Cite as: 531 U. S. 356 (2001)
Breyer, J., dissenting
Act (Leg. Hist.) (Committee Print compiled for the House Committee on Education and Labor), Ser. No. 102-B, p. 1620 (1990) (testimony of Arlene B. Mayerson) (describing "unjustifiable and discriminatory loss of job opportunities"); id., at 1623 (citing study showing " 'strong evidence that employers' fears of low performance among disabled workers are unjustified' "). Moreover, it found that such discrimination typically reflects "stereotypic assumptions" or "purposeful unequal treatment." 42 U. S. C. § 12101(7). See also 2 Leg. Hist. 1622 (testimony of Arlene B. Mayerson) ("Outmoded stereotypes whether manifested in medical or other job 'requirements' that are unrelated to the successful performance of the job, or in decisions based on the generalized perceptions of supervisors and hiring personnel, have excluded many disabled people from jobs for which they are qualified"). In making these findings, Congress followed our decision in Cleburne, which established that not only discrimination against persons with disabilities that rests upon "'a bare . . . desire to harm a politically unpopular group,' " 473 U. S., at 447 (quoting Department of Agriculture v. Mo-reno, 413 U. S. 528, 534 (1973) (omission in Cleburne)), violates the Fourteenth Amendment, but also discrimination that rests solely upon "negative attitude[s]," "fea[r]," 473 U. S., at 448, or "irrational prejudice," id., at 450. Adverse treatment that rests upon such motives is unjustified discrimination in Cleburne's terms.
The evidence in the legislative record bears out Congress' finding that the adverse treatment of persons with disabilities was often arbitrary or invidious in this sense, and thus unjustified. For example, one study that was before Congress revealed that "most . . . governmental agencies in [one State] discriminated in hiring against job applicants for an average period of five years after treatment for cancer," based in part on coworkers' misguided belief that "cancer is contagious." 2 Leg. Hist. 1619-1620 (testimony of Arlene B. Mayerson). A school inexplicably refused to exempt a deaf teacher, who taught at a school for the deaf, from a
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