Perhaps a more apt analogy would be companies cannot violate Federal Trade Laws (easily) without facing serious repercussions.
While it may be unconstitutional to refuse service because of Race, it does happen. Perhaps not overtly. Speaking from my own experience as a "person of color", it's difficult to prove something happened because of my race.
And there are still plenty of examples of people's constitutional rights being violated--such as when Starbucks called the police on two black men, who were then arrested, despite not committing any crimes.
> While it may be unconstitutional to refuse service because of Race
Sadly, it actually is constitutional to refuse service based on race (or any other reason)—it's literally part of the 1st Amendment (aka Freedom of Association).
You are presumably referring to the Civil Rights Act of 1964 which bans certain forms of exclusionary behavior and sort of "soft-repeals" that aspect of the 1st Amendment. Like anything else passed by Congress, it can be undone at any time. Unlikely, but in theory it could happen.
It's actually astounding (and a little scary) how much of modern American culture and laws are built on top of legislation passed in the 1960s. That legislation and subsequent enhancements almost functions as a parallel legal system today to the one enacted by the original constitution (and the Anglo-Saxon legal tradition more generally).
That said…I don't see a reversal coming any time soon and expect the Anglo-Saxon tradition (such as it is) to fade into the dustbin of history while the CRA and friends become more and more the law of the land over time.
In a very real sense "the law is whatever is enforced", and it's extremely clear that even things like Freedom of Speech are going to be re-assessed in the name of tolerance in the very near future. Europe already has much stricter rules on speech, and I expect the US to follow suit.
(I also expect the 2nd Amendment to be effectively repealed in the next 20-30 years as the baby boomers die off and no one still alive cares about owning a gun—but does care about not getting shot. I can easily imagine using the CRA as the legal vehicle to do so, something like a "right not to be shot" or whatever.)
I was thinking of the Equal Protection and Race in the constitution, aka the 14th amendment, but you are right. It was the Federal Civil Rights Act that actually made it a crime to discriminate.
While it may be unconstitutional to refuse service because of Race, it does happen. Perhaps not overtly. Speaking from my own experience as a "person of color", it's difficult to prove something happened because of my race.
And there are still plenty of examples of people's constitutional rights being violated--such as when Starbucks called the police on two black men, who were then arrested, despite not committing any crimes.