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Opinion of the Court
within the power of government to pursue, is invalid under the Equal Protection Clause simply because it may affect a greater proportion of one race than of another," id., at 242. "This must be all the more true," respondents urge, "with respect to an allegedly disparate impact on a class [here, the poor] that, unlike race, is not suspect." Brief for Respondents 31.
Washington v. Davis, however, does not have the sweeping effect respondents attribute to it. That case involved a verbal skill test administered to prospective Government employees. "[A] far greater proportion of blacks—four times as many—failed the test than did whites." 426 U. S., at 237. But the successful test takers included members of both races, as did the unsuccessful examinees. Disproportionate impact, standing alone, the Court held, was insufficient to prove unconstitutional racial discrimination. Were it otherwise, a host of laws would be called into question, "a whole range of tax, welfare, public service, regulatory, and licensing statutes that may be more burdensome to the poor and to the average black than to the more affluent white." Id., at 248.
To comprehend the difference between the case at hand and cases controlled by Washington v. Davis,15 one need look no further than this Court's opinion in Williams v. Illinois, 399 U. S. 235 (1970). Williams held unconstitutional an Illinois law under which an indigent offender could be continued in confinement beyond the maximum prison term specified by statute if his indigency prevented him from satisfying the monetary portion of the sentence. The Court described that law as " 'nondiscriminatory on its face,' " and recalled that the law found incompatible with the Constitution in Griffin had been so characterized. 399 U. S., at 242 (quoting Griffin, 351 U. S., at 17, n. 11); see Griffin, 351 U. S., at 17, n. 11
15 See Personnel Administrator of Mass. v. Feeney, 442 U. S. 256 (1979); Arlington Heights v. Metropolitan Housing Development Corp., 429 U. S. 252 (1977).
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