754
Opinion of Scalia, J.
or sound educational value, which (presumably) is not much different from the "important and legitimate ends" excuse available under Green, see Dayton Bd. of Ed. v. Brinkman, 443 U. S. 526, 538 (1979).
II
Application of the standard (or standards) announced today has no justification in precedent, and in fact runs contrary to a case decided six years ago, see Bazemore v. Friday, 478 U. S. 385 (1986). The Court relies primarily upon citations of Green and other primary and secondary school cases. But those decisions left open the question whether Green merits application in the distinct context of higher education. Beyond that, the Court relies on Brown I, Florida ex rel. Hawkins v. Board of Control of Fla., 350 U. S. 413 (1956) (per curiam), and Gilmore v. City of Montgomery, 417 U. S. 556 (1974). That reliance also is mistaken.
The constitutional evil of the "separate but equal" regime that we confronted in Brown I was that blacks were told to go to one set of schools, whites to another. See Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U. S. 537 (1896). What made this "evenhanded" racial partitioning offensive to equal protection was its implicit stigmatization of minority students: "To separate [black students] from others of similar age and qualifications solely because of their race generates a feeling of inferiority as to their status in the community that may affect their hearts and minds in a way unlikely ever to be undone." Brown I, 347 U. S., at 494. In the context of higher education, a context in which students decide whether to attend school and if so where, the only unconstitutional derivations of that bygone system are those that limit access on discriminatory bases; for only they have the potential to generate the harm Brown I condemned, and only they have the potential to deny students equal access to the best public education a State has to offer. Legacies of the dual system that permit (or even incidentally facilitate) free choice of racially
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