Clarence Thomas is right about Big Tech

The second set of doctrines mentioned by Justice Thomas governs places of public accommodation. In such places, the owner’s duties do not descend from sovereign privileges and immunities but rather arise out of her own actions. The civil rights of her customers are shaped in the first instance according to a technical, legal artifact known by the common law as a license. A license is a privilege that the owner confers on others with certain limitations. As common-law jurists have explained for centuries, when an owner invites the public to enter her premises for business purposes, the license that she confers upon the public is shaped according to the reasons for her business. The license may not be terminated for motivations contrary to natural law, such as racial animus. Positive enactments declare additional prohibited grounds, such as ethnicity and religious conviction. But within certain boundaries, owners of public accommodation are generally free to set the terms of the public’s license and to exclude or refuse service for what Blackstone called “good reason.” This is not an historical anachronism. It remains the law. A business owner can alter the scope of the public’s license by offering different categories of goods or services, or abolish it by operating as a private club. But the common law applies.