Court Opinion

ID: 9526993
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 03:26:33.383061+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:25:21.776966
License: Public Domain

Justice Ginsburg,
with whom Justice Breyer joins,
concurring.
I join the per curiam opinion recognizing, as the Court did in Nordlinger v. Hahn, 505 U. S. 1 (1992), that for the mine run of economic regulations that do not trigger heightened scrutiny, it is appropriate to inquire whether the lawmaker’s classification
“rationally furthers a legitimate state interest. In general, the Equal Protection Clause is satisfied so long as there is a plausible policy reason for the classification, see United States Railroad Retirement Bd. v. Fritz, 449 U. S. 166, 174, 179 (1980), the legislative facts on which the classification is apparently based rationally may have been considered to be true by the governmental decisionmaker, see Minnesota v. Clover Leaf Creamery Co., 449 U. S. 456, 464 (1981), and the relationship of the classification to its goal is not so attenuated as to render the distinction arbitrary or irrational, see Cleburne v. Cleburne Living Center, Inc., 473 U. S. [432, 446 (1985)].” Id., at 11.
I also recognize that a summary disposition is not a fit occasion for elaborate discussion of our rational-basis standards of review. See Hohn v. United States, 524 U. S. 236, 251 (1998) (opinions rendered without full briefing or argument have muted precedential value). Justice Stevens emphasizes that this case is of dominant importance to the state universities in Ohio, see post, at 131 (dissenting opinion); in that light, the Ohio Supreme Court is of course at liberty to resolve the matter under the Ohio Constitution.