732
Opinion of the Court
not animated by a discriminatory purpose.6 Because the standard applied by the District Court did not make these inquiries, we hold that the Court of Appeals erred in affirming the District Court's ruling that the State had brought itself into compliance with the Equal Protection Clause in the operation of its higher education system.7
IV
Had the Court of Appeals applied the correct legal standard, it would have been apparent from the undisturbed fac-6 Of course, if challenged policies are not rooted in the prior dual system, the question becomes whether the fact of racial separation establishes a new violation of the Fourteenth Amendment under traditional principles. Board of Ed. of Oklahoma City Public Schools v. Dowell, 498 U. S. 237, 250-251 (1991); Arlington Heights v. Metropolitan Housing Development Corp., 429 U. S. 252 (1977).
7 The Court of Appeals also misanalyzed the Title VI claim. The court stated that "we are not prepared to say the defendants have failed to meet the duties outlined in the regulations." 914 F. 2d 676, 687-688, n. 11 (CA5 1990). The court added that it need not "discuss the scope of Mississippi's duty under the regulations" because "the duty outlined by the Supreme Court in Bazemore controls in Title VI cases." Ibid. It will be recalled, however, that the relevant agency and the courts had specifically found no violation of the regulation in Bazemore v. Friday, 478 U. S. 385, 409 (1986) (White, J., concurring). Insofar as it failed to perform the same factual inquiry and application as the courts in Bazemore had made, therefore, the Court of Appeals' reliance on Bazemore to avoid conducting a similar analysis in these cases was inappropriate.
Private petitioners reiterate in this Court their assertion that the state system also violates Title VI, citing a regulation to that statute which requires States to "take affirmative action to overcome the effects of prior discrimination." 34 CFR § 100.3(b)(6)(i) (1991). Our cases make clear, and the parties do not disagree, that the reach of Title VI's protection extends no further than the Fourteenth Amendment. See Regents of Univ. of California v. Bakke, 438 U. S. 265, 287 (1978) (opinion of Powell, J.); id., at 328 (opinion of Brennan, White, Marshall, and Blackmun, JJ., concurring in judgment in part and dissenting in part); see also Guardians Assn. v. Civil Service Comm'n of New York City, 463 U. S. 582, 610-611 (1983) (Powell, J., concurring in judgment); id., at 612-613 (O'Connor, J., concurring in judgment); id., at 639-643 (Stevens, J., dissenting). We thus treat the issues in these cases as they are implicated under the Constitution.
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