666
Opinion of the Court
Singly and collectively, these cases stand for the following proposition: When the government erects a barrier that makes it more difficult for members of one group to obtain a benefit than it is for members of another group, a member of the former group seeking to challenge the barrier need not allege that he would have obtained the benefit but for the barrier in order to establish standing. The "injury in fact" in an equal protection case of this variety is the denial of equal treatment resulting from the imposition of the barrier, not the ultimate inability to obtain the benefit. See, e. g., Turner v. Fouche, supra, at 362 ("We may assume that the [plaintiffs] have no right to be appointed to the . . . board of education. But [they] do have a federal constitutional right to be considered for public service without the burden of invidiously discriminatory disqualifications") (footnote omitted) (emphasis added). And in the context of a challenge to a set-aside program, the "injury in fact" is the inability to compete on an equal footing in the bidding process, not the loss of a contract. See Croson, 488 U. S., at 493 (principal opinion of O'Connor, J.) ("The [set-aside program] denies certain citizens the opportunity to compete for a fixed percentage of public contracts based solely upon their race") (emphasis added). To establish standing, therefore, a party challenging a set-aside program like Jacksonville's need only demonstrate that it is able and ready to bid on contracts and that a discriminatory policy prevents it from doing so on an equal basis.5
B
In urging affirmance, respondents rely primarily upon Warth v. Seldin, 422 U. S. 490 (1975). There the plaintiffs claimed that a town's zoning ordinance, both by its terms and as enforced, violated the Fourteenth Amendment insofar as
5 It follows from our definition of "injury in fact" that petitioner has sufficiently alleged both that the city's ordinance is the "cause" of its injury and that a judicial decree directing the city to discontinue its program would "redress" the injury.
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