United States v. Virginia, 518 U.S. 515, 41 (1996)

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Cite as: 518 U. S. 515 (1996)

Opinion of the Court

isfactory. The court reached that result by revising the applicable standard of review. The Fourth Circuit displaced the standard developed in our precedent, see supra, at 532- 534, and substituted a standard of its own invention.

We have earlier described the deferential review in which the Court of Appeals engaged, see supra, at 528-529, a brand of review inconsistent with the more exacting standard our precedent requires, see supra, at 532-534. Quoting in part from Mississippi Univ. for Women, the Court of Appeals candidly described its own analysis as one capable of checking a legislative purpose ranked as "pernicious," but generally according "deference to [the] legislative will." 44 F. 3d, at 1235, 1236. Recognizing that it had extracted from our decisions a test yielding "little or no scrutiny of the effect of a classification directed at [single-gender education]," the Court of Appeals devised another test, a "substantive comparability" inquiry, id., at 1237, and proceeded to find that new test satisfied, id., at 1241.

The Fourth Circuit plainly erred in exposing Virginia's VWIL plan to a deferential analysis, for "all gender-based classifications today" warrant "heightened scrutiny." See J. E. B., 511 U. S., at 136. Valuable as VWIL may prove for students who seek the program offered, Virginia's remedy affords no cure at all for the opportunities and advantages withheld from women who want a VMI education and can make the grade. See supra, at 549-554.20 In sum, Virginia's

20 Virginia's prime concern, it appears, is that "plac[ing] men and women into the adversative relationship inherent in the VMI program . . . would destroy, at least for that period of the adversative training, any sense of decency that still permeates the relationship between the sexes." 44 F. 3d, at 1239; see supra, at 540-546. It is an ancient and familiar fear. Compare In re Lavinia Goodell, 39 Wis. 232, 246 (1875) (denying female applicant's motion for admission to the bar of its court, Wisconsin Supreme Court explained: "Discussions are habitually necessary in courts of justice, which are unfit for female ears. The habitual presence of women at these would tend to relax the public sense of decency and propriety."), with Levine, Closing Comments, 6 Law & Inequality 41 (1988) (presentation at

555

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