Cite as: 509 U. S. 630 (1993)
Souter, J., dissenting
gered at least heightened scrutiny (which every Member of the Court to address the issue has agreed must be applied even to race-based classifications designed to serve some permissible state interest).5 Presumably because the legitimate consideration of race in a districting decision is usually inevitable under the Voting Rights Act when communities are racially mixed, however, and because, without more, it does not result in diminished political effectiveness for anyone, we have not taken the approach of applying the usual standard of such heightened "scrutiny" to race-based districting decisions. To be sure, as the Court says, it would be logically possible to apply strict scrutiny to these cases (and to uphold those uses of race that are permissible), see ante, at 653-657. But just because there frequently will be a constitutionally permissible use of race in electoral districting, as exemplified by the consideration of race to comply with the Voting Rights Act (quite apart from the consideration of race to remedy a violation of the Act or the Consti-5 See Richmond v. J. A. Croson Co., 488 U. S. 469, 493-495 (1989) (plurality opinion of O'Connor, J., joined by Rehnquist, C. J., and White and Kennedy, JJ.) (referring variously to "strict scrutiny," "the standard of review employed in Wygant," and "heightened scrutiny"); id., at 520 (Scalia, J., concurring in judgment) ("strict scrutiny"); id., at 535 (Marshall, J., dissenting) (classifications " 'must serve important governmental objectives and must be substantially related to achievement of those objectives' " (quoting Regents of Univ. of Cal. v. Bakke, 438 U. S. 265, 359 (1978) (Brennan, White, Marshall, and Blackmun, JJ., concurring in judgment in part and dissenting in part)); 488 U. S., at 514-516 (Stevens, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment) (undertaking close examination of the characteristics of the advantaged and disadvantaged racial groups said to justify the disparate treatment although declining to articulate different standards of review); see also Wygant v. Jackson Bd. of Ed., 476 U. S. 267, 279-280 (1986) (plurality opinion of Powell, J.) (equating various articulations of standards of review "more stringent" than " 'reasonableness' " with "strict scrutiny"). Of course the Court has not held that the disadvantaging effect of these uses of race can never be justified by a sufficiently close relationship to a sufficiently strong state interest. See, e. g., Croson, supra, at 509 (plurality opinion).
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