Cite as: 531 U. S. 356 (2001)
Breyer, J., dissenting
v. Doe, 519 U. S. 425, 430, n. 6 (1997) (quoting Moor v. County of Alameda, 411 U. S. 693, 719-721 (1973)).
In any event, there is no need to rest solely upon evidence of discrimination by local governments or general societal discrimination. There are roughly 300 examples of discrimination by state governments themselves in the legislative record. See, e. g., Appendix C, infra. I fail to see how this evidence "fall[s] far short of even suggesting the pattern of unconstitutional discrimination on which § 5 legislation must be based." Ante, at 370.
The congressionally appointed task force collected numerous specific examples, provided by persons with disabilities themselves, of adverse, disparate treatment by state officials. They reveal, not what the Court describes as "half a dozen" instances of discrimination, ante, at 369, but hundreds of instances of adverse treatment at the hands of state officials— instances in which a person with a disability found it impossible to obtain a state job, to retain state employment, to use the public transportation that was readily available to others in order to get to work, or to obtain a public education, which is often a prerequisite to obtaining employment. State-imposed barriers also frequently made it difficult or impossible for people to vote, to enter a public building, to access important government services, such as calling for emergency assistance, and to find a place to live due to a pattern of irrational zoning decisions similar to the discrimination that we held unconstitutional in Cleburne, 473 U. S., at 448. See Appendix C, infra.
As the Court notes, those who presented instances of discrimination rarely provided additional, independent evidence sufficient to prove in court that, in each instance, the discrimination they suffered lacked justification from a judicial standpoint. Ante, at 370 (stating that instances of discrimination are "described out of context"). Perhaps this explains the Court's view that there is "minimal evidence of unconstitutional state discrimination." Ibid. But a leg-
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