20
Per Curiam
on this particular individual's rejection," and that there was "uncontested evidence that the students ultimately admitted to the program ha[d] credentials that the committee considered superior to Plaintiff's." Id., at A-26 to A-27. It therefore granted summary judgment for petitioners with respect to all of Lesage's claims for relief.
The Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit reversed. 158 F. 3d 213 (1998). The court did not review the District Court's conclusion that there was no genuine issue as to whether the school would have rejected Lesage under a colorblind admissions process. Instead, it held that such a determination was "irrelevant to the pertinent issue on summary judgment, namely, whether the state violated Lesage's constitutional rights by rejecting his application in the course of operating a racially discriminatory admissions program." Id., at 222. An applicant who was rejected at a stage of the review process that was race conscious, the court reasoned, has "suffered an implied injury"— the inability to compete on an equal footing. Ibid. Because there remained a factual dispute as to whether the stage of review during which Lesage's application was eliminated was in some way race conscious, the court held that summary judgment was inappropriate and remanded the case for trial. Ibid.
Insofar as the Court of Appeals held that summary judgment was inappropriate on Lesage's § 1983 action seeking damages for the school's rejection of his application for the 1996-1997 academic year even if petitioners conclusively established that Lesage would have been rejected under a race-neutral policy, its decision is inconsistent with this Court's well-established framework for analyzing such claims. Under Mt. Healthy City Bd. of Ed. v. Doyle, 429 U. S. 274 (1977), even if the government has considered an impermissible criterion in making a decision adverse to the plaintiff, it can nonetheless defeat liability by demonstrating that it would have made the same decision ab-
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