B. PROPOSALS FOR STATE LAW
The primary change that is necessary in state law is for the ten states that do not provide clear coverage for retail stores as places of public accommodation to clarify their statutes or to draft new statutes. Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, North Carolina, and Texas need to adopt statutes that prohibit racial discrimination in public accommodations, and to include retail stores within that statute. Florida should expand its public accommodation statute in line with the necessary expansion of Title II. While those states may be hesitant to regulate the behavior of private entities, the only real burden that public accommodation statutes impose upon stores is that they treat all of their customers in the same way. There are no additional requirements apart from not being discriminatory towards minority shoppers. Just as stores must provide accessible entrances and facilities for handicapped individuals, they should be required under state law to treat minority shoppers the same as white shoppers.
The states that have unclear statutes, either as a result of internally contradictory statutory construction or the lack of a statutory definition of ““places of public accommodation,” should amend their statutes to clarify that retail stores are covered. Until these states clarify their statutes, black shoppers who experience racial discrimination in retail stores must sit in limbo, without legal remedy. Particularly in the case of Missouri and Nebraska, where the statutory confusion is a direct result of poorly drafted legislation that copied the Title II list without analyzing how it would interact with their broad definition, these states have a duty to their citizens to at least make it clear where they are or are not protected.
