Cite as: 532 U. S. 275 (2001)
Opinion of the Court
tection Clause or the Fifth Amendment." Id., at 287 (opinion of Powell, J.); see also id., at 325, 328, 352 (opinion of Brennan, White, Marshall, and Blackmun, JJ.). In Guardians Assn. v. Civil Serv. Comm'n of New York City, 463 U. S. 582 (1983), the Court made clear that under Bakke only intentional discrimination was forbidden by § 601. 463 U. S., at 610-611 (Powell, J., joined by Burger, C. J., and Rehnquist, J., concurring in judgment); id., at 612 (O'Connor, J., concurring in judgment); id., at 642 (Stevens, J., joined by Brennan and Blackmun, JJ., dissenting). What we said in Alexander v. Choate, 469 U. S. 287, 293 (1985), is true today: "Title VI itself directly reach[es] only instances of intentional discrimination." 1
Third, we must assume for purposes of deciding this case that regulations promulgated under § 602 of Title VI may validly proscribe activities that have a disparate impact on racial groups, even though such activities are permissible under § 601. Though no opinion of this Court has held that, five Justices in Guardians voiced that view of the law at
1 Since the parties do not dispute this point, it is puzzling to see Justice Stevens go out of his way to disparage the decisions in Regents of Univ. of Cal. v. Bakke, 438 U. S. 265 (1978), and Guardians Assn. v. Civil Serv. Comm'n of New York City, 463 U. S. 582 (1983), as "somewhat haphazard," post, at 307 (dissenting opinion), particularly since he had already accorded stare decisis effect to the former 18 years ago, see Guardians, 463 U. S., at 639-642 (dissenting opinion), and since he participated in creating the latter, see ibid. Nor does Justice Stevens's reliance on Chevron U. S. A. Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., 467 U. S. 837 (1984), see post, at 309-310, explain his about-face, since he expressly reaffirms, see post, at 309, n. 18, the settled principle that decisions of this Court declaring the meaning of statutes prior to Chevron need not be reconsidered after Chevron in light of agency regulations that were already in force when our decisions were issued, Lechmere, Inc. v. NLRB, 502 U. S. 527, 536-537 (1992); Maislin Industries, U. S., Inc. v. Primary Steel, Inc., 497 U. S. 116, 131 (1990); see also Sullivan v. Everhart, 494 U. S. 83, 103-104, n. 6 (1990) (Stevens, J., dissenting) ("It is, of course, of no importance that [an opinion] predates Chevron . . . . As we made clear in Chevron, the interpretive maxims summarized therein were 'well-settled principles' ").
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