Cite as: 515 U. S. 200 (1995)
Stevens, J., dissenting
quite wrong for the Court to suggest today that overruling Metro Broadcasting merely restores the status quo ante, for the law at the time of that decision was entirely open to the result the Court reached. Today's decision is an unjustified departure from settled law.
Second, Metro Broadcasting's holding rested on more than its application of "intermediate scrutiny." Indeed, I have always believed that, labels notwithstanding, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) program we upheld in that case would have satisfied any of our various standards in affirmative-action cases—including the one the majority fashions today. What truly distinguishes Metro Broadcasting from our other affirmative-action precedents is the distinctive goal of the federal program in that case. Instead of merely seeking to remedy past discrimination, the FCC program was intended to achieve future benefits in the form of broadcast diversity. Reliance on race as a legitimate means of achieving diversity was first endorsed by Justice Powell in Regents of Univ. of Cal. v. Bakke, 438 U. S. 265, 311-319 (1978). Later, in Wygant v. Jackson Bd. of Ed., 476 U. S. 267 (1986), I also argued that race is not always irrelevant to governmental decisionmaking, see id., at 314-315 (Stevens, J., dissenting); in response, Justice O'Connor correctly noted that, although the school board had relied on an interest in providing black teachers to serve as role models for black students, that interest "should not be confused with the very different goal of promoting racial diversity among the faculty." Id., at 288, n. She then added that, because the school board had not relied on an interest in diversity, it was not "necessary to discuss the magnitude of that interest or its applicability in this case." Ibid.
Thus, prior to Metro Broadcasting, the interest in diversity had been mentioned in a few opinions, but it is perfectly clear that the Court had not yet decided whether that interest had sufficient magnitude to justify a racial classification. Metro Broadcasting, of course, answered that question in the
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