standards, rules and regulations for interscholastic
competition in the public schools of Tennessee,” id., at 211.
More recently, the State Board cited its statutory author-
ity, Tenn. Code Ann. § 49–1–302 (1996) (App. 220), when it
adopted language expressing the relationship between the
Association and the State Board. Specifically, in 1972, it
went so far as to adopt a rule expressly “designat[ing]” the
Association as “the organization to supervise and regulate
the athletic activities in which the public junior and senior
high schools in Tennessee participate on an interscholastic
basis.” Tennessee State Board of Education, Administra-
tive Rules and Regulations, Rule 0520–1–2–.26 (1972) (later
moved to Rule 0520–1–2–.08). The Rule provided that “the
authority granted herein shall remain in effect until re-
voked” and instructed the State Board’s chairman to “des-
ignate a person or persons to serve in an ex-officio capacity
on the [Association’s governing bodies].” App. 211. That
same year, the State Board specifically approved the Associ-
ation’s rules and regulations, while reserving the right to
review future changes. Thus, on several occasions over the
next 20 years, the State Board reviewed, approved, or reaf-
firmed its approval of the recruiting Rule at issue in this
case. In 1996, however, the State Board dropped the origi-
nal Rule 0520–1–2–.08 expressly designating the Association

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as regulator; it substituted a statement “recogniz[ing] the
value of participation in interscholastic athletics and the role
of [the Association] in coordinating interscholastic athletic
competition,” while “authoriz[ing] the public schools of the
state to voluntarily maintain membership in [the Associa-
tion].” Id., at 220.
The action before us responds to a 1997 regulatory en-
forcement proceeding brought against petitioner, Brentwood
Academy, a private parochial high school member of the As-
sociation. The Association’s board of control found that
Brentwood violated a rule prohibiting “undue influence” in
recruiting athletes, when it wrote to incoming students and
their parents about spring football practice. The Associa-
tion accordingly placed Brentwood’s athletic program on pro-
bation for four years, declared its football and boys’ basket-
ball teams ineligible to compete in playoffs for two years,
and imposed a $3,000 fine. When these penalties were im-
posed, all the voting members of the board of control and
legislative council were public school administrators.
Brentwood sued the Association and its executive director
in federal court under Rev. Stat. § 1979, 42 U. S. C. § 1983,
claiming that enforcement of the Rule was state action and
a violation of the First and Fourteenth Amendments. The
District Court entered summary judgment for Brentwood
and enjoined the Association from enforcing the Rule. 13
F. Supp. 2d 670 (MD Tenn. 1998). In holding the Association
to be a state actor under § 1983 and the Fourteenth Amend-
ment, the District Court found that the State had delegated
authority over high school athletics to the Association, char-
acterized the relationship between the Association and its
public school members as symbiotic, and emphasized the pre-
dominantly public character of the Association’s membership
and leadership. The court relied on language in National
Collegiate Athletic Assn. v. Tarkanian, 488 U. S. 179, 193,
n. 13 (1988), suggesting that statewide interscholastic ath-
letic associations are state actors, and on other federal cases

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in which such organizations had uniformly been held to be
acting under color of state law.
The United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit
reversed. 180 F. 3d 758 (1999). It recognized that there is
no single test to identify state actions and state actors but
applied three criteria derived from Blum v. Yaretsky, 457
U. S. 991 (1982), Lugar v. Edmondson Oil Co., 457 U. S. 922
(1982), and Rendell-Baker v. Kohn, 457 U. S. 830 (1982), and
found no state action under any of them. It said the District
Court was mistaken in seeing a symbiotic relationship be-
tween the State and the Association, it emphasized that the
Association was neither engaging in a traditional and exclu-
sive public function nor responding to state compulsion, and
it gave short shrift to the language from Tarkanian on which
the District Court relied. Rehearing en banc was later de-
nied over the dissent of two judges, who criticized the panel
decision for creating a conflict among state and federal
courts, for being inconsistent with Tarkanian, and for lack-
ing support in the “functional” analysis of private activity
required by West v. Atkins, 487 U. S. 42 (1988), for assessing
the significance of cooperation between public officials and a
private actor. 190 F. 3d 705 (CA6 1999) (Merritt, J., dissent-
ing from denial of rehearing en banc).
We granted certiorari, 528 U. S. 1153 (2000), to resolve the
conflict 1 and now reverse.
1 A number of other courts have held statewide athletic associations to
be state actors. Griffin High School v. Illinois High School Assn., 822
F. 2d 671, 674 (CA7 1987); Clark v. Arizona Interscholastic Assn., 695
F. 2d 1126, 1128 (CA9 1982), cert. denied, 464 U. S. 818 (1983); In re United
States ex rel. Missouri State High School Activities Assn., 682 F. 2d 147,
151 (CA8 1982); Louisiana High School Athletic Assn. v. St. Augustine
High School, 396 F. 2d 224, 227–228 (CA5 1968); Oklahoma High School
Athletic Assn. v. Bray, 321 F. 2d 269, 272–273 (CA10 1963); Indiana High
School Athletic Assn. v. Carlberg, 694 N. E. 2d 222, 229 (Ind. 1997); Missis-
sippi High School Activities Assn., Inc. v. Coleman, 631 So. 2d 768, 774–
775 (Miss. 1994); Kleczek v. Rhode Island Interscholastic League, Inc., 612
A. 2d 734, 736 (R. I. 1992); see also Moreland v. Western Penn. Inter-

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II
A
Our cases try to plot a line between state action subject
to Fourteenth Amendment scrutiny and private conduct
(however exceptionable) that is not. Tarkanian, supra, at
191; Jackson v. Metropolitan Edison Co., 419 U. S. 345, 349
(1974). The judicial obligation is not only to “ ‘preserv[e] an
area of individual freedom by limiting the reach of federal
law’ and avoi[d] the imposition of responsibility on a State
for conduct it could not control,” Tarkanian, supra, at 191
(quoting Lugar, supra, at 936–937), but also to assure that
constitutional standards are invoked “when it can be said
that the State is responsible for the specific conduct of which
the plaintiff complains,” Blum, supra, at 1004 (emphasis in
original). If the Fourteenth Amendment is not to be dis-
placed, therefore, its ambit cannot be a simple line between
States and people operating outside formally governmental
organizations, and the deed of an ostensibly private organiza-
tion or individual is to be treated sometimes as if a State
had caused it to be performed. Thus, we say that state ac-
tion may be found if, though only if, there is such a “close
nexus between the State and the challenged action” that
seemingly private behavior “may be fairly treated as that of
the State itself.” Jackson, supra, at 351.2
What is fairly attributable is a matter of normative judg-
ment, and the criteria lack rigid simplicity. From the range
of circumstances that could point toward the State behind an
individual face, no one fact can function as a necessary condi-
tion across the board for finding state action; nor is any set
of circumstances absolutely sufficient, for there may be some
scholastic Athletic League, 572 F. 2d 121, 125 (CA3 1978) (state action
conceded).
2 If a defendant’s conduct satisfies the state-action requirement of the
Fourteenth Amendment, the conduct also constitutes action “under color
of state law” for § 1983 purposes. Lugar v. Edmondson Oil Co., 457 U. S.
922, 935 (1982).

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countervailing reason against attributing activity to the
government. See Tarkanian, 488 U. S., at 193, 196; Polk
County v. Dodson, 454 U. S. 312 (1981).
Our cases have identified a host of facts that can bear on
the fairness of such an attribution. We have, for example,
held that a challenged activity may be state action when it
results from the State’s exercise of “coercive power,” Blum,
457 U. S., at 1004, when the State provides “significant en-
couragement, either overt or covert,” ibid., or when a pri-
vate actor operates as a “willful participant in joint activity
with the State or its agents,” Lugar, supra, at 941 (internal
quotation marks omitted). We have treated a nominally pri-
vate entity as a state actor when it is controlled by an
“agency of the State,” Pennsylvania v. Board of Directors
of City Trusts of Philadelphia, 353 U. S. 230, 231 (1957) (per
curiam), when it has been delegated a public function by the
State, cf., e. g., West v. Atkins, supra, at 56; Edmonson v.
Leesville Concrete Co., 500 U. S. 614, 627–628 (1991), when it
is “entwined with governmental policies,” or when govern-
ment is “entwined in [its] management or control,” Evans v.
Newton, 382 U. S. 296, 299, 301 (1966).
Amidst such variety, examples may be the best teachers,
and examples from our cases are unequivocal in showing that
the character of a legal entity is determined neither by its
expressly private characterization in statutory law, nor
by the failure of the law to acknowledge the entity’s insepa-
rability from recognized government officials or agencies.
Lebron v. National Railroad Passenger Corporation, 513
U. S. 374 (1995), held that Amtrak was the Government for
constitutional purposes, regardless of its congressional desig-
nation as private; it was organized under federal law to at-
tain governmental objectives and was directed and con-
trolled by federal appointees. Pennsylvania v. Board of
Directors of City Trusts of Philadelphia, supra, held the
privately endowed Girard College to be a state actor and
enforcement of its private founder’s limitation of admission

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to whites attributable to the State, because, consistent with
the terms of the settlor’s gift, the college’s board of directors
was a state agency established by state law. Ostensibly the
converse situation occurred in Evans v. Newton, supra,
which held that private trustees to whom a city had trans-
ferred a park were nonetheless state actors barred from en-
forcing racial segregation, since the park served the public
purpose of providing community recreation, and “the munici-
pality remain[ed] entwined in [its] management [and] con-
trol,” id., at 301.
These examples of public entwinement in the management
and control of ostensibly separate trusts or corporations
foreshadow this case, as this Court itself anticipated in
Tarkanian. Tarkanian arose when an undoubtedly state
actor, the University of Nevada, suspended its basketball
coach, Tarkanian, in order to comply with rules and recom-
mendations of the National Collegiate Athletic Association
(NCAA). The coach charged the NCAA with state action,
arguing that the state university had delegated its own func-
tions to the NCAA, clothing the latter with authority to
make and apply the university’s rules, the result being joint
action making the NCAA a state actor.
To be sure, it is not the strict holding in Tarkanian that
points to our view of this case, for we found no state action
on the part of the NCAA. We could see, on the one hand,
that the university had some part in setting the NCAA’s
rules, and the Supreme Court of Nevada had gone so far as
to hold that the NCAA had been delegated the university’s
traditionally exclusive public authority over personnel. 488
U. S., at 190. But on the other side, the NCAA’s policies
were shaped not by the University of Nevada alone, but by
several hundred member institutions, most of them having
no connection with Nevada, and exhibiting no color of Ne-
vada law. Id., at 193. Since it was difficult to see the
NCAA, not as a collective membership, but as surrogate for
the one State, we held the organization’s connection with Ne-

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vada too insubstantial to ground a state-action claim. Id.,
at 193, 196.
But dictum in Tarkanian pointed to a contrary result on
facts like ours, with an organization whose member public
schools are all within a single State. “The situation would,
of course, be different if the [Association’s] membership con-
sisted entirely of institutions located within the same State,
many of them public institutions created by the same sover-
eign.” Id., at 193, n. 13. To support our surmise, we ap-
provingly cited two cases: Clark v. Arizona Interscholastic
Assn., 695 F. 2d 1126 (CA9 1982), cert. denied, 464 U. S. 818
(1983), a challenge to a state high school athletic association
that kept boys from playing on girls’ interscholastic volley-
ball teams in Arizona; and Louisiana High School Athletic
Assn. v. St. Augustine High School, 396 F. 2d 224 (CA5
1968), a parochial school’s attack on the racially segregated
system of interscholastic high school athletics maintained by
the athletic association. In each instance, the Court of Ap-
peals treated the athletic association as a state actor.
B
Just as we foresaw in Tarkanian, the “necessarily fact-
bound inquiry,” Lugar, 457 U. S., at 939, leads to the conclu-
sion of state action here. The nominally private character
of the Association is overborne by the pervasive entwine-
ment of public institutions and public officials in its composi-
tion and workings, and there is no substantial reason to claim
unfairness in applying constitutional standards to it.
The Association is not an organization of natural persons
acting on their own, but of schools, and of public schools to
the extent of 84% of the total. Under the Association’s by-
laws, each member school is represented by its principal or
a faculty member, who has a vote in selecting members of
the governing legislative council and board of control from
eligible principals, assistant principals, and superintendents.

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Although the findings and prior opinions in this case in-
clude no express conclusion of law that public school officials
act within the scope of their duties when they represent
their institutions, no other view would be rational, the official
nature of their involvement being shown in any number of
ways. Interscholastic athletics obviously play an integral
part in the public education of Tennessee, where nearly
every public high school spends money on competitions
among schools. Since a pickup system of interscholastic
games would not do, these public teams need some mecha-
nism to produce rules and regulate competition. The mech-
anism is an organization overwhelmingly composed of public
school officials who select representatives (all of them public
officials at the time in question here), who in turn adopt and
enforce the rules that make the system work. Thus, by giv-
ing these jobs to the Association, the 290 public schools of
Tennessee belonging to it can sensibly be seen as exercising
their own authority to meet their own responsibilities. Un-
surprisingly, then, the record indicates that half the council
or board meetings documented here were held during official
school hours, and that public schools have largely provided
for the Association’s financial support. A small portion of
the Association’s revenue comes from membership dues paid
by the schools, and the principal part from gate receipts at
tournaments among the member schools. Unlike mere pub-
lic buyers of contract services, whose payments for services
rendered do not convert the service providers into public
actors, see Rendell-Baker, 457 U. S., at 839–843, the schools
here obtain membership in the service organization and give
up sources of their own income to their collective association.
The Association thus exercises the authority of the predomi-
nantly public schools to charge for admission to their games;
the Association does not receive this money from the schools,
but enjoys the schools’ moneymaking capacity as its own.
In sum, to the extent of 84% of its membership, the Associ-
ation is an organization of public schools represented by their

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officials acting in their official capacity to provide an integral
element of secondary public schooling. There would be no
recognizable Association, legal or tangible, without the pub-
lic school officials, who do not merely control but overwhelm-
ingly perform all but the purely ministerial acts by which
the Association exists and functions in practical terms.
Only the 16% minority of private school memberships pre-
vents this entwinement of the Association and the public
school system from being total and their identities totally
indistinguishable.
To complement the entwinement of public school officials
with the Association from the bottom up, the State of Ten-
nessee has provided for entwinement from top down. State
Board members are assigned ex officio to serve as members
of the board of control and legislative council, and the Associ-
ation’s ministerial employees are treated as state employees
to the extent of being eligible for membership in the state
retirement system.
It is, of course, true that the time is long past when the
close relationship between the surrogate association and its
public members and public officials acting as such was
attested frankly. As mentioned, the terms of the State
Board’s Rule expressly designating the Association as regu-
lator of interscholastic athletics in public schools were de-
leted in 1996, the year after a Federal District Court held
that the Association was a state actor because its rules were
“caused, directed and controlled by the Tennessee Board of
Education,” Graham v. TSSAA, No. 1:95–CV–044, 1995 WL
115890, *5 (ED Tenn., Feb. 20, 1995).3
3 The District Court in Graham held that “[t]his delegation of authority
to TSSAA by Tennessee, standing alone, is sufficient to make TSSAA a
state actor” under the “state compulsion test,” which it understood to
provide that a State could exercise such coercive power or provide such
significant encouragement, either overt or covert, that the choice of
the private actor must be deemed to be that of the State as a matter of

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But the removal of the designation language from Rule
0520–1–2–.08 affected nothing but words. Today the State
Board’s member-designees continue to sit on the Associa-
tion’s committees as nonvoting members, and the State con-
tinues to welcome Association employees in its retirement
scheme. The close relationship is confirmed by the Associa-
tion’s enforcement of the same preamendment rules and reg-
ulations reviewed and approved by the State Board (includ-
ing the recruiting Rule challenged by Brentwood), and by
the State Board’s continued willingness to allow students to
satisfy its physical education requirement by taking part in
interscholastic athletics sponsored by the Association. The
most one can say on the evidence is that the State Board
once freely acknowledged the Association’s official character
but now does it by winks and nods.4 The amendment to
the Rule in 1996 affected candor but not the “momentum” of
the Association’s prior involvement with the State Board.
Evans v. Newton, 382 U. S., at 301. The District Court
spoke to this point in finding that because of “custom and
law. 1995 WL 115890, at *4–*5 (citing Blum v. Yaretsky, 457 U. S. 991,
1004 (1982)).
4 The significance of winks and nods in state-action doctrine seems to be
one of the points of the dissenters’ departure from the rest of the Court.
In drawing the public-private action line, the dissenters would emphasize
the formal clarity of the legislative action providing for the appointment
of Girard College’s trustees, see supra, at 296–297; post, at 310, in prefer-
ence to our reliance on the practical certainty in this case that public
officials will control operation of the Association under its bylaws. Simi-
larly, the dissenters stress the express formality of the special statute
defining Amtrak’s ties to the Government, see supra, at 296; post, at 310,
in contrast to the reality in this case that the Association’s organizers
structured the Association’s relationships to the officialdom of public edu-
cation. But if formalism were the sine qua non of state action, the doc-
trine would vanish owing to the ease and inevitability of its evasion, and
for just that reason formalism has never been controlling. For example,
a criterion of state action like symbiosis (which the dissenters accept, post,
at 311) looks not to form but to an underlying reality.

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Opinion of the Court
practice,” “the conduct of the parties has not materially
changed” since 1996, “the connections between TSSAA and
the State [being] still pervasive and entwined.” 13 F. Supp.
2d, at 681.
The entwinement down from the State Board is therefore
unmistakable, just as the entwinement up from the member
public schools is overwhelming. Entwinement will support
a conclusion that an ostensibly private organization ought to
be charged with a public character and judged by constitu-
tional standards; entwinement to the degree shown here re-
quires it.
C
Entwinement is also the answer to the Association’s sev-
eral arguments offered to persuade us that the facts would
not support a finding of state action under various criteria
applied in other cases. These arguments are beside the
point, simply because the facts justify a conclusion of state
action under the criterion of entwinement, a conclusion in no
sense unsettled merely because other criteria of state action
may not be satisfied by the same facts.
The Association places great stress, for example, on the
application of a public function test, as exemplified in
Rendell-Baker v. Kohn, 457 U. S. 830 (1982). There, an
apparently private school provided education for students
whose special needs made it difficult for them to finish high
school. The record, however, failed to show any tradition of
providing public special education to students unable to cope
with a regular school, who had historically been cared for (or
ignored) according to private choice. It was true that vari-
ous public school districts had adopted the practice of refer-
ring students to the school and paying their tuition, and no
one disputed that providing the instruction aimed at a
proper public objective and conferred a public benefit. But
we held that the performance of such a public function did
not permit a finding of state action on the part of the school
unless the function performed was exclusively and tradition-

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Opinion of the Court
ally public, as it was not in that case. The Association ar-
gues that application of the public function criterion would
produce the same result here, and we will assume, arguendo,
that it would. But this case does not turn on a public func-
tion test, any more than Rendell-Baker had anything to do
with entwinement of public officials in the special school.
For the same reason, it avails the Association nothing to
stress that the State neither coerced nor encouraged the ac-
tions complained of. “Coercion” and “encouragement” are
like “entwinement” in referring to kinds of facts that can
justify characterizing an ostensibly private action as public
instead. Facts that address any of these criteria are sig-
nificant, but no one criterion must necessarily be applied.
When, therefore, the relevant facts show pervasive entwine-
ment to the point of largely overlapping identity, the implica-
tion of state action is not affected by pointing out that the
facts might not loom large under a different test.
D
This is not to say that all of the Association’s arguments
are rendered beside the point by the public officials’ involve-
ment in the Association, for after application of the entwine-
ment criterion, or any other, there is a further potential
issue, and the Association raises it. Even facts that suffice
to show public action (or, standing alone, would require such
a finding) may be outweighed in the name of some value at
odds with finding public accountability in the circumstances.
In Polk County, 454 U. S., at 322, a defense lawyer’s actions
were deemed private even though she was employed by the
county and was acting within the scope of her duty as a pub-
lic defender. Full-time public employment would be conclu-
sive of state action for some purposes, see West v. Atkins,
487 U. S., at 50, accord, Lugar, 457 U. S., at 935, n. 18, but
not when the employee is doing a defense lawyer’s primary
job; then, the public defender does “not ac[t] on behalf of the
State; he is the State’s adversary.” Polk County, supra, at

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323, n. 13. The state-action doctrine does not convert oppo-
nents into virtual agents.
The assertion of such a countervailing value is the nub of
each of the Association’s two remaining arguments, neither
of which, however, persuades us. The Association suggests,
first, that reversing the judgment here will somehow trigger
an epidemic of unprecedented federal litigation. Brief for
Respondents 35. Even if that might be counted as a good
reason for a Polk County decision to call the Association’s
action private, the record raises no reason for alarm here.
Save for the Sixth Circuit, every Court of Appeals to con-
sider a statewide athletic association like the one here has
found it a state actor. This majority view began taking
shape even before Tarkanian, which cited two such decisions
approvingly, see supra, at 298 (and this was six years after
Blum, Rendell-Baker, and Lugar, on which the Sixth Circuit
relied here). No one, however, has pointed to any explosion
of § 1983 cases against interscholastic athletic associations in
the affected jurisdictions. Not to put too fine a point on it,
two District Courts in Tennessee have previously held the
Association itself to be a state actor, see Graham, 1995 WL
115890, at *5; Crocker v. Tennessee Secondary School Ath-
letic Assn., 735 F. Supp. 753 (MD Tenn. 1990), affirmance
order, 908 F. 2d 972, 973 (CA6 1990), but there is no evident
wave of litigation working its way across the State. A re-
versal of the judgment here portends nothing more than the
harmony of an outlying Circuit with precedent otherwise
uniform.
Nor do we think there is anything to be said for the Asso-
ciation’s contention that there is no need to treat it as a state
actor since any public school applying the Association’s rules
is itself subject to suit under § 1983 or Title IX of the Educa-
tion Amendments of 1972, 86 Stat. 373, 20 U. S. C. §§ 1681–
1688. Brief for Respondents 30. If Brentwood’s claim
were pushing at the edge of the class of possible defendant
state actors, an argument about the social utility of expand-

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Thomas, J., dissenting
ing that class would at least be on point, but because we are
nowhere near the margin in this case, the Association is
really asking for nothing less than a dispensation for itself.
Its position boils down to saying that the Association should
not be dressed in state clothes because other, concededly
public actors are; that Brentwood should be kept out of court
because a different plaintiff raising a different claim in a dif-
ferent case may find the courthouse open. Pleas for special
treatment are hard to sell, although saying that does not,
of course, imply anything about the merits of Brentwood’s
complaint; the issue here is merely whether Brentwood
properly names the Association as a § 1983 defendant, not
whether it should win on its claim.
The judgment of the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit
is reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings
consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
Justice Thomas, with whom The Chief Justice, Jus-
tice Scalia, and Justice Kennedy join, dissenting.
We have never found state action based upon mere
“entwinement.” Until today, we have found a private orga-
nization’s acts to constitute state action only when the orga-
nization performed a public function; was created, coerced,
or encouraged by the government; or acted in a symbiotic
relationship with the government. The majority’s holding—
that the Tennessee Secondary School Athletic Association’s
(TSSAA) enforcement of its recruiting rule is state action—
not only extends state-action doctrine beyond its permissible
limits but also encroaches upon the realm of individual free-
dom that the doctrine was meant to protect. I respectfully
dissent.
I
Like the state-action requirement of the Fourteenth
Amendment, the state-action element of 42 U. S. C. § 1983
excludes from its coverage “merely private conduct, however

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discriminatory or wrongful.” American Mfrs. Mut. Ins. Co.
v. Sullivan, 526 U. S. 40, 50 (1999) (internal quotation marks
omitted). “Careful adherence to the ‘state action’ require-
ment” thus “preserves an area of individual freedom by lim-
iting the reach of federal law and federal judicial power.”
Lugar v. Edmondson Oil Co., 457 U. S. 922, 936 (1982). The
state-action doctrine also promotes important values of fed-
eralism, “avoid[ing] the imposition of responsibility on a
State for conduct it could not control.” National Collegiate
Athletic Assn. v. Tarkanian, 488 U. S. 179, 191 (1988). Al-
though we have used many different tests to identify state
action, they all have a common purpose. Our goal in every
case is to determine whether an action “can fairly be attrib-
uted to the State.” Blum v. Yaretsky, 457 U. S. 991, 1004
(1982); American Mfrs., supra, at 52.
A
Regardless of these various tests for state action, common
sense dictates that the TSSAA’s actions cannot fairly be at-
tributed to the State, and thus cannot constitute state action.
The TSSAA was formed in 1925 as a private corporation to
organize interscholastic athletics and to sponsor tournaments
among its member schools. Any private or public secondary
school may join the TSSAA by signing a contract agreeing
to comply with its rules and decisions. Although public
schools currently compose 84% of the TSSAA’s membership,
the TSSAA does not require that public schools constitute a
set percentage of its membership, and, indeed, no public
school need join the TSSAA. The TSSAA’s rules are en-
forced not by a state agency but by its own board of control,
which comprises high school principals, assistant principals,
and superintendents, none of whom must work at a public
school. Of course, at the time the recruiting rule was en-
forced in this case, all of the board members happened to be
public school officials. However, each board member acts in

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Thomas, J., dissenting
a representative capacity on behalf of all the private and
public schools in his region of Tennessee, and not simply his
individual school.
The State of Tennessee did not create the TSSAA. The
State does not fund the TSSAA and does not pay its employ-
ees.1 In fact, only 4% of the TSSAA’s revenue comes from
the dues paid by member schools; the bulk of its operating
budget is derived from gate receipts at tournaments it spon-
sors. The State does not permit the TSSAA to use state-
owned facilities for a discounted fee, and it does not exempt
the TSSAA from state taxation. No Tennessee law author-
izes the State to coordinate interscholastic athletics or em-
powers another entity to organize interscholastic athletics on
behalf of the State.2 The only state pronouncement ac-
1 Although the TSSAA’s employees, who typically are retired teachers,
are allowed to participate in the state retirement system, the State does
not pay any portion of the employer contribution for them. The TSSAA
is one of three private associations, along with the Tennessee Education
Association and the Tennessee School Boards Association, whose employ-
ees are statutorily permitted to participate in the state retirement system.
Tenn. Code Ann. § 8–35–118 (1993).
2 The first formal state acknowledgment of the TSSAA’s existence did
not occur until 1972, when the State Board of Education passed a resolu-
tion stating that it “recognizes and designates [the TSSAA] as the organi-
zation to supervise and regulate the athletic activities in which the public
junior and senior high schools of Tennessee participate in on an interscho-
lastic basis.” App. 211. There is no indication that the TSSAA invited
this resolution or that the resolution in any way altered the actions of the
TSSAA or the State following its adoption in 1972. In fact, it appears
that the resolution was not entirely accurate: The TSSAA does not super-
vise or regulate regular season interscholastic contests. In any event, the
resolution was revoked in 1996. Contrary to the majority’s reference to
its revocation as being “winks and nods,” ante, at 301, the repeal of the
1972 resolution appears to have had no more impact on the TSSAA’s oper-
ation than did its passage.
The majority also cites this resolution to support its assertion that
“[e]ver since the Association was incorporated in 1925, Tennessee’s State
Board of Education . . . has acknowledged the corporation’s function ‘in

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knowledging the TSSAA’s existence is a rule providing that
the State Board of Education permits public schools to main-
tain membership in the TSSAA if they so choose.3
Moreover, the State of Tennessee has never had any
involvement in the particular action taken by the TSSAA in
this case: the enforcement of the TSSAA’s recruiting rule
prohibiting members from using “undue influence” on stu-
dents or their parents or guardians “to secure or to retain a
student for athletic purposes.” App. 115. There is no indi-
cation that the State has ever had any interest in how schools
choose to regulate recruiting.4 In fact, the TSSAA’s author-
ity to enforce its recruiting rule arises solely from the volun-
tary membership contract that each member school signs,
agreeing to conduct its athletics in accordance with the rules
and decisions of the TSSAA.
B
Even approaching the issue in terms of any of the Court’s
specific state-action tests, the conclusion is the same: The
TSSAA’s enforcement of its recruiting rule against Brent-
wood Academy is not state action. In applying these tests,
providing standards, rules and regulations for interscholastic competition
in the public schools of Tennessee.’ ” Ante, at 292. However, there is no
evidence in the record that suggests that the State of Tennessee or the
State Board of Education had any involvement or interest in the TSSAA
prior to 1972.
3 The Rule provides: “The State Board of Education recognizes the value
of participation in interscholastic athletics and the role of the Tennessee
Secondary School Athletic Association in coordinating interscholastic ath-
letic competition. The State Board of Education authorizes the public
schools of the state to voluntarily maintain membership in the Tennessee
Secondary School Athletic Association.” Tenn. Comp. Rules & Regs.
§ 0520–1–2–.08(1) (2000).
4 The majority relies on the fact that the TSSAA permits members of
the State Board of Education to serve ex officio on its board of control to
support its “top-down” theory of state action. But these members are
not voting members of the TSSAA’s board of control and thus cannot exert
any control over its actions.

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courts of course must place the burden of persuasion on the
plaintiff, not the defendant, because state action is an ele-
ment of a § 1983 claim. American Mfrs., 526 U. S., at 49–50;
West v. Atkins, 487 U. S. 42, 48 (1988).
The TSSAA has not performed a function that has been
“traditionally exclusively reserved to the State.” Jackson
v. Metropolitan Edison Co., 419 U. S. 345, 352 (1974). The
organization of interscholastic sports is neither a traditional
nor an exclusive public function of the States. Widespread
organization and administration of interscholastic contests
by schools did not begin until the 20th century. See M. Lee,
A History of Physical Education and Sports in the U. S. A.
73 (1983) (explaining that what little interscholastic athletics
there was in the 19th century “came almost entirely in the
closing decade of the century and was largely pupil inspired,
pupil controlled, and pupil coached”); id., at 68, 146 (stating
that no control of high school sports occurred until 1896,
when a group of teachers in Wisconsin set up a committee to
control such contests, and pointing out that “[i]t was several
years before the idea caught on in other states”). Certainly,
in Tennessee, the State did not even show an interest in in-
terscholastic athletics until 47 years after the TSSAA had
been in existence and had been orchestrating athletic con-
tests throughout the State. Even then, the State Board of
Education merely acquiesced in the TSSAA’s actions and did
not assume the role of regulating interscholastic athletics.
Cf. Blum, 457 U. S., at 1004–1005 (“Mere approval of or ac-
quiescence in the initiatives of a private party is not suffi-
cient to justify holding the State responsible for those ini-
tiatives . . .”); see also Flagg Bros., Inc. v. Brooks, 436 U. S.
149, 164–165 (1978). The TSSAA no doubt serves the pub-
lic, particularly the public schools, but the mere provision
of a service to the public does not render such provision
a traditional and exclusive public function. See Rendell-
Baker v. Kohn, 457 U. S. 830, 842 (1982).

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It is also obvious that the TSSAA is not an entity created
and controlled by the government for the purpose of fulfilling
a government objective, as was Amtrak in Lebron v. Na-
tional Railroad Passenger Corporation, 513 U. S. 374, 394
(1995). See also Pennsylvania v. Board of Directors of
City Trusts of Philadelphia, 353 U. S. 230 (1957) (per cu-
riam) (holding that a state agency created under state law
was a state actor). Indeed, no one claims that the State of
Tennessee played any role in the creation of the TSSAA as
a private corporation in 1925. The TSSAA was designed to
fulfill an objective—the organization of interscholastic ath-
letic tournaments—that the government had not contem-
plated, much less pursued. And although the board of con-
trol currently is composed of public school officials, and
although public schools currently account for the majority
of the TSSAA’s membership, this is not required by the
TSSAA’s constitution.
In addition, the State of Tennessee has not “exercised co-
ercive power or . . . provided such significant encouragement
[to the TSSAA], either overt or covert,” Blum, 457 U. S., at
1004, that the TSSAA’s regulatory activities must in law be
deemed to be those of the State. The State has not promul-
gated any regulations of interscholastic sports, and nothing
in the record suggests that the State has encouraged or co-
erced the TSSAA in enforcing its recruiting rule. To be
sure, public schools do provide a small portion of the
TSSAA’s funding through their membership dues, but no one
argues that these dues are somehow conditioned on the
TSSAA’s enactment and enforcement of recruiting rules.5
5 The majority emphasizes that public schools joining the TSSAA “give
up sources of their own income to their collective association” by allowing
the TSSAA “to charge for admission to their games.” Ante, at 299.
However, this would be equally true whenever a State contracted with a
private entity: The State presumably could provide the same service for
profit, if it so chose. In Rendell-Baker v. Kohn, 457 U. S. 830 (1982), for
example, the State could have created its own school for students with
special needs and charged for admission. Or in Blum v. Yaretsky, 457

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Likewise, even if the TSSAA were dependent on state fund-
ing to the extent of 90%, as was the case in Blum, instead of
less than 4%, mere financial dependence on the State does
not convert the TSSAA’s actions into acts of the State. See
Blum, supra, at 1011; Rendell-Baker, supra, at 840; see also
Moose Lodge No. 107 v. Irvis, 407 U. S. 163, 173 (1972) (“The
Court has never held, of course, that discrimination by an
otherwise private entity would be violative of the Equal Pro-
tection Clause if the private entity receives any sort of bene-
fit or service at all from the State . . .”). Furthermore, there
is no evidence of “joint participation,” Lugar, 457 U. S., at
941–942, between the State and the TSSAA in the TSSAA’s
enforcement of its recruiting rule. The TSSAA’s board of
control enforces its recruiting rule solely in accordance with
the authority granted to it under the contract that each
member signs.
Finally, there is no “symbiotic relationship” between the
State and the TSSAA. Moose Lodge, supra, at 175; cf. Bur-
ton v. Wilmington Parking Authority, 365 U. S. 715 (1961).
Contrary to the majority’s assertion, see ante, at 299–300,
the TSSAA’s “fiscal relationship with the State is not dif-
ferent from that of many contractors performing services
for the government.” Rendell-Baker, supra, at 843. The
TSSAA provides a service—the organization of athletic tour-
naments—in exchange for membership dues and gate fees,
just as a vendor could contract with public schools to sell
refreshments at school events. Certainly the public school
could sell its own refreshments, yet the existence of that op-
tion does not transform the service performed by the con-
tractor into a state action. Also, there is no suggestion in
this case that, as was the case in Burton, the State profits
from the TSSAA’s decision to enforce its recruiting rule.
U. S. 991 (1982), the State could have created its own nursing homes and
charged individuals to stay there. The ability of a State to make money
by performing a service it has chosen to buy from a private entity is hardly
an indication that the service provider is a state actor.

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Because I do not believe that the TSSAA’s action of en-
forcing its recruiting rule is fairly attributable to the State
of Tennessee, I would affirm.
II
Although the TSSAA’s enforcement activities cannot be
considered state action as a matter of common sense or under
any of this Court’s existing theories of state action, the ma-
jority presents a new theory. Under this theory, the major-
ity holds that the combination of factors it identifies evi-
dences “entwinement” of the State with the TSSAA, and
that such entwinement converts private action into state ac-
tion. Ante, at 296–297. The majority does not define “en-
twinement,” and the meaning of the term is not altogether
clear. But whatever this new “entwinement” theory may
entail, it lacks any support in our state-action jurisprudence.
Although the majority asserts that there are three examples
of entwinement analysis in our cases, there is no case in
which we have rested a finding of state action on entwine-
ment alone.
Two of the cases on which the majority relies do not
even use the word “entwinement.” See Lebron v. National
Railroad Passenger Corporation, supra; Pennsylvania v.
Board of Directors of City Trusts of Philadelphia, supra.
Lebron concerned the status of Amtrak, a corporation that
Congress created and placed under Government control
for the specific purpose of achieving a governmental objec-
tive (namely, to avert the threatened extinction of pas-
senger train service in the United States). 513 U. S., at
383, 386. Without discussing any notion of entwinement,
we simply held that, when “the Government creates a
corporation by special law, for the furtherance of gov-
ernmental objectives, and retains for itself permanent
authority to appoint a majority of the directors of that cor-
poration, the corporation is part of the Government for pur-
poses of the First Amendment.” Id., at 400. Similarly, in

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City Trusts, we did not consider entwinement when we ad-
dressed the question whether an agency established by state
law was a state actor. See 353 U. S., at 231. In that case,
the Pennsylvania Legislature passed a law creating a board
of directors to operate a racially segregated school for or-
phans. Ibid. Without mentioning “entwinement,” we held
that, because the board was a state agency, its actions were
attributable to the State. Ibid.
The majority’s third example, Evans v. Newton, 382 U. S.
296 (1966), lends no more support to an “entwinement” the-
ory than do Lebron and City Trusts. Although Evans at
least uses the word “entwined,” 382 U. S., at 299 (“Conduct
that is formally ‘private’ may become so entwined with gov-
ernmental policies or so impregnated with a governmental
character as to become subject to the constitutional limita-
tions placed upon state action”), we did not discuss entwine-
ment as a distinct concept, let alone one sufficient to trans-
form a private entity into a state actor when traditional
theories of state action do not. On the contrary, our analysis
rested on the recognition that the subject of the dispute, a
park, served a “public function,” much like a fire department
or a police department. Id., at 302. A park, we noted, is a
“public facility” that “serves the community.” Id., at 301–
302. Even if the city severed all ties to the park and placed
its operation in private hands, the park still would be “mu-
nicipal in nature,” analogous to other public facilities that
have given rise to a finding of state action: the streets of a
company town in Marsh v. Alabama, 326 U. S. 501 (1946),
the elective process in Terry v. Adams, 345 U. S. 461 (1953),
and the transit system in Public Util. Comm’n of D. C. v.
Pollak, 343 U. S. 451 (1952). 382 U. S., at 301–302. Be-
cause the park served public functions, the private trustees
operating the park were considered to be state actors.6
6 We have used the word “entwined” in another case, Gilmore v. Mont-
gomery, 417 U. S. 556, 565 (1974), which the majority does not cite. In
Gilmore, we held that a city could not grant exclusive use of public facili-

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These cases, therefore, cannot support the majority’s “en-
twinement” theory. Only Evans speaks of entwinement at
all, and it does not do so in the same broad sense as does the
majority.7 Moreover, these cases do not suggest that the
TSSAA’s activities can be considered state action, whether
the label for the state-action theory is “entwinement” or any-
thing else.
* * *
Because the majority never defines “entwinement,” the
scope of its holding is unclear. If we are fortunate, the ma-
jority’s fact-specific analysis will have little bearing beyond
this case. But if the majority’s new entwinement test devel-
ops in future years, it could affect many organizations that
foster activities, enforce rules, and sponsor extracurricular
competition among high schools—not just in athletics, but
in such diverse areas as agriculture, mathematics, music,
marching bands, forensics, and cheerleading. Indeed, this
entwinement test may extend to other organizations that are
composed of, or controlled by, public officials or public enti-
ties, such as firefighters, policemen, teachers, cities, or coun-
ties to racially segregated groups. Id., at 566. The city, we determined,
was “engaged in an elaborate subterfuge” to circumvent a court order
desegregating the city’s recreational facilities. Id., at 567. The grant of
exclusive authority was little different from a formal agreement to run a
segregated recreational program. Ibid. Thus, although we quoted the
“entwined” language from Evans v. Newton, 382 U. S. 296 (1966), we were
not using the term in the same loose sense the majority uses it today.
And there is certainly no suggestion that the TSSAA has structured its
recruiting rule specifically to evade review of an activity that previously
was deemed to be unconstitutional state action.
7 The majority’s reference to National Collegiate Athletic Assn. v. Tar-
kanian, 488 U. S. 179 (1988), as foreshadowing this case, ante, at 297–298,
also does not support its conclusion. Indeed, the reference to Tarkanian
is ironic because it is not difficult to imagine that application of the majori-
ty’s entwinement test could change the result reached in that case, so that
the National Collegiate Athletic Association’s actions could be found to be
state action given its large number of public institution members that
virtually control the organization.

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315 Cite as: 531 U. S. 288 (2001)
Thomas, J., dissenting
ties. I am not prepared to say that any private organization
that permits public entities and public officials to participate
acts as the State in anything or everything it does, and our
state-action jurisprudence has never reached that far. The
state-action doctrine was developed to reach only those ac-
tions that are truly attributable to the State, not to subject
private citizens to the control of federal courts hearing
§ 1983 actions.
I respectfully dissent.