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Opinion of the Court
city's determination that 30% of its contracting work should go to minority-owned businesses. A majority of the Court in Croson held that "the standard of review under the Equal Protection Clause is not dependent on the race of those burdened or benefited by a particular classification," and that the single standard of review for racial classifications should be "strict scrutiny." Id., at 493-494 (opinion of O'Connor, J., joined by Rehnquist, C. J., and White and Kennedy, JJ.); id., at 520 (Scalia, J., concurring in judgment) ("I agree . . . with Justice O'Connor's conclusion that strict scrutiny must be applied to all governmental classification by race"). As to the classification before the Court, the plurality agreed that "a state or local subdivision . . . has the authority to eradicate the effects of private discrimination within its own legislative jurisdiction," id., at 491-492, but the Court thought that the city had not acted with "a 'strong basis in evidence for its conclusion that remedial action was necessary,' " id., at 500 (majority opinion) (quoting Wygant, supra, at 277 (plurality opinion)). The Court also thought it "obvious that [the] program is not narrowly tailored to remedy the effects of prior discrimination." 488 U. S., at 508.
With Croson, the Court finally agreed that the Fourteenth Amendment requires strict scrutiny of all race-based action by state and local governments. But Croson of course had no occasion to declare what standard of review the Fifth Amendment requires for such action taken by the Federal Government. Croson observed simply that the Court's "treatment of an exercise of congressional power in Fulli-love cannot be dispositive here," because Croson's facts did not implicate Congress' broad power under § 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment. Id., at 491 (plurality opinion); see also id., at 522 (Scalia, J., concurring in judgment) ("[W]ithout revisiting what we held in Fullilove . . . , I do not believe our decision in that case controls the one before us here"). On the other hand, the Court subsequently indicated that Croson had at least some bearing on federal race-based ac-
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