Court rules that snowboarders have no right to PUBLIC land.

[jberryhill]

9. No, it's not analogous to an interstate

Although you can't drive whatever you want on an interstate highway either.

Here's the deal. Yes, it's federal land. Yes, we grant people exclusive rights to run businesses on federal land - food concessions, hotels, all kinds of stuff - which can be run like any other business. I can't sleep on the couch in the lobby of the hotel in Death Valley either.

The claim here is brought on 14th Amendment grounds. The resort can't discriminate against anyone on the grounds of religion, origin, gender and so on. Being a "snowboarder" is not some immutable aspect of personhood. Snowboarding is an activity, not an identity.

This case hasn't gotten anywhere near whether what the resort operators are doing is "fair" in some cosmic sense. The question at the preliminary stage this case is in doesn't have anything to do with that. The question at this stage is "taken as alleged, is this a violation of the 14th Amendment equal protection provisions". None of the stuff you say has anything to do with the legal question at this stage of the case, and they don't have to "prove" a safety issue at this point in the litigation anyway. In other words, the argument here is "even if they can't prove a 'safety issue', is this a cognizable 14th Amendment claim?" Whether or not the can prove such a thing is not even relevant to the motion to dismiss. In a motion to dismiss, you take all disputed facts in favor of the moving party and say, "Okay, but so what?"

I completely agree with you that the resort operators are being assholes, but so what? They pay for the right to run a ski resort just like any other ski resort. As you point out, there are still private resorts which don't allow snowboarders, so what do you have to say about the right the resort operators are paying for to run a ski resort just like anyone else runs one? Maybe they have figured there are still skiers who like to ski without snowboarders around, and that's a chunk of their target market and value proposition in paying for the franchise in the first place.

But if you want a lift ride to the top you have to buy a ticket. I get that, totally. Alta doesn't say that.

They don't have to say that. That's true at a lot of places that are run on various state lands as well. And, yeah, I've seen telemark skiers - if you want to talk about oddball stuff on slopes - walking uphill since that's part of their particular "thing".