Opinion ID: 145702
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Legal Standard

Text: A longstanding and unbroken line of legal authority tells us that the Equal Protection Clause permits local school boards to use race-conscious criteria to achieve positive race-related goals, even when the Constitution does not compel it. Because of its importance, I shall repeat what this Court said about the matter in Swann. Chief Justice Burger, on behalf of a unanimous Court in a case of exceptional importance, wrote: School authorities are traditionally charged with broad power to formulate and implement educational policy and might well conclude, for example, that in order to prepare students to live in a pluralistic society each school should have a prescribed ratio of Negro to white students reflecting the proportion for the district as a whole. To do this as an educational policy is within the broad discretionary powers of school authorities. 402 U. S., at 16. The statement was not a technical holding in the case. But the Court set forth in Swann a basic principle of constitutional lawa principle of law that has found wide acceptance in the legal culture. Dickerson v. United States, 530 U. S. 428, 443 (2000) (internal quotation marks omitted); Mitchell v. United States, 526 U. S. 314, 330 (1999); id., at 331, 332 (SCALIA, J., dissenting) (citing `wide acceptance in the legal culture' as adequate reason not to overrule prior cases). Thus, in North Carolina Bd. of Ed. v. Swann, 402 U. S. 43, 45 (1971), this Court, citing Swann, restated the point. [S]chool authorities, the Court said, have wide discretion in formulating school policy, and . . . as a matter of educational policy school authorities may well conclude that some kind of racial balance in the schools is desirable quite apart from any constitutional requirements. ThenJ-ustice Rehnquist echoed this view in Bustop, Inc. v. Los Angeles Bd. of Ed., 439 U. S. 1380, 1383 (1978) (opinion in chambers), making clear that he too believed that Swann 's statement reflected settled law: While I have the gravest doubts that [a state supreme court] was required by the United States Constitution to take the [desegregation] action that it has taken in this case, I have very little doubt that it was permitted by that Constitution to take such action. (Emphasis in original.) These statements nowhere suggest that this freedom is limited to school districts where court-ordered desegregation measures are also in effect. Indeed, in McDaniel, a case decided the same day as Swann, a group of parents challenged a race-conscious student assignment plan that the Clarke County School Board had voluntarily adopted as a remedy without a court order (though under federal agency pressurepressure Seattle also encountered). The plan required that each elementary school in the district maintain 20% to 40% enrollment of African-American students, corresponding to the racial composition of the district. See Barresi v. Browne, 226 Ga. 456, 456-459, 175 S. E. 2d 649, 650-651 (1970). This Court upheld the plan, see McDaniel, 402 U. S., at 41, rejecting the parents' argument that a person may not be included or excluded solely because he is a Negro or because he is white. Brief for Respondents in McDaniel, O. T. 1970, No. 420, p. 25. Federal authorities had claimedas the NAACP and the OCR did in Seattlethat Clarke County schools were segregated in law, not just in fact. The plurality's claim that Seattle was never segregated by law is simply not accurate. Compare ante, at 29, with supra, at 6-9. The plurality could validly claim that no court ever found that Seattle schools were segregated in law. But that is also true of the Clarke County schools in McDaniel. Unless we believe that the Constitution enforces one legal standard for the South and another for the North, this Court should grant Seattle the permission it granted Clarke County, Georgia. See McDaniel, 402 U. S., at 41 ([S]teps will almost invariably require that students be assigned `differently because of their race.' . . . Any other approach would freeze the status quo that is the very target of all desegregation processes.). This Court has also held that school districts may be required by federal statute to undertake race-conscious desegregation efforts even when there is no likelihood that de jure segregation can be shown. In Board of Ed. of City School Dist. of New York v. Harris, 444 U. S. 130, 148-149 (1979), the Court concluded that a federal statute required school districts receiving certain federal funds to remedy faculty segregation, even though in this Court's view the racial disparities in the affected schools were purely de facto and would not have been actionable under the Equal Protection Clause. Not even the dissenters thought the race-conscious remedial program posed a constitutional problem. See id., at 152 (opinion of Stewart, J.). See also, e.g., Crawford v. Board of Ed. of Los Angeles, 458 U. S. 527, 535-536 (1982) ([S]tate courts of California continue to have an obligation under state law to order segregated school districts to use voluntary desegregation techniques, whether or not there has been a finding of intentional segregation. . . . [S]chool districts themselves retain a state-law obligation to take reasonably feasible steps to desegregate, and they remain free to adopt reassignment and busing plans to effectuate desegregation  (emphasis added)); School Comm. of Boston v. Board of Education, 389 U. S. 572 (1968) (per curiam) (dismissing for want of a federal question a challenge to a voluntary statewide integration plan using express racial criteria). Lower state and federal courts had considered the matter settled and uncontroversial even before this Court decided Swann. Indeed, in 1968, the Illinois Supreme Court rejected an equal protection challenge to a raceconscious state law seeking to undo de facto segregation: To support [their] claim, the defendants heavily rely on three Federal cases, each of which held, no State law being involved, that a local school board does not have an affirmative constitutional duty to act to alleviate racial imbalance in the schools that it did not cause. However, the question as to whether the constitution requires a local school board, or a State, to act to undo de facto school segregation is simply not here concerned. The issue here is whether the constitution permits, rather than prohibits, voluntary State action aimed toward reducing and eventually eliminating de facto school segregation. State laws or administrative policies, directed toward the reduction and eventual elimination of de facto segregation of children in the schools and racial imbalance, have been approved by every high State court which has considered the issue. Similarly, the Federal courts which have considered the issue . . . have recognized that voluntary programs of local school authorities designed to alleviate de facto segregation and racial imbalance in the schools are not constitutionally forbidden. Tometz v. Board of Ed., Waukegan School Dist. No. 6, 39 Ill. 2d 593, 597-598, 237 N. E. 2d 498, 501 (1968) (citations omitted) (citing decisions from the high courts of Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, New Jersey, California, New York, and Connecticut, and from the Courts of Appeals for the First, Second, Fourth, and Sixth Circuits). See also, e.g., Offerman v. Nitkowski, 378 F. 2d 22, 24 (CA2 1967); Deal v. Cincinnati Bd. of Ed., 369 F. 2d 55, 61 (CA6 1966), cert. denied, 389 U. S. 847 (1967); Springfield School Comm. v. Barksdale, 348 F. 2d 261, 266 (CA1 1965); Pennsylvania Human Relations Comm'n v. Chester School Dist., 427 Pa. 157, 164, 233 A. 2d 290, 294 (1967); Booker v. Board of Ed. of Plainfield, Union Cty., 45 N. J. 161, 170, 212 A. 2d 1, 5 (1965); Jackson v. Pasadena City School Dist., 59 Cal. 2d 876, 881-882, 382 P. 2d 878, 881-882 (1963) (in bank). I quote the Illinois Supreme Court at length to illustrate the prevailing legal assumption at the time Swann was decided. In this respect, Swann was not a sharp or unexpected departure from prior rulings; it reflected a consensus that had already emerged among state and lower federal courts. If there were doubts before Swann was decided, they did not survive this Court's decision. Numerous state and federal courts explicitly relied upon Swann 's guidance for decades to follow. For instance, a Texas appeals court in 1986 rejected a Fourteenth Amendment challenge to a voluntary integration plan by explaining: [T]he absence of a court order to desegregate does not mean that a school board cannot exceed minimum requirements in order to promote school integration. School authorities are traditionally given broad discretionary powers to formulate and implement educational policy and may properly decide to ensure to their students the value of an integrated school experience. Citizens for Better Ed. v. Goose Creek Consol. Independent School Dist., 719 S. W. 2d 350, 3523-53 (Ct. App. Tex. 1986) (citing Swann and North Carolina Bd. of Ed. ), appeal dism'd for want of a substantial federal question, 484 U. S. 804 (1987). Similarly, in Zaslawsky v. Bd. of Ed. of Los Angeles City Unified School Dist., 610 F. 2d 661, 662-664 (1979), the Ninth Circuit rejected a federal constitutional challenge to a school district's use of mandatory faculty transfers to ensure that each school's faculty makeup would fall within 10% of the districtwide racial composition. Like the Texas court, the Ninth Circuit relied upon Swann and North Carolina Bd. of Ed. to reject the argument that a race-conscious plan is permissible only when there has been a judicial finding of de jure segregation. 610 F. 2d, at 663-664. See also, e.g., Darville v. Dade County School Bd., 497 F. 2d 1002, 1004-1006 (CA5 1974); State ex rel. Citizens Against Mandatory Bussing v. Brooks, 80 Wash. 2d 121, 128-129, 492 P. 2d 536, 541-542 (1972) (en banc), overruled on other grounds, Cole v. Webster, 103 Wash. 2d 280, 692 P. 2d 799 (1984) (en banc); School Comm. of Springfield v. Board of Ed., 362 Mass. 417, 428-429 287 N. E. 2d 438, 447-448 (1972). These decisions illustrate well how lower courts understood and followed Swann 's enunciation of the relevant legal principle. Courts are not alone in accepting as constitutionally valid the legal principle that Swann enunciated- i.e., that the government may voluntarily adopt race-conscious measures to improve conditions of race even when it is not under a constitutional obligation to do so. That principle has been accepted by every branch of government and is rooted in the history of the Equal Protection Clause itself. Thus, Congress has enacted numerous race-conscious statutes that illustrate that principle or rely upon its validity. See, e.g., 20 U. S. C. §6311(b)(2)(C)(v) (No Child Left Behind Act); §1067 et seq. (authorizing aid to minority institutions). In fact, without being exhaustive, I have counted 51 federal statutes that use racial classifications. I have counted well over 100 state statutes that similarly employ racial classifications. Presidential administrations for the past half-century have used and supported various race-conscious measures. See, e.g., Exec. Order No. 10925, 26 Fed. Reg. 1977 (1961) (President Kennedy); Exec. Order No. 11246, 30 Fed. Reg. 12319 (1965) (President Johnson); Sugrue, Breaking Through: The Troubled Origins of Affirmative Action in the Workplace, in Colorlines: Affirmative Action, Immigration, and Civil Rights Options for America 31 (Skretny ed. 2001) (describing President Nixon's lobbying for affirmative action plans, e.g., the Philadelphia Plan); White, Affirmative Action's Alamo: Gerald Ford Returns to Fight Once More for Michigan, Time, Aug. 23, 1999, p. 48 (reporting on President Ford's support for affirmative action); Schuck, Affirmative Action: Past, Present, and Future, 20 Yale L. & Pol'y Rev. 1, 50 (2002) (describing President Carter's support for affirmation action). And during the same time, hundreds of local school districts have adopted student assignment plans that use race-conscious criteria. See Welch 83-91. That Swann 's legal statement should find such broad acceptance is not surprising. For Swann is predicated upon a well-established legal view of the Fourteenth Amendment. That view understands the basic objective of those who wrote the Equal Protection Clause as forbidding practices that lead to racial exclusion. The Amendment sought to bring into American society as full members those whom the Nation had previously held in slavery. See Slaughter-House Cases, 16 Wall. 36, 71 (1872) ([N]o one can fail to be impressed with the one pervading purpose found in [all the Reconstruction amendments] . . . we mean the freedom of the slave race); Strauder v. West Virginia, 100 U. S. 303, 306 (1879) ([The Fourteenth Amendment] is one of a series of constitutional provisions having a common purpose; namely, securing to a race recently emancipated . . . all the civil rights that the superior race enjoy). There is reason to believe that those who drafted an Amendment with this basic purpose in mind would have understood the legal and practical difference between the use of race-conscious criteria in defiance of that purpose, namely to keep the races apart, and the use of race-conscious criteria to further that purpose, namely to bring the races together. See generally R. Sears, A Utopian Experiment in Kentucky: Integration and Social Equality at Berea, 1866-1904 (1996) (describing federal funding, through the Freedman's Bureau, of race-conscious school integration programs). See also R. Fischer, The Segregation Struggle in Louisiana 1862-77, p. 51 (1974) (describing the use of race-conscious remedies); Harlan, Desegregation in New Orleans Public Schools During Reconstruction, 67 Am. Hist. Rev. 663, 664 (1962) (same); W. Vaughn, Schools for All: The Blacks and Public Education in the South, 1865-1877, pp. 111-116 (1974) (same). Although the Constitution almost always forbids the former, it is significantly more lenient in respect to the latter. See Gratz v. Bollinger, 539 U. S. 244, 301 (2003) (GINSBURG, J., dissenting); Adarand Constructors, Inc. v. Peña, 515 U. S. 200, 243 (1995) (STEVENS, J., dissenting). Sometimes Members of this Court have disagreed about the degree of leniency that the Clause affords to programs designed to include. See Wygant v. Jackson Board of Education, 476 U. S. 267, 274 (1986); Fullilove v. Klutznick, 448 U. S. 448, 507 (1980). But I can find no case in which this Court has followed JUSTICE THOMAS' colorblind approach. And I have found no case that otherwise repudiated this constitutional asymmetry between that which seeks to exclude and that which seeks to include members of minority races. What does the plurality say in response? First, it seeks to distinguish Swann and other similar cases on the ground that those cases involved remedial plans in response to judicial findings of de jure segregation. As McDaniel and Harris show, that is historically untrue. See supra, at 22-24. Many school districts in the South adopted segregation remedies (to which Swann clearly applies) without any such federal order , see supra, at 19-20. See also Kennedy Report. Seattle's circumstances are not meaningfully different from those in, say, McDaniel, where this Court approved race-conscious remedies. Louisville's plan was created and initially adopted when a compulsory district court order was in place. And, in any event, the histories of Seattle and Louisville make clear that this distinctionbetween court-ordered and voluntary desegregationseeks a line that sensibly cannot be drawn. Second, the plurality downplays the importance of Swann and related cases by frequently describing their relevant statements as dicta. These criticisms, however, miss the main point. Swann did not hide its understanding of the law in a corner of an obscure opinion or in a footnote, unread but by experts. It set forth its view prominently in an important opinion joined by all nine Justices, knowing that it would be read and followed throughout the Nation. The basic problem with the plurality's technical dicta-based response lies in its overly theoretical approach to case law, an approach that emphasizes rigid distinctions between holdings and dicta in a way that serves to mask the radical nature of today's decision. Law is not an exercise in mathematical logic. And statements of a legal rule set forth in a judicial opinion do not always divide neatly into holdings and dicta. (Consider the legal status of Justice Powell's separate opinion in Regents of Univ. of Cal. v. Bakke, 438 U. S. 265 (1978).) The constitutional principle enunciated in Swann, reiterated in subsequent cases, and relied upon over many years, provides, and has widely been thought to provide, authoritative legal guidance. And if the plurality now chooses to reject that principle, it cannot adequately justify its retreat simply by affixing the label dicta to reasoning with which it disagrees. Rather, it must explain to the courts and to the Nation why it would abandon guidance set forth many years before, guidance that countless others have built upon over time, and which the law has continuously embodied. Third, a more important response is the plurality's claim that later casesin particular Johnson, Adarand, and Grutter supplanted Swann. See ante, at 11-12, 31-32, n. 16, 34-35 (citing Adarand, supra, at 227; Johnson v. California, 543 U. S. 499, 505 (2005); Grutter v. Bollinger, 539 U. S. 306, 326 (2003)). The plurality says that cases such as Swann and the others I have described all were decided before this Court definitively determined that `all racial classifications . . . must be analyzed by a reviewing court under strict scrutiny.' Ante, at 31, n. 16 (quoting Adarand, 515 U. S., at 227). This Court in Adarand added that such classifications are constitutional only if they are narrowly tailored measures that further compelling governmental interests. Ibid. And the Court repeated this same statement in Grutter. See 539 U. S., at 326. Several of these cases were significantly more restrictive than Swann in respect to the degree of leniency the Fourteenth Amendment grants to programs designed to include people of all races. See, e.g., Adarand, supra ; Gratz, supra ; Grutter, supra . But that legal circumstance cannot make a critical difference here for two separate reasons. First, no casenot Adarand, Gratz, Grutter, or any otherhas ever held that the test of strict scrutiny means that all racial classificationsno matter whether they seek to include or excludemust in practice be treated the same. The Court did not say in Adarand or in Johnson or in Grutter that it was overturning Swann or its central constitutional principle. Indeed, in its more recent opinions, the Court recognized that the fundamental purpose of strict scrutiny review is to take relevant differences between fundamentally different situations . . . into account. Adarand, supra, at 228 (internal quotation marks omitted). The Court made clear that [s]trict scrutiny does not trea[t] dissimilar race-based decisions as though they were equally objectionable. Ibid. It added that the fact that a law treats [a person] unequally because of his or her race . . . says nothing about the ultimate validity of any particular law. Id., at 229-230 (internal quotation marks omitted). And the Court, using the very phrase that Justice Marshall had used to describe strict scrutiny's application to any exclusionary use of racial criteria, sought to  dispel the notion that strict scrutiny is as likely to condemn inclusive uses of race-conscious criteria as it is to invalidate exclusionary uses. That is, it is not in all circumstances `strict in theory, but fatal in fact.' Id., at 237 (quoting Fullilove v. Klutznick, 448 U. S., at 519 (Marshall, J., concurring in judgment)). The Court in Grutter elaborated: Strict scrutiny is not `strict in theory, but fatal in fact.' . . . Although all governmental uses of race are subject to strict scrutiny, not all are invalidated by it. . . . Context matters when reviewing race-based governmental action under the Equal Protection Clause. See Gomillion v. Lightfoot, 364 U. S. 339, 343-344 (1960) (admonishing that, `in dealing with claims under broad provisions of the Constitution, which derive content by an interpretive process of inclusion and exclusion, it is imperative that generalizations, based on and qualified by the concrete situations that gave rise to them, must not be applied out of context in disregard of variant controlling facts'). . . . Not every decision influenced by race is equally objectionable, and strict scrutiny is designed to provide a framework for carefully examining the importance and the sincerity of the reasons advanced by the governmental decisionmaker for the use of race in that particular context. 539 U. S., at 326-327. The Court's holding in Grutter demonstrates that the Court meant what it said, for the Court upheld an elite law school's race-conscious admissions program. The upshot is that the cases to which the plurality refers, though all applying strict scrutiny, do not treat exclusive and inclusive uses the same. Rather, they apply the strict scrutiny test in a manner that is fatal in fact only to racial classifications that harmfully exclude; they apply the test in a manner that is not fatal in fact to racial classifications that seek to include. The plurality cannot avoid this simple fact. See ante, at 34-36. Today's opinion reveals that the plurality would rewrite this Court's prior jurisprudence, at least in practical application, transforming the strict scrutiny test into a rule that is fatal in fact across the board. In doing so, the plurality parts company from this Court's prior cases, and it takes from local government the longstanding legal right to use race-conscious criteria for inclusive purposes in limited ways. Second, as Grutter specified, [c]ontext matters when reviewing race-based governmental action under the Equal Protection Clause. 539 U. S., at 327 (citing Gomillion v. Lightfoot, 364 U. S. 339, 343-344 (1960)). And contexts differ dramatically one from the other. Governmental use of race-based criteria can arise in the context of, for example, census forms, research expenditures for diseases, assignments of police officers patrolling predominantly minority-race neighborhoods, efforts to desegregate racially segregated schools, policies that favor minorities when distributing goods or services in short supply, actions that create majority-minority electoral districts, peremptory strikes that remove potential jurors on the basis of race, and others. Given the significant differences among these contexts, it would be surprising if the law required an identically strict legal test for evaluating the constitutionality of race-based criteria as to each of them. Here, the context is one in which school districts seek to advance or to maintain racial integration in primary and secondary schools. It is a context, as Swann makes clear, where history has required special administrative remedies. And it is a context in which the school boards' plans simply set race-conscious limits at the outer boundaries of a broad range. This context is not a context that involves the use of race to decide who will receive goods or services that are normally distributed on the basis of merit and which are in short supply. It is not one in which race-conscious limits stigmatize or exclude; the limits at issue do not pit the races against each other or otherwise significantly exacerbate racial tensions. They do not impose burdens unfairly upon members of one race alone but instead seek benefits for members of all races alike. The context here is one of racial limits that seek, not to keep the races apart, but to bring them together. The importance of these differences is clear once one compares the present circumstances with other cases where one or more of these negative features are present. See, e.g., Strauder v. West Virginia, 100 U. S. 303 (1880); Yick Wo v. Hopkins, 118 U. S. 356 (1886); Brown, 347 U. S. 483; Loving v. Virginia, 388 U. S. 1 (1967); Regents of Univ. of Cal. v. Bakke, 438 U. S. 265 (1978); Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U. S. 79 (1986); Richmond v. J. A. Croson Co., 488 U. S. 469 (1989); Shaw v. Reno, 509 U. S. 630 (1993); Adarand Constructors, Inc. v. Peña, 515 U. S. 200 (1995); Grutter, supra ; Gratz v. Bollinger, 539 U. S. 244 (2003); Johnson v. California, 543 U. S. 499 (2005). If one examines the context more specifically, one finds that the districts' plans reflect efforts to overcome a history of segregation, embody the results of broad experience and community consultation, seek to expand student choice while reducing the need for mandatory busing, and use race-conscious criteria in highly limited ways that diminish the use of race compared to preceding integration efforts. Compare Wessmann v. Gittens, 160 F. 3d 790, 809-810 (CA1 1998) (Boudin, J., concurring), with Comfort, 418 F. 3d, at 28-29 (Boudin, C. J., concurring). They do not seek to award a scarce commodity on the basis of merit, for they are not magnet schools; rather, by design and in practice, they offer substantially equivalent academic programs and electives. Although some parents or children prefer some schools over others, school popularity has varied significantly over the years. In 2000, for example, Roosevelt was the most popular first choice high school in Seattle; in 2001, Ballard was the most popular; in 2000, West Seattle was one of the least popular; by 2003, it was one of the more popular. See Research, Evaluation and Assessment, Student Information Services Office, District Summaries 1999-2005, available at http://www.seattleschools.org/area/siso/disprof/2005/DP05 all.pdf. In a word, the school plans under review do not involve the kind of race-based harm that has led this Court, in other contexts, to find the use of race-conscious criteria unconstitutional. These and related considerations convinced one Ninth Circuit judge in the Seattle case to apply a standard of constitutionality review that is less than strict, and to conclude that this Court's precedents do not require the contrary. See 426 F. 3d 1162, 1193-1194 (2005) (Kozinski, J., concurring) (That a student is denied the school of his choice may be disappointing, but it carries no racial stigma and says nothing at all about that individual's aptitude or ability). That judge is not alone. Cf. Gratz, supra, at 301 (GINSBURG, J., dissenting); Adarand, supra, at 243 (STEVENS, J., dissenting); Carter, When Victims Happen To Be Black, 97 Yale L. J. 420, 433-434 (1988). The view that a more lenient standard than strict scrutiny should apply in the present context would not imply abandonment of judicial efforts carefully to determine the need for race-conscious criteria and the criteria's tailoring in light of the need. And the present context requires a court to examine carefully the race-conscious program at issue. In doing so, a reviewing judge must be fully aware of the potential dangers and pitfalls that JUSTICE THOMAS and JUSTICE KENNEDY mention. See ante, at 11-12 (THOMAS, J., concurring); ante, at 3, 17 (opinion of KENNEDY, J.). But unlike the plurality, such a judge would also be aware that a legislature or school administrators, ultimately accountable to the electorate, could nonetheless properly conclude that a racial classification sometimes serves a purpose important enough to overcome the risks they mention, for example, helping to end racial isolation or to achieve a diverse student body in public schools. Cf. ante, at 17-18 (opinion of KENNEDY, J.). Where that is so, the judge would carefully examine the program's details to determine whether the use of race-conscious criteria is proportionate to the important ends it serves. In my view, this contextual approach to scrutiny is altogether fitting. I believe that the law requires application here of a standard of review that is not strict in the traditional sense of that word, although it does require the careful review I have just described. See Gratz, supra, at 301 (GINSBURG, J., joined by SOUTER, J., dissenting); Adarand, supra, at 242-249 (STEVENS, J., joined by GINSBURG, J., dissenting); 426 F. 3d, at 1193-1194 (Kozinski, J., concurring). Apparently JUSTICE KENNEDY also agrees that strict scrutiny would not apply in respect to certain race-conscious school board policies. See ante, at 9 (Executive and legislative branches, which for generations now have considered these types of policies and procedures, should be permitted to employ them with candor and with confidence that a constitutional violation does not occur whenever a decisionmaker considers the impact a given approach might have on students of different races). Nonetheless, in light of Grutter and other precedents, see, e.g., Bakke, 438 U. S., at 290 (opinion of Powell, J.), I shall adopt the first alternative. I shall apply the version of strict scrutiny that those cases embody. I shall consequently ask whether the school boards in Seattle and Louisville adopted these plans to serve a compelling governmental interest and, if so, whether the plans are narrowly tailored to achieve that interest. If the plans survive this strict review, they would survive less exacting review a fortiori. Hence, I conclude that the plans before us pass both parts of the strict scrutiny test. Consequently I must conclude that the plans here are permitted under the Constitution.