Cite as: 509 U. S. 312 (1993)
Opinion of the Court
heightened scrutiny. Brief for Respondents 23-32. This claim is not properly presented. Respondents argued before the District Court and the Court of Appeals only that Kentucky's statutory scheme was subject to rational-basis review, and the courts below ruled on that ground. Indeed, respondents have conceded that they pressed their heightened scrutiny argument for the first time in their merits brief in this Court. Id., at 23 ("[R]espondents did not argue this particular issue below . . ."). Even if respondents were correct that heightened scrutiny applies, it would be inappropriate for us to apply that standard here. Both parties have been litigating this case for years on the theory of rational-basis review, which, as noted below, see infra, at 320, does not require the State to place any evidence in the record, let alone the extensive evidentiary showing that would be required for these statutes to survive heightened scrutiny. It would be imprudent and unfair to inject a new standard at this stage in the litigation. See Tennessee v. Dunlap, 426 U. S. 312, 316, n. 3 (1976); Ernst & Ernst v. Hochfelder, 425 U. S. 185, 215 (1976). We therefore decide this case as it has been presented to the courts whose judgments are being reviewed.
III
We many times have said, and but weeks ago repeated, that rational-basis review in equal protection analysis "is not a license for courts to judge the wisdom, fairness, or logic of legislative choices." FCC v. Beach Communications, Inc., 508 U. S. 307, 313 (1993). See also, e. g., Dandridge v. Williams, 397 U. S. 471, 486 (1970). Nor does it authorize "the judiciary [to] sit as a superlegislature to judge the wisdom or desirability of legislative policy determinations made in areas that neither affect fundamental rights nor proceed along suspect lines." New Orleans v. Dukes, 427 U. S. 297, 303 (1976) (per curiam). For these reasons, a classification neither involving fundamental rights nor proceeding along suspect lines is accorded a strong presumption of validity.
319
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