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Opinion of the Court
sented, arguing that "[r]acial classifications are simply too pernicious to permit any but the most exact connection between justification and classification," id., at 537, and that the program before the Court could not be characterized "as a 'narrowly tailored' remedial measure." Id., at 541. Justice Marshall ( joined by Justices Brennan and Blackmun) concurred in the judgment, reiterating the view of four Justices in Bakke that any race-based governmental action designed to "remed[y] the present effects of past racial discrimination" should be upheld if it was "substantially related" to the achievement of an "important governmental objective"— i. e., such action should be subjected only to what we now call "intermediate scrutiny." 448 U. S., at 518-519.
In Wygant v. Jackson Bd. of Ed., 476 U. S. 267 (1986), the Court considered a Fourteenth Amendment challenge to another form of remedial racial classification. The issue in Wygant was whether a school board could adopt race-based preferences in determining which teachers to lay off. Justice Powell's plurality opinion observed that "the level of scrutiny does not change merely because the challenged classification operates against a group that historically has not been subject to governmental discrimination," id., at 273, and stated the two-part inquiry as "whether the layoff provision is supported by a compelling state purpose and whether the means chosen to accomplish that purpose are narrowly tailored." Id., at 274. In other words, "racial classifications of any sort must be subjected to 'strict scrutiny.' " Id., at 285 (O'Connor, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment). The plurality then concluded that the school board's interest in "providing minority role models for its minority students, as an attempt to alleviate the effects of societal discrimination," id., at 274, was not a compelling interest that could justify the use of a racial classification. It added that "[s]ocietal discrimination, without more, is too amorphous a basis for imposing a racially classified remedy," id., at 276, and insisted instead that "a public employer . . . must
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