Cite as: 539 U. S. 306 (2003)
Rehnquist, C. J., dissenting
mental purpose"). I do not believe, however, that the University of Michigan Law School's (Law School) means are narrowly tailored to the interest it asserts. The Law School claims it must take the steps it does to achieve a " 'critical mass' " of underrepresented minority students. Brief for Respondent Bollinger et al. 13. But its actual program bears no relation to this asserted goal. Stripped of its "critical mass" veil, the Law School's program is revealed as a naked effort to achieve racial balancing.
As we have explained many times, " ' "[a]ny preference based on racial or ethnic criteria must necessarily receive a most searching examination." ' " Adarand Constructors, Inc. v. Peña, 515 U. S. 200, 223 (1995) (quoting Wygant v. Jackson Bd. of Ed., 476 U. S. 267, 273 (1986) (plurality opinion of Powell, J.)). Our cases establish that, in order to withstand this demanding inquiry, respondents must demonstrate that their methods of using race " 'fit' " a compelling state interest "with greater precision than any alternative means." Id., at 280, n. 6; Regents of Univ. of Cal. v. Bakke, 438 U. S. 265, 299 (1978) (opinion of Powell, J.) ("When [political judgments] touch upon an individual's race or ethnic background, he is entitled to a judicial determination that the burden he is asked to bear on that basis is precisely tailored to serve a compelling governmental interest").
Before the Court's decision today, we consistently applied the same strict scrutiny analysis regardless of the govern-ment's purported reason for using race and regardless of the setting in which race was being used. We rejected calls to use more lenient review in the face of claims that race was being used in "good faith" because " '[m]ore than good motives should be required when government seeks to allocate its resources by way of an explicit racial classification system.' " Adarand, supra, at 226; Fullilove, supra, at 537 (Stevens, J., dissenting) ("Racial classifications are simply too pernicious to permit any but the most exact connection between justification and classification"). We likewise re-
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