Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/22pdf/20-1199_hgdj.pdf
Page Number: 23.0

Cite as:  600 U. S. ____ (2023) 

15 

Opinion of the Court 

Eliminating racial discrimination means eliminating all
of it.  And the Equal Protection Clause, we have accordingly
held, applies “without regard to any differences of race, of 
color, or of nationality”—it is “universal in [its] application.” 
Yick  Wo, 118 U. S., at 369.  For “[t]he guarantee of equal 
protection cannot mean one thing when applied to one indi-
vidual and something else when applied to a person of an-
other  color.”  Regents  of  Univ.  of  Cal.  v.  Bakke,  438  U. S. 
265, 289–290 (1978) (opinion of Powell, J.).  “If both are not 
accorded the same protection, then it is not equal.”  Id., at 
290. 

Any exception to the Constitution’s demand for equal pro-
tection  must  survive  a  daunting  two-step  examination
known in our cases as “strict scrutiny.”  Adarand Construc-
tors,  Inc.  v.  Peña,  515  U. S.  200,  227  (1995).    Under  that 
standard we ask, first, whether the racial classification is 
used to “further compelling governmental interests.”  Grut-
ter v. Bollinger, 539 U. S. 306, 326 (2003).  Second, if so, we 
ask whether the government’s use of race is “narrowly tai-
lored”—meaning  “necessary”—to  achieve  that  interest. 
Fisher v. University of Tex. at Austin, 570 U. S. 297, 311– 
312 (2013) (Fisher I ) (internal quotation marks omitted). 

Outside the circumstances of these cases, our precedents
have  identified  only  two  compelling  interests  that  permit
resort to race-based government action.  One is remediating
specific, identified instances of past discrimination that vi-
olated the Constitution or a statute.  See, e.g., Parents In-
volved in Community Schools v. Seattle School Dist. No. 1, 
551  U. S.  701,  720  (2007);  Shaw  v.  Hunt,  517  U. S.  899, 
909–910 (1996); post, at 19–20, 30–31 (opinion of THOMAS, 
J.).  The second is avoiding imminent and serious risks to
human safety in prisons, such as a race riot.  See Johnson 
v. California, 543 U. S. 499, 512–513 (2005).3 

—————— 

3 The first time we determined that a governmental racial classifica-
tion  satisfied  “the  most  rigid  scrutiny”  was  10  years  before  Brown  v.