Cite as: 515 U. S. 200 (1995)
Opinion of the Court
wholly neutral in forbidding such racial discrimination, whatever the race may be of those who are its victims." Id., at 524. Justice Stewart gave no indication that he thought he was addressing a "novel" proposition, post, at 259. Rather, he relied on the fact that the text of the Fourteenth Amendment extends its guarantee to "persons," and on cases like Buckley, Loving, McLaughlin, Bolling, Hirabayashi, and Korematsu, see Fullilove, supra, at 524-526, as do we today. There is nothing new about the notion that Congress, like the States, may treat people differently because of their race only for compelling reasons.
"The real problem," Justice Frankfurter explained, "is whether a principle shall prevail over its later misapplications." Helvering, 309 U. S., at 122. Metro Broadcasting's untenable distinction between state and federal racial classifications lacks support in our precedent, and undermines the fundamental principle of equal protection as a personal right. In this case, as between that principle and "its later misapplications," the principle must prevail.
D
Our action today makes explicit what Justice Powell thought implicit in the Fullilove lead opinion: Federal racial classifications, like those of a State, must serve a compelling governmental interest, and must be narrowly tailored to further that interest. See Fullilove, 448 U. S., at 496 (concurring opinion). (Recall that the lead opinion in Fullilove "d[id] not adopt . . . the formulas of analysis articulated in such cases as [Bakke]." Id., at 492 (opinion of Burger, C. J.).) Of course, it follows that to the extent (if any) that Fullilove held federal racial classifications to be subject to a less rigorous standard, it is no longer controlling. But we need not decide today whether the program upheld in Fulli-love would survive strict scrutiny as our more recent cases have defined it.
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