Cite as: 512 U. S. 997 (1994)
Opinion of Kennedy, J.
do not purport to assess its constitutional implications. See Chisom v. Roemer, 501 U. S. 380, 418 (1991) (Kennedy, J., dissenting). Operating under the constraints of a statutory regime in which proportionality has some relevance, States might consider it lawful and proper to act with the explicit goal of creating a proportional number of majority-minority districts in an effort to avoid § 2 litigation. Likewise, a court finding a § 2 violation might believe that the only appropriate remedy is to order the offending State to engage in race-based redistricting and create a minimum number of districts in which minorities constitute a voting majority. The Department of Justice might require (in effect) the same as a condition of granting preclearance, under § 5 of the Act, 42 U. S. C. § 1973c, to a State's proposed legislative redistricting. Those governmental actions, in my view, tend to entrench the very practices and stereotypes the Equal Protection Clause is set against. See Metro Broadcasting, Inc. v. FCC, supra, at 636-637 (Kennedy, J., dissenting). As a general matter, the sorting of persons with an intent to divide by reason of race raises the most serious constitutional questions.
"The moral imperative of racial neutrality is the driving force of the Equal Protection Clause." Richmond v. J. A. Croson Co., 488 U. S. 469, 518 (1989) (Kennedy, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment). Racial classifications "are by their very nature odious to a free people whose institutions are founded upon the doctrine of equality," and are presumed invalid. Shaw v. Reno, 509 U. S. 630, 643 (1993) (internal quotation marks omitted); see also A. Bickel, The Morality of Consent 133 (1975). This is true regardless of "the race of those burdened or benefited by a particular classification." Croson, supra, at 494 (opinion of O'Connor, J.); 488 U. S., at 520 (Scalia, J., concurring in judgment). Furthermore, "[i]t is axiomatic that racial classifications do not become legitimate on the assumption that all persons
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