ABSTRACT
One of the most intensely awaited decisions of the United States Supreme Court in recent years was announced on 24 May 1983: Bob Jones University v. United States. The case was controversial when it posed the question of whether private schools engaging in racial discrimination for religious reasons could be denied tax exemption. When the Reagan administration on 8 January 1982 sought to void the case as moot by restoring tax exemption to all private schools that had lost it because of discrimination, it became a cause celèbre overnight, and the controversy escalated several decibel levels.
