Cite as: 538 U. S. 188 (2003)
Opinion of the Court
ing the equal protection question, the Sixth Circuit erred in relying on cases in which we have subjected enacted, discretionary measures to equal protection scrutiny and treated decisionmakers' statements as evidence of such intent. See 263 F. 3d, at 634-635 (citing Cleburne v. Cleburne Living Center, Inc., 473 U. S. 432, 448 (1985); Arlington Heights v. Metropolitan Housing Development Corp., supra, at 268; and Hunter v. Erickson, 393 U. S. 385, 392 (1969)). Because respondents claim injury from the referendum petitioning process and not from the referendum itself—which never went into effect—these cases are inapposite. Ultimately, neither of the official acts respondents challenge reflects the intent required to support equal protection liability.
First, in submitting the referendum petition to the voters, the City acted pursuant to the requirements of its charter, which sets out a facially neutral petitioning procedure. See Art. 9, § 2. By placing the referendum on the ballot, the City did not enact the referendum and therefore cannot be said to have given effect to voters' allegedly discriminatory motives for supporting the petition. Similarly, the city engineer, in refusing to issue the building permits while the referendum was still pending, performed a nondiscretionary, ministerial act. He acted in response to the city law director's instruction that the building permits "could not . . . issue" because the charter prohibited a challenged site-plan ordinance from going into effect until "approved by a majority of those voting thereon," App. 16. See 263 F. 3d, at 633. Respondents point to no evidence suggesting that these official acts were themselves motivated by racial animus. Respondents do not, for example, offer evidence that the City followed the obligations set forth in its charter because of the referendum's discriminatory purpose, or that city officials would have selectively refused to follow standard charter procedures in a different case.
Instead, to establish discriminatory intent, respondents and the Sixth Circuit both rely heavily on evidence of alleg-
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