Cite as: 506 U. S. 263 (1993)
Opinion of Souter, J.
agreed on exactly what the phrase did mean, and certainly it is true that the conceptual development of equal protection could hardly have been outlined in advance by the Members of the 42d Congress. But equally is it true that we have no reason to suppose that they meant their statutory equal protection provision to be read any more narrowly than its obvious cognate in the Amendment. Griffin, however, gave it just such a reading.
To be sure, there is some resonance between Griffin's animus requirement and those constitutional equal protection cases that deal with classifications calling for strict or heightened scrutiny, as when official discriminations employ such characteristics as race, national origin, alienage, gender, or illegitimacy. See Cleburne v. Cleburne Living Center, Inc., 473 U. S. 432, 440-441 (1985) (describing the jurisprudence).4 But these categories of distinctions based on race or on qualities bearing a more or less close analogy to race do not by any means exhaust the scope of constitutional equal protection. All legislative classifications, whether or not they can be described as having "some racial or perhaps otherwise class-based invidiously discriminatory animus," are subject to review under the Equal Protection Clause, which contains no reference to race, and which has been understood to have this comprehensive scope since at least the late 19th century. See, e. g., Magoun v. Illinois Trust & Savings Bank, 170 U. S. 283, 293-294 (1898) (citing cases). A routine legislative classification is, of course, subject only to deferential scrutiny, passing constitutional muster if it bears a rational relationship to some legitimate governmental purpose. E. g., Cleburne v. Cleburne Living Center, Inc., supra (describing the test); Schweiker v. Wilson, 450 U. S. 221, 230 (1981).
4 Cf. Carpenters v. Scott, 463 U. S. 825, 835-839 (1983) (holding that animus against a class based upon its economic views, status, or activities is beyond the reach of the deprivation clause, and reserving the question whether it reaches animus against any class other than "Negroes and those who championed their cause").
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