Cite as: 511 U. S. 127 (1994)
Opinion of the Court
trial.6 In making this assessment, we do not weigh the value of peremptory challenges as an institution against our asserted commitment to eradicate invidious discrimination from the courtroom.7 Instead, we consider whether peremptory challenges based on gender stereotypes provide substantial aid to a litigant's effort to secure a fair and impartial jury.8
Far from proffering an exceptionally persuasive justification for its gender-based peremptory challenges, respondent maintains that its decision to strike virtually all the males from the jury in this case "may reasonably have been based upon the perception, supported by history, that men otherwise totally qualified to serve upon a jury in any case might
6 Because we conclude that gender-based peremptory challenges are not substantially related to an important government objective, we once again need not decide whether classifications based on gender are inherently suspect. See Mississippi Univ. for Women, 458 U. S., at 724, n. 9; Stanton v. Stanton, 421 U. S. 7, 13 (1975); Harris v. Forklift Systems, Inc., 510 U. S. 17, 26, n. (1993) (Ginsburg, J., concurring) ("[I]t remains an open question whether 'classifications based on gender are inherently suspect' ") (citations omitted).
7 Although peremptory challenges are valuable tools in jury trials, they "are not constitutionally protected fundamental rights; rather they are but one state-created means to the constitutional end of an impartial jury and a fair trial." Georgia v. McCollum, 505 U. S. 42, 57 (1992).
8 Respondent argues that we should recognize a special state interest in this case: the State's interest in establishing the paternity of a child born out of wedlock. Respondent contends that this interest justifies the use of gender-based peremptory challenges, since illegitimate children are themselves victims of historical discrimination and entitled to heightened scrutiny under the Equal Protection Clause.
What respondent fails to recognize is that the only legitimate interest it could possibly have in the exercise of its peremptory challenges is securing a fair and impartial jury. See Edmonson v. Leesville Concrete Co., 500 U. S. 614, 620 (1991) ("[The] sole purpose [of the peremptory challenge] is to permit litigants to assist the government in the selection of an impartial trier of fact"). This interest does not change with the parties or the causes. The State's interest in every trial is to see that the proceedings are carried out in a fair, impartial, and nondiscriminatory manner.
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