Muhammad Ali v. State Athletic Commission
United States District Court for the Southern District of New York
316 F.Supp. 1246 (1970)
The New York State Athletic Commission (defendant) suspended Muhammad Ali's (plaintiff) boxing license in 1967 after his refusal to be inducted into the Army, and later refused to renew his automatically expired license, citing his resulting federal conviction. Ali showed the Commission had, on at least 244 prior occasions, granted or renewed licenses to applicants convicted of felonies, misdemeanors, or military offenses involving moral turpitude — including roughly 94 instances involving convictions for murder, burglary, armed robbery, extortion, grand larceny, and rape — yet it refused Ali a license for his own military-related conviction. Ali sued under section 1983 alleging constitutional violations, and after most of his claims were dismissed except an equal-protection theory, he sought a preliminary injunction requiring the Commission to grant him a license.
Whether a state agency, acting as an extension of the state itself, must have some rational basis for granting or refusing licenses to engage in a regulated activity such as boxing.