Cite as: 533 U. S. 53 (2001)
O'Connor, J., dissenting
Feenstra, 450 U. S. 455, 461 (1981)); see also United States v. Virginia, 518 U. S. 515, 531 (1996). The defender of the classification meets this burden "only by showing at least that the classification serves 'important governmental objectives and that the discriminatory means employed' are 'substantially related to the achievement of those objectives.' " Mississippi Univ. for Women, supra, at 724 (quoting Wengler v. Druggists Mut. Ins. Co., 446 U. S. 142, 150 (1980)); see also Virginia, 518 U. S., at 533.
Our cases provide significant guidance concerning the meaning of this standard and how a reviewing court is to apply it. This Court's instruction concerning the application of heightened scrutiny to sex-based classifications stands in stark contrast to our elucidation of the rudiments of rational basis review. To begin with, under heightened scrutiny, "[t]he burden of justification is demanding and it rests entirely on [the party defending the classification]." Ibid. Under rational basis scrutiny, by contrast, the defender of the classification "has no obligation to produce evidence to sustain the rationality of a statutory classification." Heller v. Doe, 509 U. S. 312, 320 (1993). Instead, "[t]he burden is on the one attacking the legislative arrangement to negative every conceivable basis which might support it, whether or not the basis has a foundation in the record." Id., at 320- 321 (internal quotation marks and citation omitted).
Further, a justification that sustains a sex-based classification "must be genuine, not hypothesized or invented post hoc in response to litigation." Virginia, supra, at 533. "[T]he mere recitation of a benign, compensatory purpose is not an automatic shield which protects against any inquiry into the actual purposes underlying a statutory scheme." Weinberger v. Wiesenfeld, 420 U. S. 636, 648 (1975). Under rational basis review, by contrast, it is " 'constitutionally irrelevant [what] reasoning in fact underlay the legislative decision.' " Railroad Retirement Bd. v. Fritz, 449 U. S. 166,
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