Harry Blackmun

“ Membership on the board of freeholders is a form of public service, even if the board only recommends a proposal to the electorate and does not enact laws directly. Thus, the Equal Protection Clause protects appellants' right to be considered for appointment to the board without the burden of "invidiously discriminatory disqualifications." The rationale of the Missouri Supreme Court's contrary decision would render the Equal Protection Clause inapplicable even to a requirement that all members of the board be white males. ”

“ The Court in Turner also squarely rejected appellees' second argument by recognizing that persons can be attached to their community without owning real property. "However reasonable the assumption that those who own realty do possess such an attachment, [the State] may not rationally presume that that quality is necessarily wanting in all citizens of the county whose estates are less than freehold." Id., at 364, 90 S.Ct., at 542. Thus, Turner plainly forecloses Missouri's reliance on this justification for a land-ownership requirement. ”

“ Brief for Appellees 41 (footnote omitted) . Second, they assert that a real-property owner "has a tangible stake in the long term future of his area." Ibid. These two arguments, however, were precisely the ones that this Court rejected in Turner itself.
As to the first, the Court explained that an ability to understand the issues concerning one's community does not depend on ownership of eal property. "It cannot be seriously urged that a citizen in all other respects qualified to sit on a school board must also own real property if he is to participate responsibly in educational decisions." ”