Cite as: 532 U. S. 275 (2001)
Opinion of the Court
Justices, concurring) (regulation interpreting Title VI to require "affirmative action" remedying effects of intentional discrimination); Alexander v. Choate, 469 U. S., at 299, 309 (regulations clarifying what sorts of disparate impacts upon the handicapped were covered by § 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, which the Court assumed included some such impacts). Our decision in Lau v. Nichols, 414 U. S. 563 (1974), falls within the same category. The Title VI regulations at issue in Lau, similar to the ones at issue here, forbade funding recipients to take actions which had the effect of discriminating on the basis of race, color, or national origin. Id., at 568. Unlike our later cases, however, the Court in Lau interpreted § 601 itself to proscribe disparate-impact discrimination, saying that it "rel[ied] solely on § 601 . . . to reverse the Court of Appeals," id., at 566, and that the disparate-impact regulations simply "[made] sure that recipients of federal aid . . . conduct[ed] any federally financed projects consistently with § 601," id., at 567.5
We must face now the question avoided by Lau, because we have since rejected Lau's interpretation of § 601 as reaching beyond intentional discrimination. See supra, at 280- 281. It is clear now that the disparate-impact regulations do not simply apply § 601—since they indeed forbid conduct that § 601 permits—and therefore clear that the private right of action to enforce § 601 does not include a private right to enforce these regulations. See Central Bank of Denver,
5 It is true, as the dissent points out, see post, at 296, that three Justices who concurred in the result in Lau relied on regulations promulgated under § 602 to support their position, see 414 U. S., at 570-571 (Stewart, J., concurring in result). But the five Justices who made up the majority did not, and their holding is not made coextensive with the concurrence because their opinion does not expressly preclude (is "consistent with," see post, at 296) the concurrence's approach. The Court would be in an odd predicament if a concurring minority of the Justices could force the majority to address a point they found it unnecessary (and did not wish) to address, under compulsion of Justice Stevens's new principle that silence implies agreement.
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