Me. Justice Beewee

delivered the opinion of the court.

On February 19, 1903, the legislature of. the State of Oregon passed an act (Session Laws, 1903, p. 14$), the first section of which is in these words ;■

“Sec. 1. That no female (shall) be employed in any me- . chanical establishment, 6r factory,, or laundry in this State more than ten hours, during any one' day. The hours of work. may be so arranged as to permit, the employment of females *417at any time so that they shall not work more than ten hours during the twenty-four hours of any oné day.”

Section 3 made a violation of the provisions of the prior sections a misdemeanor, subject to a fine of not less than $10 nor more than $25. On September 18, 1905, an information was filed in the Circuit Court of the State for the county of Multnomah, charging that the defendant “on the 4th day of September, A. D. 1905, in the county of' Multnomah and State of Oregon, then and there being the-owner of a laundry, known as the Grand Laundry, in the city of Portland, and the employer of females therein, did then and there unlawfully permit and suffer one Joe Haselbock, he, the said Joe Haselbock, then and there being an overseer, superintendent and agent of said Curt Muller, in the said Grand Laundry, to require a female, to wit, one Mrs. E. Gotcher,. to work more than ten hours iix said laundry on said 4th day of September, A. D. 1905, contrary to' the statutes in such cases made and provided, and against the péace and dignity of the State of Oregon.”

■ A trial resulted in a verdict against the defendant, who was sentenced to pay a fine of $10. The Supreme Court of /he State affirmed the- conviction, State v. Muller, 48 Oregon, 252, whereupon the case was brought here on writ of error.

The single question is the constitutionality of the statute under which the defendant was convicted so far as it affects the work of a female in a laundry. That it does not conflict with any provisions of the state constitution is settled by the decision of the Supreme Court of the State. The contentions of the defendant, now plaintiff in error, are thus stated in his brief:

“(1) Because the statute attempts to prevent persons, sui juris, from making their own contracts, and thus violates the provisions of the Fourteenth Amendment, as follows:

" 'No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United. States; nor shall any .State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law;.nor deny to any person within, its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.’

*418“ (2) Because the statute does not apply equally to all persons similarly situated, and is class legislation.

“ (3) The statute is not a valid exercise of the police power. The kinds of work proscribed are not unlawful, nor are they declared to be immoral or dangerous to the public health; nor can such a law be sustained on the ground that it is designed to protect women on account of their sex. There is no necessary or reasonable connection between the limitation prescribed by the act and the public health, safety or welfare.”

It is the law of Oregon that women, whether married- or single, have. equal contractual and personal rights with men. As said by Chief Justice Wolverton, in First National Bank v. Leonard, 36 Oregon, 390, 396, after a review of the various statutes of the State upon the subject:

“We may therefore say with perfect confidence that, with these- three sections, upon the statute book, the wife can deal, not only with her separate property, acquired from whatever source, in the same manner as her husband can with property belonging to him, but that she may make contracts and incur liabilities, and the same may be enforced against her, the same as if she were a femme sole. There is now no residuum of civil disability resting upon her which is not recognized as existing against the. husband. The current runs steadily and strongly in the direction of the emancipation of the wife, and the policy, as disclosed by all recent legislation upon the subject in this State, is to place her upon the same footing as if she were a femme sote, not only with respect to her separate property, but as it affects her right to make binding contracts; and the most natural corollary to the situation is that the remedies for the enforcement of. liabilities incurred are made co-extensive and co-equal with such enlarged conditions.”

It thus appears that, putting to one side the elective franchise, in the matter of personal and contractual rights they, stand on the same plane as the other sex. Their rights in these respects can no more be infringed than the equal rights of their brothers. We held in Lochner v. New York, 198 U. S. 45, that *419a law.providing that no laborer shall be required or permitted to work in a bakery more than sixty hours in a week or ten hours in a day was not as to men a legitimate exercise of the police power of the, State, but an unreasonable, unnecessary and arbitrary interference with the right and liberty of the individual to contract in relation to his labor, and as such was in conflict with, and void under, the Federal Constitution. That decision is invoked by plaintiff in error as decisive of the question before us.- But this assumes that the difference between the sexes does not justify' a different rule respecting a restriction of the hours of labor.

In patent cases counsel are apt to open the argument with a discussion of the state of the art. It may not be amiss, in the present case, before examining the constitutional question, to notice the course of legislation as well as expressions of opinion from other than judicial sources. In the brief filed by Mr. Louis D. Brandéis, for the defendant in error, is a very copious collection of all these matters, an epitome of which is found in the margin.1

*420While there have been but few decisions bearing directly upon the question, the following sustain the constitutionality of such legislation: Commonwealth v. Hamilton Mfg. Co., 120 Massachusetts, 383; Wenham v. State, 65 Nebraska, 394, 400, 406; State v. Buchanan, 29 Washington, 602; Commonwealth v. Beatty, 15 Pa. Sup. Ct. 5, 17; against them is the case of Ritchie v. People, 155 Illinois, 98.

The legislation and opinions referred to in the margin may not be, technically speaking, authorities, and in them is little or no discussion of the constitutional question presented to us for determination, yet they are significant of a widespread belief that woman’s physical structure, and the functions she performs in consequence thereof, justify special legislation restricting or qualifying the conditions, under which she should be permitted to toil. Constitutional questions, it is true, are not settled by even a consensus of present public opinion, for it is the peculiar value of a written constitution that it places in-unchanging form- limitations upon legislative action, and thus gives a permanence and stability to popular government which otherwise would be lacking. At the same time, when a question Of fact is debated-and debatable, and the extent to *421which a special constitutional limitation goes is affected by the truth in respect to that fact, a widespread and long continued belief concerning it is- worthy of consideration. We take judicial cognizance of all matters of general knowledge.

It is undoubtedly true, as more than once declared by this court, that the general right to contract in relation to one's business is part of the liberty of the individual, protected by the Fourteenth Amendment to the Federal Constitution; yet it is equally well settled that this liberty is not absolute and extending to all contracts, and that a State may, without conflicting with the provisions of the -Fourteenth Amendment,) restrict in many respects the individual’s power of contract. Without stopping to-discuss at léngth the extent to which a State may act in this respect, we refer to the following cases in which the question has been considered: Allgeyer v. Louisiana, 165 U. S. 578; Holden v. Hardy, 169 U. S. 366; Lochner v. New York, 198 U. S. 45.

That woman’s physical structure and the performance of maternal functions place her at a disadvantage in the struggle for subsistence is obvious. This is especially true when the burdens of jnotherhood are upon her. Even when they are not, by abundant testimony of the medical fraternity continuance for a-long time on her feet at work, repeating this from day to day, tends to injurious effects upon the body, and as healthy mothers are essential to vigorous offspring, the physical well-being of . woman becomes an object of public’interest and care in order to preserve the strength and vigor of the, race.

Still again, history discloses the fact that woman has always been dependent upon man. He established his control at the outset by superior physical strength, and this control in various forms, with diminishing intensity,.has continued to the present. As minors, though not to the same extent, she has been looked upon in the courts as needing especial care, that her rights may Be preserved. Education.was long denied her, and while now the doors of the school room are opened and. her opportunities for. acquiring knowledge are great, yet even with- that and the *422consequent increase of capacity for business affairs it is still true' that in the struggle for subsistence she is not an equal competitor with her brother. Though limitations upon personal and contractual rights may be removed by legislation, there is that in.her disposition and habits of life which will operate against a full.assertion of those rights. She will still, be where some legislation to protect her seems necessary; to secure a real equality of right. ■ Doubtless there are individual exceptions, and there are many respects in which she has an advantage over him; but looking at it from the viewpoint-of the effort to'maintain an independent position in life,, she is not upon an equality. Differentiated by these matters, from, the other sex, she is propierly placed in a class by herself, . and legislation designed for her protection may be “sustained, even when like legislation is not necessary for men afid could hot be sustained. It is impossible to close one’s eyes to the fact that she still looks to her brother and depends upon him. Even though all restrictions on political,- personal and contractual rights were taken away., and she stood, so far as statutes are ■ concerned, upon an absolutely equal plane with him, it would still be true that she is so constituted that she will rest upon,. and look to him for protection; that her physical structure and a proper discharge of her maternal functions—having in view; not merely her own health, but the well-being of the race— justify legislation to protect her from the greed as well as the passion of man. The limitations which this statute places upon' her contractual powers, upon her right to agree with her employer as to the time she shall labor, are not imposed solely. for her benefit, but also largely for the benefit of all. Many words’cannot make this plainer. The two sexes differ in struc- . ture-of body, in the functions to. be perforihed by éach, in the amount of physical strength, in the capacity for long-continued labor, particularly when done standing, the influence of vigorous health upon the future well-being of the race, the self-reliance which enables one to assert full rights, and in the capacity to.maintain the struggle for subsistence. This difference *423justifies a difference in legislation and upholds that which is designed to compensate for some of the burdens which, rest upon her.

We have not referred in this discussion to the denial of the elective franchise, in the State of Oregon, for while it may disclose a lack of political equality in all things with her brother, that is not of itself decisive. The reason runs deeper, and rests in the inherent difference between the two sexes, and in the different functions in life which they perform.

For- these reasons, and without questioning .in any respect the decision in Lochner v. New York, we are of the opinion that it cannot be adjudged(that the. act in question is in conflict with the Federal Constitution, so far as it respects the work of a female in a laundry, and the judgment of the Supreme Court of Oregon is

Affirmed.

Mr. Justice Murphy

delivered the opinion of the Court.

Petitioners, together with Anthony Horton and Louis Kaplan, were found guilty upon an indictment charging them with a conspiracy to defraud the United States, under § 37 of the Criminal Code (R. S. § 5440; 18 U. S. C. § 88).1 Judgment was entered on the verdict and Glasser, Kretske and Kaplan were sentenced to imprisonment for a term of 14 months. Roth was ordered to pay a fine of $500, and Horton was placed on probation. On appeal the convictions of Glasser, Kretske and Roth were affirmed.2 We brought the case here because of the important constitutional issues involved. 313 U. S. 551.

Glasser was the assistant United States attorney in charge of liquor cases in the Northern District of Illinois from about March 1935 to April 1939. Kretske was an assistant United States attorney in the same district from October 1934 until April 1937. He assisted Glasser in the prosecution of liquor cases. After his resignation he entered private practice in Chicago. Roth was an attorney in private practice. Kaplan was an automobile dealer reputed to be engaged in the illicit alcohol traffic around Chicago. Horton was a professional bondsman.

The indictment was originally in two counts, but only the second survives here, as the Government elected to *64proceed on that count alone at the close of its case. That count, after alleging that during certain periods Glasser and Kretske were assistant United States attorneys for the Northern District of Illinois, employed to prosecute all delinquents for crimes and offenses cognizable under the authority of the United States, and more particularly violations of the federal internal revenue laws relating to liquor, charged in substance that the defendants conspired to “defraud the United States of and concerning its governmental function to be honestly, faithfully and dutifully represented in the courts of the United States” in such matters “free from corruption, improper influence, dishonesty, or fraud.” The means by which the conspiracy was to be accomplished was alleged to be by the defendants’ soliciting certain persons charged, or about to be charged, with violating the laws of the United States, to promise or cause to be promised certain sums to be paid or pledged to the defendants, to be used to corrupt and influence the defendants Glasser and Kretske, and the defendant Glasser alone, in the performance of their and his official duties.

All the defendants filed a motion to quash the indictment on the ground (a) that the grand jury was illegally constituted because women were excluded therefrom and (b) that the indictment was not properly returned in open court. Glasser, Kretske and Roth also filed demurrers to the indictment. The motion to quash and the demurrers were overruled, and petitioners here renew their objections.

On July 1,1939, two Acts of the State of Illinois providing for women jurors became effective.3 Section 275 of the Judicial Code (28 U. S. C. § 411) provides in substance that jurors in a federal court are to have the qualifications of jurors in the highest court of the State. Petitioners *65contend that the grand jury, composed entirely of men, and summoned on August 25, 1939, was illegally constituted because, at the time it was drawn, Illinois law required state jury lists to contain the names of women. However, in 17 of the 18 counties comprising the Northern District of Illinois the county boards could wait until September, 1939, to include women on their jury lists.4 Of course, for women to serve as federal jurors in Illinois it is not necessary that their names appear on a county list, but we are of opinion that, in view of the short time elapsing between the effective date of the Illinois Acts and the summoning of the grand jury, it was not error to omit the names of women from federal jury lists, where it was not shown that women’s names had yet appeared on the state jury lists.

The record here adequately disposes of petitioners’ contention that there is no showing that the indictment was returned ‘in open court by the grand jury. It contains a placitum in regular form which recites the convening of a regular term of the District Court for the Eastern Division of the Northern District of Illinois, “on the first Monday of September [1939] (it being the twenty-ninth day of September the indictment was filed),” and discloses the presence of the judges of that court, the marshal and the clerk. The indictment bears the notation: “A true bill, George A. Hancock, Foreman”, and the endorsement: “Filed in open court this 29th day of Sept., *66A. D. 1939, Hoyt King, Clerk.” Immediately following the indictment in the record is the motion-slip discharging the September grand jury, dated September 29, 1939, initialled by Judge Wilkerson and containing: “The Grand Jury return 4 Indictments in open Court. Added 10/30/39.” The presence of this notation in the record is meaningless unless the indictment in this case is one of the four mentioned. The addition was obviously made to clarify the indorsement of the clerk so as to show clearly the return by the grand jury and thus avert the technical argument here advanced. While a formal nunc pro tunc order would have been the more correct procedure, especially since a new term of court had begun, we do not think that this informal clarification of the record amounts to such error as requires reversal. Cf. Breese v. United States, 226 U. S. 1.

The demurrers to the indictment were properly overruled. The indictment is sufficiently definite to inform petitioners of the charges against them. It shows “certainty, to a common intent.” Williamson v. United States, 207 U. S. 425, 447. The particularity of time, place, circumstances, causes, etc., in stating the manner and means of effecting the object of a conspiracy, for which petitioners contend, is not essential to an indictment. Crawford v. United States, 212 U. S. 183; Dealy v. United States, 152 U. S. 539. Such specificity of detail falls rather within the scope of a bill of particulars, which petitioners requested and received.

The indictment charges that the United States was defrauded by depriving it of its lawful governmental functions by dishonest means; it is settled that this is a “defrauding” within the meaning of § 37 of the Criminal Code. Hammerschmidt v. United States, 265 U. S. 182.

It is unnecessary to explore the merits of the argument that the indictment is defective on the ground that it *67charges a conspiracy to commit a substantive offense requiring concerted action, namely, bribery, because, “The indictment does not charge as a substantive offense the giving or receiving of bribes; nor does it charge a conspiracy to give or accept bribes. It charges a conspiracy to . . . defraud the United States, the scheme of resorting to bribery being averred only to be a way of consummating the conspiracy and which, like the use of a gun to effect a conspiracy to murder, is purely ancillary to the substantive offense.” United States v. Manton, 107 F. 2d 834, 839.

Petitioners Glasser and Roth claim that the evidence was insufficient to support the verdict. Kretske makes no such argument but merely contends that the Government’s testimony was largely that of accomplices “to emphasize the inescapable conclusion that the evidence against petitioner (Kretske) was of a borderline character.” Since we are of opinion that a new trial must be ordered as to Glasser, we do not at this time feel that it is proper to comment on the sufficiency of the evidence against Glasser.

Admittedly, the case against Glasser is not a strong one. The Government frankly concedes that the case with respect to Glasser “depends in large part . . . upon a development and collocation of circumstances tending to sustain the inferences necessary to support the verdict.” This is significant in relation to Glasser’s contention that he was deprived of the assistance of counsel contrary to the Sixth Amendment. In all cases the constitutional safeguards are to be jealously preserved for the benefit of the accused, but especially is this true where the scales of justice may be delicately poised between guilt and innocence. Then error, which under some circumstances would not be ground for reversal, cannot be brushed aside as immaterial, since there is a real chance that it might have provided the slight impetus which swung the scales toward guilt.

*68On November 1, 1939, George Callaghan entered the appearance of himself and Glasser as attorneys for Glasser. On January 29, 1940, William Scott Stewart entered his appearance as associate counsel for Glasser. “Harrington & McDonnell” had entered an appearance for Kretske. On February 5, 1940, the day set for trial, Harrington asked for a continuance. The motion was overruled and McDonnell was appointed Kretske’s attorney. On February 6, McDonnell informed the court that Kretske did not wish to be represented by him. The court then asked if Stewart could act as Kretske’s attorney. The following discussion then took place:

“Mr. Stewart: May I make this statement about that, judge? We were talking about it — we were all trying to get along together. I filed an affidavit, or I did on the behalf of Mr. Glasser pointing out some little inconsistency in the defense, and the main part of it is this: There will be conversations here where Mr. Glasser wasn’t present, where people have seen Mr. Kretske and they have talked about, that they gave money to take care of Glasser, that is not binding on Mr. Glasser, and there is a divergency there, and Mr. Glasser feels that if I would represent Mr. Kretske the jury would get an idea that they are together, and all the evidence—

“The Court: How would it be if I appointed you as attorney for Kretske?

“Mr. Stewart: That would be for your Honor to decide.

“The Court: I know you are looking out for every possible legitimate defense there is. Now, if the jury understood that while you were retained by Mr. Glasser the Court appointed you at this late hour to represent Kretske, what would be the effect of the jury on that?

“Mr. Stewart: Your Honor could judge that as well as I could.

*69“The Court: I think it would be favorable to the defendant Kretske.

“Mr. Glasser: I think it would be too, if he had Mr. Stewart. That’s the reason. I got Mr. Stewart, but if a defendant who has a lawyer representing him is allowed to enter an objection, I would like to enter my objection. I would like to have my own lawyer representing me.

“The Court: Mr. McDonnell, you will have to stay in it until Mr. Kretske gets another lawyer, if he isn’t satisfied with you.

“(To Mr. Kretske) Mr. Kretske, if you are not satisfied with Mr. McDonnell, you will have to hire another lawyer. We will proceed with the selection of the jury now.”

A colloquy then ensued between the court, McDonnell and Kretske when the following occurred:

“Mr. Kretske: I can end this. I just spoke to Mr. Stewart and he said if your Honor wishes to appoint him I think we can accept the appointment.

“Mr. Stewart: As long as the Court knows the situation. I think there is something to the fact that the jury knows we can’t control that.

“Mr. McDonnell: Then the order is vacated?

“The Court: The order appointing Mr. McDonnell is vacated and Mr. Stewart is appointed attorney for Mr. Kretske.”

Glasser remained silent. Stewart thereafter represented Glasser and Kretske throughout the trial and was the most active of the array of defense counsel.

The guarantees of the Bill of Rights are the protecting bulwarks against the reach of arbitrary power. Among those guarantees is the right granted by the Sixth Amendment to an accused in a criminal proceeding in a federal court “to have the assistance of counsel for his defense.” “This is one of the safeguards deemed necessary to insure fundamental human rights of life and liberty,” and a *70federal court cannot constitutionally deprive an accused, whose life or liberty is at stake, of the assistance of counsel. Johnson v. Zerbst, 304 U. S. 458, 462, 463. Even as we have held that the right to the assistance of counsel is so fundamental that the denial by a state court of a reasonable time to allow the selection of counsel of one’s own choosing, and the failure of that court to make an effective appointment of counsel, may so offend our concept of the basic requirements of a fair hearing as to amount to a denial of due process of law contrary to the Fourteenth Amendment, Powell v. Alabama, 287 U. S. 45, so are we clear that the “assistance of counsel” guaranteed by the Sixth Amendment contemplates that such assistance be untrammeled and unimpaired by a court order requiring that one lawyer shall simultaneously represent conflicting interests. If the right to the assistance of counsel means less than this, a valued constitutional safeguard is substantially impaired.

To preserve the protection of the Bill of Rights for hard-pressed defendants, we indulge every reasonable presumption against the waiver of fundamental rights. Aetna Insurance Co. v. Kennedy, 301 U. S. 389; Ohio Bell Telephone Co. v. Public Utilities Commission, 301 U. S. 292. Glasser never affirmatively waived the objection which he initially advanced when the trial court suggested the appointment of Stewart. We are told that, since Glasser was an experienced attorney, he tacitly acquiesced in Stewart’s appointment because he failed to renew vigorously his objection at the instant the appointment was made. The fact that Glasser is an attorney is, of course, immaterial to a consideration of his right to the protection of the Sixth Amendment. His professional experience may be a factor in determining whether he actually waived his right to the assistance of counsel. Johnson v. Zerbst, 304 U. S. 458, 464. But it is by no means conclusive.

*71Upon the trial judge rests the duty of seeing that the trial is conducted with solicitude for the essential rights of the accused. Speaking of the obligation of the trial court to preserve the right to jury trial for an accused, Mr. Justice Sutherland said that such duty “is not to be discharged as a matter of rote, but with sound and advised discretion, with an eye to avoid unreasonable or undue departures from that mode of trial or from any of the essential elements thereof, and with a caution increasing in degree as the offenses dealt with increase in gravity.” Patton v. United States, 281 U. S. 276, 312-313. The trial court should protect the right of an accused to have the assistance of counsel.' “This protecting duty imposes the serious and weighty responsibility upon the trial judge of determining whether there is an intelligent and competent waiver by the accused. While an accused may waive the right to counsel, whether there is a proper waiver should be clearly determined by the trial court, and it would be fitting and appropriate for that determination to appear upon the record.” Johnson v. Zerbst, 304 U. S. 458, 465.

No such concern on the part of the trial court for the basic rights of Glasser is disclosed by the record before us. The possibility of the inconsistent interests of Glasser and Kretske was brought home to the court, but instead of jealously guarding Glasser’s rights, the court may fairly be said to be responsible for creating a situation which resulted in the impairment of those rights. For the manner in which the parties accepted the appointment indicates that they thought they were acceding to the wishes of the court. Kretske said the appointment could be accepted “if your Honor wishes to appoint him [Stewart],” and Stewart immediately replied: “As long as the Court knows the situation. I think there is something in the fact that the jury knows we can’t control that.” The court made no effort to reascertain Glasser’s attitude or *72wishes. Under these circumstances, to hold that Glasser freely, albeit tacitly, acquiesced in the appointment of Stewart is to do violence to reality and to condone a dangerous laxity on the part of the trial court in the discharge of its duty to preserve the fundamental rights of an accused.

Glasser urges that the court’s appointment of Stewart as counsel for Kretske embarrassed and inhibited Stewart’s conduct of his defense, in that it prevented Stewart from adequately safeguarding Glasser’s right to have incompetent evidence excluded and from fully cross-examining the witnesses for the prosecution.

One Brantman, an accountant known to Kretske and recommended professionally by him to a client, testified that he gave Kretske $3000 on behalf of one Abosketes. He further testified that he did not know Glasser. Stewart secured a postponement of cross-examination for “In view of the fact that your Honor appointed me for Mr. Kretske, I am not prepared to cross-examine.”

Abosketes took the stand immediately after Brantman and testified that Brantman told him that he was about to be indicted and offered to “fix” the case with someone in the Federal Building for $5000. About the time of this meeting, Glasser and investigator Bailey were questioning one Brown, who had been convicted for operating a still, to determine whether Abosketes was connected with that still. Abosketes referred frequently to Glasser in his testimony and indicated that Glasser and Brantman were linked together. Thus he testified that Brantman told him “They have got the goods on you, Mr. Glasser has got it out of Brown.” When questioned as to his knowledge of Brantman’s connections, Abosketes replied: “There was more than a fix, if indictment was stopped. He [Brantman] knows Mr. Glasser and that was all there was to it.” And, later: “He had connections to stop things like that, he had connections in the Federal Build*73ing.” And, again: “I could not be sure that this man [Brantman] was not putting a shake on me and be honest about it. I could not go over and ask Mr. Glasser if Mr. Brantman was able to fix him. I thought Brantman could, though. I was kind of hoping he could. If I did not think he could, I would not have given him the money.”

Brantman was re-called three days later. Stewart declined cross-examination. That this decision was influenced by a desire to protect Kretske can reasonably be inferred from the colloquy between the court and Stewart before sentence was imposed. At that time Stewart told the court that, lest his failure to cross-examine Brantman reflect on Kretske, the reason for his forbearance was that he feared that Brantman would tell worse lies. But, especially after the intervening testimony of Abosketes, a thorough cross-examination was indicated in Glasser’s interest to fully develop Brantman’s lack of reference to, or knowledge of Glasser. Stewart’s failure to undertake such a cross-examination luminates the cross-purposes under which he was laboring.

Glasser also argues that certain testimony, inadmissible as to him, was allowed without objection by Stewart on his behalf because of Stewart’s desire to avoid prejudice to Kretske. The testimony complained of is that of Elmer Swanson, Frank Hodorowicz, Edward Dewes, and Stanley Wasielewski as to statements made by Kretske, not in the presence of Glasser, and heard by them which implicated Glasser. Glasser has red hair, and the statements made by Kretske were that he would have to see “Red,” or send the money over to the “red-head,” etc., in connection with “fixing” cases.5

Glasser contends that such statements constituted inadmissible hearsay as to him and that Stewart forewent *74this obvious objection lest an objection on behalf of Glasser alone leave with the jury the impression that the testimony was true as to Kretske. The Government attacks this argument as unsound, and, relying on the doctrine that the declarations of one conspirator in furtherance of the objects of the conspiracy made to a third party are admissible against his co-conspirators, Logan v. United States, 144 U. S. 263, contends that the declarations of Kretske were admissible against Glasser and hence no prejudice could arise from Stewart’s failure to object. However, such declarations are admissible over the objection of an alleged co-conspirator, who was not present when they were made, only if there is proof aliunde that he is connected with the conspiracy. Minner v. United States, 57 F. 2d 506; and see Nudd v. Burrows, 91 U. S. 426. *75Otherwise, hearsay would lift itself by its own bootstraps to the level of competent evidence.

Glasser urges that, independently of the statements complained of, there is no proof connecting him with the conspiracy. Clearly the statements were damaging. Other evidence tending to connect Glasser with the conspiracy is rather meagre by comparison. Frank Hodorowiez testified that Glasser apologized to him after his indictment because he, Glasser, could do nothing for Hodorowiez. Hodorowiez also testified that he sent a case of whiskey to Glasser for Christmas, 1937. Victor Raubunas testified that he saw Glasser, Kretske and Kaplan meet on three occasions. An alcohol agent, Dowd, testified that Glasser expelled him from the court-room during the trial of a libel case in which Roth represented the successful claimant. Glasser released Raubunas and one Joppek, who were picked up on different occasions for suspected liquor violations, without extensive questioning. Whether testimony such as this was sufficient to establish the participation of Glasser in the conspiracy we need not decide. That is beside the point. The important fact is that no objection was offered by Stewart on Glasser’s behalf to the statements complained of, and this despite the fact that, when the court broached the possibility of Stewart’s appointment, Stewart told the court that statements of this nature were not binding on Glasser. That this is indicative of Stewart’s struggle to serve two masters cannot seriously be doubted.

There is yet another consideration. Glasser wished the benefit of the undivided assistance of counsel of his own choice. We think that such a desire on the part of an accused should be respected. Irrespective of any conflict of interest, the additional burden of representing another party may conceivably impair counsel’s effectiveness.

To determine the precise degree of prejudice sustained by Glasser as a result of the court’s appointment of *76Stewart as counsel for Kretske is at once difficult and unnecessary. The right to have the assistance of counsel is too fundamental and absolute to allow courts to indulge in nice calculations as to the amount of prejudice arising from its denial. Cf. Snyder v. Massachusetts, 291 U. S. 97, 116; Tumey v. Ohio, 273 U. S. 510, 535; Patton v. United States, 281 U. S. 276, 292. And see McCandless v. United States, 298 U. S. 342, 347. Of equal importance with the duty of the court to see that an accused has the assistance of counsel is its duty to refrain from embarrassing counsel in the defense of an accused by insisting, or indeed, even suggesting, that counsel undertake to concurrently represent interests which might diverge from those of his first client, when the possibility of that divergence is brought home to the court. In conspiracy eases, where the liberal rules of evidence and the wide latitude accorded the prosecution may, and sometimes do, operate unfairly against an individual defendant, it is especially important that he be given the benefit of the undivided assistance of his counsel without the court’s becoming a party to encumbering that assistance. Here the court was advised of the possibility that conflicting interests might arise which would diminish Stewart’s usefulness to Glasser. Nevertheless Stewart was appointed as Kretske’s counsel. Our examination of the record leads to the conclusion that Stewart’s representation of Glasser was not as effective as it might have been if the appointment had not been made. We hold that the court thereby denied Glasser his right to have the effective assistance of counsel, guaranteed by the Sixth Amendment. This error requires that the verdict be set aside and a new trial ordered as to Glasser.

But this error does not require that the convictions of the other petitioners be set aside. To secure a new trial they must show that the denial of Glasser’s constitutional rights prejudiced them in some manner, for where error *77as to one defendant in a conspiracy case requires that a new trial be granted him, the rights of his co-defendants to a new trial depend upon whether that error prejudiced them. Agnello v. United States, 269 U. S. 20; United States v. Socony-Vacuum Oil Co., 310 U. S. 150; Rossi v. United States, 278 F. 349; Belfi v. United States, 259 F. 822; Browne v. United States, 145 F. 1; Dufour v. United States, 37 App. D. C. 497. Kretske does not contend that he was prejudiced by the appointment, and we are clear from the record that no prejudice is disclosed as to him. Roth argues the point, but he was represented throughout the case by his own attorney. We fail to see that the denial of Glasser’s right to have the assistance of counsel affected Roth.

Turning now to the contentions of Kretske and Roth, we are clear that substantial evidence supports the verdict against both. As noted before, Kretske does not raise the point other than to mention that the testimony against him was largely that of accomplices and unsavory characters. The short answer to this is that the credibility of a witness is a question for the jury.

The evidence against Roth discloses the following salient facts. Elmer Swanson, Clem Dowiat and Anthony Hodorowiez were arrested in connection with a still on Stony Island Avenue. Frank Hodorowiez, the head of the Hodorowiez crowd, arranged a meeting with Kretske at his hardware store to “take care” of the case. Horton was present and Kretske told the group that there “was a lot of heat” on the case but that it could be arranged so that nobody “would go to jail” for $1200, part of which “Red” was to get. A down payment of $500 was made. When a lawyer was sought, Kretske referred the prospective defendants to Roth. He represented them at the hearing before the Commissioner, which was continued at the request of Glasser. After an indictment was returned, Roth appeared for trial to find that the case had *78been stricken from the docket with leave to reinstate it. The defendants were never brought to trial. None of the Hodorowiczes or their associates paid Roth for his services. Roth testified that he received his fee from Kretske.

In June 1938, Glasser secured two indictments, one against Frank, Mike, and Peter Hodorowicz and Clem Dowiat, and the other against Frank and Peter Hodorowicz and Dowiat, for the sale of illicit alcohol. Frank paid Kretske $250 after the indictments. Kretske later told him that nothing could be done, as investigator Bailey was pressing Glasser. Frank then went to see Roth, who with Kretske went to see Glasser. Roth later told Frank that nothing could be done and suggested that he get an attorney and prepare to defend himself. Roth’s explanation of this was that he went to Glasser to learn the latter’s attitude toward clemency for Frank, and that he suggested the retention of two lawyers, one to defend Frank, and the other to represent the remaining defendants. Frank dispensed with Roth’s services and was represented at the trial by one Hess. Frank paid Roth $50, but this was in connection with substituting some securities on his bond.

Edward Dewes had been associated with the defendant Kaplan in a still at Spring Grove. That case was twice presented to a grand jury by Glasser but withdrawn on each occasion. Two days before it was presented a third time, the defendant Horton told Dewes that Kretske wished to see him. Dewes went to Kretske’s office and paid him $100 so that he would not be indicted. Dewes was no-billed in that case. Dewes was also involved in a still on the farm of one Beisner. It was raided and several were arrested. Dewes, Victor Raubunas and Edward Farber asked Horton to “fix” that case, but when his price was thought too high, Farber, who had known Kretske for some time, took Dewes and Raubunas to Kretske’s *79office. Kretske offered to take care of the case for $1200. Raubunas paid $300 and they were told they would need no lawyer at the preliminary hearing. Eventually Raubunas, Dewes and Beisner were indicted. Dewes thereafter paid Kretske $275 to “fix” his case. Kretske referred the matter to Roth, who represented Dewes throughout his trial. Dewes testified that he neither retained,nor paid Roth.

Paul Svec, an associate of one Yarrio, was arrested in 1937 for a liquor violation. Horton arranged his bond. In Svee’s presence Horton .picked up Kretske and Yarrio. They told Svec not to worry. He was thereafter indicted and convicted. While at liberty pending an appeal, he was again arrested. This time hé called Glasser, and according to the latter, offered him money. The following morning Glasser interrogated Svec in the hearing of a secreted agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and secured admissions that Svec had never paid Glasser money or received any promises from him, and that the call had been at the instigation of the arresting investigators. Svec testified that Roth told him that he “stood up o. k.” under Glasser’s questioning. Svec was discharged at the Commissioner’s hearing.

Glasser prosecuted Leo Vitale for the operation of a still. He was convicted and received a sentence of one hour in the custody of the marshal. Vitale’s wife, Rose, was the claimant in a subsequent libel action against a car allegedly used to transport illicit liquor. The case was referred to Roth by Kretske. Roth informed the court that Vitale was “o. k.” and that the car was not used for illegal purposes. As was the custom, the case was .tried on the agent’s report. It was dismissed. Investigator Dowd later informed Glasser that he had heard that Vitale had boasted that “he got out of this for nine hundred dollars.”

In April 1938, Edward and William Wroblewski were indicted in the Northern District of Indiana, They en*80gaged Roth as their counsel. They did not remember how they met Roth. When asked by the court if anyone recommended Roth to him, Edward answered: “No, sir, I don't remember whether it was a rumor about his name.” According to Alexander Campbell, an assistant United States attorney in that district, Roth appeared in his office in September 1938 and asked if the Wroblewskis had been indicted. Campbell replied that he did not know off-hand but would check the files. Roth then asked, if the files showed no indictment, whether some arrangement could be made so that no indictment would be returned. He offered Campbell $500 or $1000. When Campbell refused, Roth said: “Well, that is the way we handle cases in Chicago sometimes.” The Wroblewskis were convicted. Subsequently, Roth asked Campbell to use his influence to stop the investigation in Chicago by Bailey which resulted in the instant case.

It is not for us to weigh the evidence or to determine the credibility of witnesses. The verdict of a jury must be sustained if there is substantial evidence, taking the view most favorable to the Government, to support it. United States v. Manton, 107 F. 2d 834, 839, and cases cited. Participation in a criminal conspiracy need not be proved by direct evidence; a common purpose and plan may be inferred from a “development and a collocation of circumstances.” United States v. Manton, supra. We are clear that, from the circumstances outlined above, the jury could infer the existence of a conspiracy and the participation of Roth in it. Roth's statements to Campbell in the Wroblewski matter, his suggestion to Frank Hodorowicz that he should get a lawyer and prepare to defend himself when the case could not be “fixed,” the fact that he received no fees from the Hodorowiczes with the exception of $50 in connection with Frank’s bond, Dewes’ testimony that he neither retained nor paid Roth, Roth’s commendation of Svec’s bearing under Glasser’s *81interrogation, all furnish the necessary support for the jury’s verdict.

The objections of Kretske and Roth with regard to the admission of certain evidence are without merit. The reports of investigators of the Alcohol Tax Unit on stills at Western Avenue and at Spring Grove, operated by the defendant Kaplan and his associates, were admitted as Government exhibits 81A and 113. Each contained statements taken from prospective witnesses by the investigators, and each gave a description of the prospective defendants. Kaplan was referred to as of Jewish descent, a bootlegger by reputation, and mention was made of the arrest of Kaplan and Edward Dewes in connection with the killing of one Pinna. At the time each report was admitted the trial judge informed the jury that it was admitted only against Glasser and continued: “At some further stage of the proceedings I may advise you with reference to its competency as to the other defendants, but for the time being it will be admissible only against the defendant Glasser.” The record before us contains no indication that the jury was later informed that the exhibits were evidence against the defendants other than Glasser. The claim of Kretske and Roth, that the admission of these reports was prejudicial to Kaplan and that they are entitled to take advantage of that error, ignores the fact that they were admitted against Glasser alone.

No reversible error was committed by overruling objections to the testimony of Alexander Campbell with relation to his dealings with Roth. Trial judges have a measure of discretion in allowing testimony which discloses the purpose, knowledge, or design of a particular person. Butler v. United States, 53 F. 2d 800; Simpkins v. United States, 78 F. 2d 594, 598. We do not think the bounds of that discretion were exceeded here. The statements of Roth were not in furtherance of the conspiracy, but they *82did tend to connect Roth with it by explaining his state of mind.

The judge conducting a jury trial in a federal court is “not a mere moderator, but is the governor of the trial for the purpose of assuring its proper conduct.” Quercia v. United States, 289 U. S. 466, 469. Upon him rests the responsibility of striving for that atmosphere of perfect impartiality which is so much to be desired in a judicial proceeding. Petitioners contend that the trial judge made remarks prejudicial to them, committed acts of advocacy, questioned them in a hostile manner, unduly limited cross-examination, and in general failed to maintain an impartial attitude. Various incidents in support of those contentions are brought to our attention.

The court did interrogate several witnesses, but in the main such interrogation was within its power to elicit the truth by an examination of the witnesses. United States v. Gross, 103 F. 2d 11; United States v. Breen, 96 F. 2d 782. In asking Anthony Hodorowicz whether there had been a full disclosure of his connection with the Stony Island still when he appeared before Judge Woodward, the court obviously was under a misapprehension of the nature of the appearance. It was simply for the purpose of arraignment, and of course no testimony was offered. Much is made of this, but at the time no one attempted to explain to the court the nature of the appearance. Stewart later brought out on cross-examination that it was only an arraignment and that there was no necessity for testimony on that day.

After the testimony of Abosketes, the court read into the record the fact that Abosketes was indicted in Wisconsin in 1936 and 1938, and that he pleaded guilty to one indictment and that the other was dismissed. It is, of course, improper for a judge to assume the role of a witness, but we cannot here conclude that prejudicial error *83resulted. Abosketes had briefly referred to his troubles in Wisconsin in his testimony.

The alleged undue limitation of cross-examination merits scant attention. The extent of such examination rests in the sound discretion of the trial court. Alford v. United States, 282 U. S. 687. We find no abuse of that discretion.

Perhaps the court did not attain at all times that thoroughgoing impartiality which is the ideal, but our examination of the record as a whole leads to the conclusion that the substantial rights of the petitioners were not affected. The trial was long and the incidents relied on by petitioners few. We must guard against the magnification on appeal of instances which were of little importance in their setting. Cf. United States v. Socony-Vacuum Oil Co., 310 U. S. 150, 240; Goldstein v. United States, 63 F. 2d 609; United States v. Warren, 120 F. 2d 211.

Separate consideration of the numerous instances of alleged prejudicial misconduct on the part of the prosecuting attorney would unduly extend this opinion. Suffice it to say, that after due consideration we conclude that no one instance, nor the combination of them all, constitutes reversible error.

All the petitioners contend that they were denied an impartial trial because of the alleged exclusion from the petit jury panel of all women not members of the Illinois League of Women Voters. In support of their motions for a new trial, Glasser and'Roth filed affidavits which are the basis of petitioners’ present contentions. Kretske did not file an affidavit, but he urges the point here.

Glasser swore on information and belief that all the names of women placed in the box from which the panel was drawn were taken from a list furnished the clerk of the court by the Illinois League of Women Voters, and pre*84pared exclusively from its membership, that the women on that list had attended “jury classes whose lecturers presented the views of the prosecution,” and that women not members of the League, but otherwise qualified, were systematically excluded, by reason of which affiant “did not have a trial by a jury free from bias, prejudice, and prior instructions, and as a result thereof the jury was disqualified and this affiant’s rights were prejudiced in that he was deprived of a trial by jury guaranteed to him by the laws and the constitution of the United States of America, and particularly the 5th and 6th amendment, all of which he offers to prove.” The source of Glasser’s information was stated to be a then current article, “Women and the Law,” in the American Bar Association Journal for April 1940 (Yol. 26, No. 4). Roth’s affidavit merely gave Glasser as his source of information and made no offer of proof. The court overruled the motions for a new trial. The record discloses that the jury was composed of six men and six women.

Since it was first recognized in Magna Carta, trial by jury has been a prized shield against oppression, but, while proclaiming trial by jury as “the glory of the English law,” Blackstone was careful to note that it was but a “privilege.” Commentaries, Book 3, p. 379. Our Constitution transforms that privilege into a right in criminal proceedings in a federal court. This was recognized by Justice Story: “When our more immediate ancestors removed to America, they brought this great privilege [trial by jury in criminal cases] with them, as their birthright and inheritance, as a part of that admirable common law which had fenced round and interposed barriers on every side against the approaches of arbitrary power. It is now incorporated into all our State constitutions as a fundamental right, and the Constitution of the United States would have been justly obnoxious to the most conclusive *85objection if it had not recognized and confirmed it on the most solemn terms.” 2 Story, Const. § 1779.

Lest the right of trial by jury be nullified by the improper constitution of juries, the notion of what a proper jury is has become inextricably intertwined with the idea of jury trial. When the original Constitution provided only that “The trial of all crimes, except in cases of impeachment, shall be by jury,” 6 the people and their representatives, leaving nothing to chance, were quick to implement that guarantee by the adoption of the Sixth Amendment which provides that the jury must be impartial.

For the mechanics of trial by jury we revert to the common law as it existed in this country and in England when the Constitution was adopted. Patton v. United States, 281 U. S. 276. But even as jury trial, which was a privilege at common law, has become a right with us, so also, whatever limitations were inherent in the historical common law concept of the jury as a body of one’s peers do not prevail in this country. Our notions of what a proper jury is have developed in harmony with our basic concepts of a democratic society and a representative government. For “It is part of the established tradition in the use of juries as instruments of public justice that the jury be a body truly representative of the community.” Smith v. Texas, 311 U. S. 128, 130.

Jurors in a federal court are to have the qualifications of those in the highest court of the State, and they are to be selected by the clerk of the court and a jury commissioner. §§ 275, 276 Jud. Code; 28 U. S. C. §§ 411, 412. This duty of selection may not be delegated. United States v. Murphy, 224 F. 554; In re Petition For Special Grand Jury, 50 F. 2d 973. And, its exercise must always *86accord with the fact that the proper functioning of the jury system, and, indeed, our democracy itself, requires that the jury be a “body truly representative of the community,” and not the organ of any special group or class. If that requirement is observed, the officials charged with choosing federal jurors may exercise some discretion to the end that competent jurors may be called. But they must not allow the desire for competent jurors to lead them into selections which do not comport with the concept of the jury as a cross-section of the community. Tendencies, no matter how slight, toward the selection of jurors by any method other than a process which will insure a trial by a representative group are undermining processes weakening the institution of jury trial, and should be sturdily resisted. That the motives influencing such tendencies may be of the best must not blind us to the dangers of allowing any encroachment whatsoever on this essential right. Steps innocently taken may, one by one, lead to the irretrievable impairment of substantial liberties.

The deliberate selection of jurors from the membership of particular private organizations definitely does not conform to the traditional requirements of jury trial. No matter how high-principled and imbued with a desire to inculcate public virtue such organizations may be, the dangers inherent in such a method of selection are the more real when the members of those organizations, from training or otherwise, acquire a bias in favor of the prosecution. The jury selected from the membership of such an organization is then not only the organ of a special class, but, in addition, it is also openly partisan. If such practices are to be countenanced, the hard-won right of trial by jury becomes a thing of doubtful value, lacking one of the essential characteristics that have made it a cherished feature of our institutions.

*87So, if the picture in this case actually is as alleged in Glasser’s affidavit, we would be compelled to set aside the trial court’s denial of the motion for a new trial as a clear abuse of discretion, and order a new trial for all the petitioners. But from the record before us we must conclude that petitioners’ showing is insufficient. The Government did not controvert the affidavits by counter-affidavits or formal denial, and it does not appear from the record that any argument was heard on them. From this, petitioners argue that the allegations of the affidavits are to be taken as true for the purpose of the motion. However, this is not a case where the prosecution has impliedly, Neal v. Delaware, 103 U. S. 370, or actually, Hale v. Kentucky, 303 U. S. 613, stipulated that affidavits in support of a motion alleging the improper constitution of a jury may be accepted as proof. In the absence of such a stipulation, it is incumbent on the moving party to introduce, or to offer, distinct evidence in support of the motion; the formal affidavit alone, even though uncontroverted, is not enough. Smith v. Mississippi, 162 U. S. 592; Tarrance v. Florida, 188 U. S. 519; cf. Brownfield v. South Carolina, 189 U. S. 426. Glasser, in his affidavit, offered to prove the allegations contained therein, but the record is barren of any actual tender of proof on his part. Furthermore, there is no indication that the court refused to entertain such an offer, if it were in fact made. Roth did not even make an offer of proof in his affidavit, and Kretske did not file one. While it is error to refuse to hear evidence offered in support of allegations that a jury was improperly constituted, Carter v. Texas, 177 U. S. 442, there is, and, on the state of this record, can be, no assertion that such error was here committed. The failure of petitioners to prove their contention is fatal.

We conclude that the conviction of Glasser must be set aside and the cause as to him remanded to the District *88Court for the Eastern Division of the Northern District of Illinois for a new trial. The convictions of petitioners Kretske and Roth are in all respects upheld.

No\ SO, reversed.

Nos. SI and 82, affirmed.

Mr. Justice Jackson took no part in the consideration or decision of these cases.

Mr. Justice Frankfurter:

The Chief Justice

and I are of opinion that the conviction of Glasser, as well as that of his co-defendants, should stand.

It is a commonplace in the administration of criminal justice that the actualities of a long trial are too often given a meretricious appearance on appeal; the perspective of the living trial is lost in the search for error in a dead record. To set aside the conviction of Glasser (a lawyer who served as an Assistant United States Attorney for more than four years) after a trial lasting longer than a month, on the ground that he was denied the basic constitutional right “to have the assistance of counsel for his defence,” is to give fresh point to this regrettably familiar phenomenon. For Glasser himself made no such claim at any of the critical occasions throughout the proceedings. Neither when the judge appointed Stewart to act as counsel for both Kretske and Glasser, nor at any time during the long trial, nor in his motions to set aside the verdict and to arrest judgment, nor in his plea to the court before sentence was passed, nor in setting forth his grounds for appeal, did Glasser assert, or manifest in any way a belief, that he was denied the effective assistance of counsel. Not until twenty weeks after Stewart had become counsel for the co-defendant Kretske, and fifteen weeks after the trial had ended, did Glasser discover that he had been *89deprived of his constitutional rights. This was obviously a lawyer’s afterthought. It does not promote respect for the Bill of Rights to turn such an afterthought into an imaginary injury that is reflected nowhere in the contemporaneous record of the trial, and make it the basis for reversal.

The guarantees of the Bill of Rights are not abstractions. Whether their safeguards of liberty and dignity have been infringed in a particular case depends upon the particular circumstances. The fact that Glasser is an attorney, of course, does not mean that he is not entitled to the protection which is afforded all persons by the Sixth Amendment. But the fact that he is an attorney with special experience in criminal cases, and not a helpless illiterate, may be — as we believe it to be here — extremely relevant in determining whether he was denied such protection.

In this light, what does the record show? Before the trial got under way the trial judge was presented with a problem created by the inability of one of Kretske’s lawyers to try the case in his behalf. Kretske was dissatisfied with his other lawyer, who professed to be unfamiliar with the many details of the case. Upon Kretske’s motion for a continuance, the judge was faced with the difficulty of avoiding either delay of the trial or an undesirable severance as to Kretske. All the defendants, including Glasser, and their counsel were present in court. The judge asked whether Stewart, who had been retained by Glasser, would be prepared to act also for Kretske. The record gives no possible ground for any inference other than that this suggestion came from the judge as a fair and disinterested proposal to solve a not unfamiliar trial problem. It is not, and indeed could not be, contended that the judge’s suggestion, addressed to the consideration of the defendants, was not wholly proper. And so, *90when Stewart raised the question of a possible conflict of interest, and Glasser himself objected, saying “I would like to have my own lawyer representing me/’ the judge neither remonstrated nor argued. He promptly dropped his suggestion and directed Kretske’s other lawyer, who ,was present but with whom Kretske was dissatisfied, to stay in the case until Kretske could hire someone to his satisfaction. The footnote sets forth the full text of this episode.1

There ensued a long discussion relating to the representation of Kretske. During this discussion the judge never *91again adverted to his original suggestion that Stewart also represent Kretske. Kretske interrupted, and there then occurred in Glasser’s presence what is now made the basis for reversal:

“Mr. Kretske: I can end this. I just spoke to Mr. Stewart and he said if yoür Honor wishes to appoint him I think we can accept the appointment.

“Mr. Stewart: As long as the Court knows the situation. I think there is something to the fact that the jury knows we can’t control that.

“Mr. McDonnell: Then the order is vacated?

“The Court: The order appointing Mr. McDonnell is vacated and Mr. Stewart is appointed attorney for Mr. Kretske.”

It is clear, therefore, that this arrangement was voluntarily assumed by the parties, and was not pressed upon them by the judge. Glasser, who was present, raised no objection and made no comment.

The requirement that timely objections be made to prejudicial rulings of a trial judge often has the semblance of traps for the unwary and uninformed. But Glasser was neither unwary nor uninformed. His experience in the prosecution of criminal cases makes his silence here most significant. Nor was this the last opportunity he had to indicate that embarrassment was being caused him by Stewart’s representation of Kretske, let alone that he deemed it a denial of his constitutional rights. If he were laboring under a handicap, he would have made it known at the times when he felt it most — during the long course of the trial, in his motions for new trial and in arrest of judgment, in his extended plea to the court before sentence was passed, and finally when, on April 26, 1940, over his own signature he gave twenty grounds for appeal but did not mention this one. The long period of uninterrupted silence concerning his after-discovered injury negatives its existence. We find it difficult to know what acquies*92cence in a judge’s ruling could be, if this record does not show it.2

A fair reading of the record thus precludes the inference that the judge forced upon Glasser a situation which hobbled him in his defense. To be sure, he did say at first that he would like his lawyer to represent him alone. But he plainly acquiesced in the arrangement which, after consultation at the defense table, was proposed to the trial judge and which the judge accepted. A conspiracy trial presents complicated questions of strategy for the defense. There are advantages and disadvantages in having separate counsel for each defendant or a single counsel for more than one. Joint representation is a means of insuring against reciprocal recrimination. A common defense often gives strength against a common attack. These considerations could not have escaped a lawyer of Glasser’s experience. His thorough acquiescence in the proceedings cannot be reconciled with a denial of his constitutional rights.

A belated showing that Glasser was actually prejudiced by the judge’s action is now attempted. This has two aspects: (1) Stewart’s failure to cross-examine the witness Brantman, and (2) his failure to make objections on behalf of Glasser to the admission of certain evidence.

*93(1) The Brantman episode evaporates upon examination. His only testimony relating to Glasser was that he did not know him. This was brought out fully and distinctly on direct examination.3 That it had been amply established, Glasser himself recognized in his address to the court before sentence. It is difficult to understand how cross-examination would have been of any further benefit to Glasser. In any event, the record shows that Stewart abstained from cross-examining Brantman not because he felt himself inhibited by any conflict of interest but because, as he told the judge after verdict, he thought that on cross-examination Brantman “would be telling worse lies.”

(2) It is said that Stewart’s failure to object, on behalf of Glasser, to certain evidence in itself proves that Stewart felt himself restricted — wholly regardless of the admissibility of such evidence. No evidence inadmissible against Glasser is avouched. Indeed we are told that it is “beside the point” that the evidence is admissible. Can it be that a lawyer who fails to make frivolous objections to admissible evidence is thereby denying his client the constitutional right to the assistance of counsel?

*543Per Curiam.

Petitioner Mrs. Ida Phillips commenced an action in the United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida under Title YII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964* alleging that she had been denied employment because of her sex. The District Court granted summary ■judgment for Martin Marietta Corp. (Martin) on the basis of the following showing: (1) in 1966 Martin informed Mrs. Phillips that it was not accepting job applications from women with pre-school-age children; (2) as of the time of the motion for summary judgment, Martin employed men with pre-school-áge children; (3) At the time Mrs. Phillips applied, 70-75 % of the applicants for the position she sought were women; 75-80% of those hired for the position, assembly trainee, were women,, hence no question of bias against women as such was presented.

The Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit affirmed, 411 F. 2d 1, and denied a rehearing en banc, 416' F. 2d *5441257 (1969). We granted certiorari. 397 U. S.. 960 (1970).

Section 703 (a) of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 requires that persons of like qualifications be given employment opportunities irrespective of their sex. The Court of Appeals therefore erred, in reading this section as permitting one hiring policy for women and another for men— each having pre-school-age children. The existence of such conflicting family obligations, if demonstrably more relevant to job performance for a woman than for a man, could arguably be a basis for distinction under § 703 (e) of the Act. But that is a matter of evidence tending to show that the' condition in question “is a bona fide occupational qualification reasonably necessary to the normal operation of that particular business or enterprise.” The record before us, however, is not adequate for resolution of these important issues. See Kennedy v. Silas Mason Co., 334 U. S. 249, 256-257 (1948). Summary judgment was therefore improper and we remand for fuller development of the record and for further consideration.

Vacated and remanded.

Mr. Justice Mahshall,

concurring.

While I agree that this case must be remanded for a full development of the facts, I cannot agree with the Court’s indication that a “bona fide occupational qualification reasonably necessary to the normal operation of” Martin Marietta’s business could be established by a showing that some women, even the vast majority, with pre-school-age children have family responsibilities that, interfere with job performance and that men do not usually have such responsibilities. Certainly, an employer can require that all of his employees, both men and women, meet minimum performance standards, and *545he can try to insure compliance by requiring parents, both mothers and fathers, to provide for the care of their children so that job performance is not interfered with.

But the Court suggests that it would not require such uniform standards. I fear that in this case, where the issue is. not squarely before us, the Court has fallen into the trap of assuming that the Act permits ancient canards about the proper role of women to be a basis for discrimination. Congress, however, sought just the' opposite result.

. By adding1 the prohibition against job discrimination based on sex to the 1964 Civil Rights Act Congress intended to prevent employers from refusing “to hire an individual based on stereotyped characterizations of the sexes.” Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, Guidelines on Discrimination Because of Sex, 29 CFR § 1604.1 (a)(1)(h). See Bowe v. Colgate-Palmolive Co., 416 F. 2d 711 (CA7 1969); Weeks v. Southern Bell Tel. •& Tel. Co., 408 F. 2d 228 (CA5 1969). Even characterizations of the proper domestic roles of the sexes were not to serve as predicates for restricting employment opportunity.2 The exception- for a “bona fide occupational qualification” was not intended to swallow the rule.

That exception has been construed by the Equal Em-, ployment Opportunity Commission, whose regulations are entitled to “great deference,” Udall v. Tallman, 380 U. S. 1, 16 (1965), to be applicable only to job situations' *546that require specific physical characteristics necessarily possessed by only one sex.3 Thus the exception would apply where necessary “for the purpose of authenticity or *547genuineness” 4 in the employment of actors or actresses, fashion models, and the like.5 If the exception is to be limited6 as Congress intended, .the Commission has given it the only possible construction.

When performance characteristics of an individual are involved, even when parental roles are concerned, employment opportunity may be limited only by employment criteria that- are neutral as to the sex of the applicant.

Mr. Chief Justice Burger

delivered the opinion of the Court.

Richard Lynn Reed, a minor, died intestate in Ada County, Idaho, on March 29, 1967. His adoptive parents, who had separated sometime prior to his death, are the parties to this appeal. Approximately seven months after Richard’s death, his mother, appellant Sally Reed, filed a petition in the Probate Court of Ada County, *72seeking appointment as administratrix of her son’s estate.1 Prior to the date set for a hearing on the mother’s petition, appellee Cecil Reed, the father of the decedent, filed a competing petition seeking to have himself appointed administrator of the son’s estate. The probate court held a joint hearing on the two petitions and thereafter ordered that letters of administration be issued to appellee Cecil Reed upon his taking the oath and filing the bond required by law. The court treated §§ 15-312 and 15-314 of the Idaho Code as the controlling statutes and read those sections as compelling a preference for Cecil Reed because he was a male.

Section 15-3122 designates the persons who are entitled to administer the estate of one who dies intestate. In making these designations, that section lists 11 classes of persons who are so entitled and provides, in substance, *73that the order in which those classes are listed in the section shall be determinative of the relative rights of competing applicants for letters of administration. One of the 11 classes so enumerated is “[t]he father or mother” of the person dying intestate. Under this section, then, appellant and appellee, being members of the same entitlement class, would seem to have been equally entitled to administer their son’s estate. Section 15-314 provides, however, that

“[o]f several persons claiming and equally entitled [under § 15-312] to administer, males must be preferred to females, and relatives of the whole to those of the half blood.”

In issuing its order, the probate court implicitly recognized the equality of entitlement of the two applicants under § 15-312 and noted that neither of the applicants was under any legal disability; the court ruled, however, that appellee, being a male, was to be preferred to the female appellant “by reason of Section 15-314 of the Idaho Code.” In stating this conclusion, the probate judge gave no indication that he had attempted to determine the relative capabilities of the competing applicants to perform the functions incident to the administration of an estate. It seems clear the probate judge considered himself bound by statute to give preference to the male candidate over the female, each being otherwise “equally entitled.”

Sally Reed appealed from the probate court order, and her appeal was treated by the District Court of the Fourth Judicial District of Idaho as a constitutional attack on § 15-314. In dealing with the attack, that court held that the challenged section violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment3 and was, there*74fore, void; the matter was ordered “returned to the Probate Court for its determination of which of the two parties” was better qualified to administer the estate.

This order was never carried out, however, for Cecil Reed took a further appeal to the Idaho Supreme Court, which reversed the District Court and reinstated the original order naming the father administrator of the estate. In reaching this result, the Idaho Supreme Court first dealt with the governing statutory law and held that under § 15-312 “a father and mother are 'equally entitled’ to letters of administration,” but the preference given to males by § 15-314 is “mandatory” and leaves no room for the exercise of a probate court’s discretion in the appointment of administrators. Having thus definitively and authoritatively interpreted the statutory provisions involved, the Idaho Supreme Court then proceeded to examine, and reject, Sally Reed’s contention that § 15-314 violates the Equal Protection Clause by giving a mandatory preference to males over females, without regard to their individual qualifications as potential estate administrators. 93 Idaho 511, 465 P. 2d 635.

Sally Reed thereupon appealed for review by this Court pursuant to 28 U. S. C. § 1257 (2), and we noted probable jurisdiction. 401 U. S. 934. Having examined the record and considered the briefs and oral arguments of the parties, we have concluded that the arbitrary preference established in favor of males by § 15-314 of the Idaho Code cannot stand in the face of the Fourteenth Amendment’s command that no State deny the equal protection of the laws to any person within its jurisdiction.4

*75Idaho does not, of course, deny letters of administration to women altogether. Indeed, under § 15-312, a woman whose spouse dies intestate has a preference over a son, father, brother, or any other male relative of the decedent. Moreover, we can judicially notice that in this country, presumably due to the greater longevity of women, a large proportion of estates, both intestate and under wills of decedents, are administered by surviving widows.

Section 15-314 is restricted in its operation to those situations where competing applications for letters of administration have been filed by both male and female members of the same entitlement class established by § 15-312. In such situations, § 15-314 provides that different treatment be accorded to the applicants on the basis of their sex; it thus establishes a classification subject to scrutiny under the Equal Protection Clause.

In applying that clause, this Court has consistently recognized that the Fourteenth Amendment does not deny to States the power to treat different classes of persons in different ways. Barbier v. Connolly, 113 U. S. 27 (1885); Lindsley v. Natural Carbonic Gas Co., 220 U. S. 61 (1911); Railway Express Agency v. New York, 336 U. S. 106 (1949); McDonald v. Board of Election Commissioners, 394 U. S. 802 (1969). The Equal Protection Clause of that amendment does, however, deny to States the power to legislate that different treatment be accorded to persons placed by a statute into *76different classes on the basis of criteria wholly unrelated to the objective of that statute. A classification “must be reasonable, not arbitrary, and must rest upon some ground of difference having a fair and substantial relation to the object of the legislation, so that all persons similarly circumstanced shall be treated alike.” Royster Guano Co. v. Virginia, 253 U. S. 412, 415 (1920). The question presented by this case, then, is whether a difference in the sex of competing applicants for letters of administration bears a rational relationship to a state objective that is sought to be advanced by the operation of §§ 15-312 and 15-314.

In upholding the latter section, the Idaho Supreme Court concluded that its objective was to eliminate one area of controversy when two or more persons, equally entitled under § 15-312, seek letters of administration and thereby present the probate court “with the issue of which one should be named.” The court also concluded that where such persons are not of the same sex, the elimination of females from consideration “is neither an illogical nor arbitrary method devised by the legislature to resolve an issue that would otherwise require a hearing as to the relative merits ... of the two or more petitioning relatives . . . .” 93 Idaho, at 514, 465 P. 2d, at 638.

Clearly the objective of reducing the workload on probate courts by eliminating one class of contests is not without some legitimacy. The crucial question, however, is whether § 15-314 advances that objective in a manner consistent with the command of the Equal Protection Clause. We hold that it does not. To give a mandatory ¡preference to members of either sex over members of the other, merely to accomplish the elimination of hearings on the merits, is to make the very kind of arbitrary legislative choice forbidden by the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment; and whatever may be *77said as to the positive values of avoiding intrafamily controversy, the choice in this context may not lawfully be mandated solely on the basis of sex.

We note finally that if § 15-314 is viewed merely as a modifying appendage to § 15-312 and as aimed at the same objective, its constitutionality is not thereby saved. The objective of § 15-312 clearly is to establish degrees of entitlement of various classes of persons in accordance with their varying degrees and kinds of relationship to the intestate. Regardless of their sex, persons within any one of the enumerated classes of that section are similarly situated with respect to that objective. By providing dissimilar treatment for men and women who are thus similarly situated, the challenged section violates the Equal Protection Clause. Royster Guano Co. v. Virginia, supra.

The judgment of the Idaho Supreme Court is reversed and the case remanded for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.

Reversed and remanded.

Mr. Justice Brennan

announced the judgment of the Court and an opinion in which Mr. Justice Douglas, Mr. Justice White, and Mr. Justice Marshall join.

The question before us concerns the right of a female member of the uniformed services1 to claim her spouse as a “dependent” for the purposes of obtaining increased quarters allowances and medical and dental benefits under 37 U. S. C. §§ 401, 403, and 10 U. S. C. §§ 1072, 1076, on an equal footing with male members. Under these statutes, a serviceman may claim his wife as a “dependent” without regard to whether she is in fact dependent upon him for any part of her support. 37 U. S. C. § 401 (1); 10 U. S. C. § 1072 (2) (A). A servicewoman, on the other hand, may not claim her husband as a “dependent” under these programs unless he is in fact dependent upon her for over one-half of his sup*679port. 37 TJ. S. C. §401; 10 U. S. C. § 1072 (2) (C).2 Thus, the question for decision is whether this difference in treatment constitutes an unconstitutional discrimination against servicewomen in violation of the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment. A three-judge District Court for the Middle District of Alabama, one judge dissenting, rejected this contention and sustained the constitutionality of the provisions of the statutes making this distinction. 341 F. Supp. 201 (1972). We noted probable jurisdiction. 409 U. S. 840 (1972). We reverse.

I

In an effort to attract career personnel through reenlistment, Congress established, in 37 U. S. C. § 401 et seq., and 10 U. S. C. § 1071 et seq., a scheme for the provision of fringe benefits to members of the uniformed services on a competitive basis with business and industry.3 Thus, under 37 U. S. C. §403, a member of the uniformed services with dependents is entitled to an *680increased “basic allowance for quarters” and, under 10 U. S. C. § 1076, a member’s dependents are provided comprehensive medical and dental care.

Appellant Sharron Frontiero, a lieutenant in the United States Air Force, sought increased quarters allowances, and housing and medical benefits for her husband, appellant Joseph Frontiero, on the ground that he was her “dependent.” Although such benefits would automatically have been granted with respect to the wife of a male member of the uniformed services, appellant’s application was denied because she failed to demonstrate that her husband was dependent on her for more than one-half of his support.4 Appellants then commenced this suit, contending that, by making this distinction, the statutes unreasonably discriminate on the basis of sex in violation of the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment.5 In essence, appellants asserted that the discriminatory impact of the statutes is twofold: first, as a procedural matter, a female member is required to demonstrate her spouse’s dependency, while no such burden is imposed upon male members; and, second, as a substantive matter, a male member who does not provide more than one-half of his wife’s support receives benefits, while a similarly situated female member is denied such benefits. Appellants therefore sought a permanent in*681junction against the continued enforcement of these statutes and an order directing the appellees to provide Lieutenant Frontiero with the same housing and medical benefits that a similarly situated male member would receive.

Although the legislative history of these statutes sheds virtually no light on the purposes underlying the differential treatment accorded male and female members,6 a majority of the three-judge District Court surmised that Congress might reasonably have concluded that, since the husband in our society is generally the “breadwinner” in the family — and the wife typically the “dependent” partner — “it would be more economical to require married female members claiming husbands to prove actual dependency than to extend the presumption of dependency to such members.” 341 F. Supp., at 207. Indeed, given the fact that_ approximately 99% of all members of the uniformed services are male, the District *682Court speculated that such differential treatment might conceivably lead to a “considerable saving of administrative expense and manpower.” Ibid.

II

At the outset, appellants contend that classifications based upon sex, like classifications based upon race,7 alienage,8 and national origin,9 are inherently suspect and must therefore be subjected to close judicial scrutiny. We agree and, indeed, find at least implicit support for such an approach in our unanimous decision only last Term in Reed v. Reed, 404 U. S. 71 (1971).

In Reed, the Court considered the constitutionality of an Idaho statute providing that, when two individuals are otherwise equally entitled to appointment as administrator of an estate, the male applicant must be preferred to the female. Appellant, the mother of the deceased, and appellee, the father, filed competing petitions for appointment as administrator of their son’s estate. Since the parties, as parents of the deceased, were members of the same entitlement class, the statutory preference was invoked and the father’s petition was therefore granted. Appellant claimed that this statute, by giving a mandatory preference to males over females without regard to their individual qualifications, violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

The Court noted that the Idaho statute “provides that different treatment be accorded to the applicants on the basis of their sex; it thus establishes a classification sub*683ject to scrutiny under the Equal Protection Clause.” 404 U. S., at 75. Under “traditional” equal protection analysis, a legislative classification must be sustained unless it is “patently arbitrary” and bears no rational relationship to a legitimate governmental interest. See Jefferson v. Hackney, 406 U. S. 535, 546 (1972); Richardson v. Belcher, 404 U. S. 78, 81 (1971); Flemming v. Nestor, 363 U. S. 603, 611 (1960); McGowan v. Maryland, 366 U. S. 420, 426 (1961); Dandridge v. Williams, 397 U. S. 471, 485 (1970).

In an effort to meet this standard, appellee contended that the statutory scheme was a reasonable measure designed to reduce the workload on probate courts by eliminating one class of contests. Moreover, appellee argued that the mandatory preference for male applicants was in itself reasonable since “men [are] as a rule more conversant with business affairs than . . . women.”10 Indeed, appellee maintained that “it is a matter of common knowledge, that women still are not engaged in politics, the professions, business or industry to the extent that men are.” 11 And the Idaho Supreme Court, in upholding the constitutionality of this statute, suggested that the Idaho Legislature might reasonably have “concluded that in general men are better qualified to act as an administrator than are women.” 12

Despite these contentions, however, the Court held the statutory preference for male applicants unconstitutional. In reaching this result, the Court implicitly rejected appellee’s apparently rational explanation of the statutory scheme, and concluded that, by ignoring the individual qualifications of particular applicants, the challenged statute provided “dissimilar treatment for men and women who are . . . similarly situated.” 404 U. S., *684at 77. The Court therefore held that, even though the State’s interest in achieving administrative efficiency “is not without some legitimacy,” “[t]o give a mandatory preference to members of either sex over members of the other, merely to accomplish the elimination of hearings on the merits, is to make the very kind of arbitrary legislative choice forbidden by the [Constitution] . . . .” Id., at 76. This departure from “traditional” rational-basis analysis with respect to sex-based classifications is clearly justified.

There can be no doubt that our Nation has had a long and unfortunate history of sex discrimination.13 Traditionally, such discrimination was rationalized by an attitude of “romantic paternalism” which, in practical effect, put women, not on a pedestal, but in a cage. Indeed, this paternalistic attitude became so firmly rooted in our national consciousness that, 100 years ago, a distinguished Member of this Court was able to proclaim:

“Man is, or should be, woman’s protector and defender. The natural and proper timidity and delicacy which belongs to the female sex evidently unfits it for many of the occupations of civil life. The constitution of the family organization, which is founded in the divine ordinance, as well as in the nature of things, indicates the domestic sphere as that which properly belongs to the domain and functions of womanhood. The harmony, not to say identity, of interests and views which belong, or should belong, to the family institution is repugnant to the idea of a woman adopting a distinct and *685independent career from that of her husband. . . .

“. . . The paramount destiny and mission of woman are to fulfil the noble and benign offices of wife and mother. This is the law of the Creator.” Bradwell v. State, 16 Wall. 130, 141 (1873) (Bradley, J., concurring).

As a result of notions such as these, our statute books gradually became laden with gross, stereotyped distinctions between the sexes and, indeed, throughout much of the 19th century the position of women in our society was, in many respects, comparable to that of blacks under the pre-Civil War slave codes. Neither slaves nor women could hold office, serve on juries, or bring suit in their own names, and married women traditionally were denied the legal capacity to hold or convey property or to serve as legal guardians of their own children. See generally L. Kanowitz, Women and the Law: The Unfinished Revolution 5-6 (1969); G. Myrdal, An American Dilemma 1073 (20th anniversary ed. 1962). And although blacks were guaranteed the right to vote in 1870, women were denied even that right — which is itself “preservative of other basic civil and political rights” 14 — until adoption of the Nineteenth Amendment half a century later.

It is true, of course, that the position of women in America has improved markedly in recent decades.15 *686Nevertheless, it can hardly be doubted that, in part because of the high visibility of the sex characteristic,16 women still face pervasive, although at times more subtle, discrimination in our educational institutions, in the job market and, perhaps most conspicuously, in the political arena.17 See generally K. Amundsen, The Silenced Majority: Women and American Democracy (1971); The President’s Task Force on Women’s Rights and Responsibilities, A Matter of Simple Justice (1970).

Moreover, since sex, like race and national origin, is an immutable characteristic determined solely by the accident of birth, the imposition of special disabilities upon the members of a particular sex because of their sex would seem to violate “the basic concept of our system that legal burdens should bear some relationship to individual responsibility . . . .” Weber v. Aetna Casualty & Surety Co., 406 U. S. 164, 175 (1972). And what differentiates sex from such nonsuspect statuses as intelligence or physical disability, and aligns it with the recognized suspect criteria, is that the sex characteristic frequently bears no relation to ability to perform or contribute to society.18 As a result, statutory distinc*687tions between the sexes often have the effect of invidiously-relegating the entire class of females to inferior legal status without regard to the actual capabilities of its individual members.

We might also note that, over the past decade, Congress has itself manifested an increasing sensitivity to sex-based classifications. In Tit. VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, for example, Congress expressly declared that no employer, labor union, or other organization subject to the provisions of the Act shall discriminate against any individual on the basis of “race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.” 19 Similarly, the Equal Pay Act of 1963 provides that no employer covered by the Act “shall discriminate . . . between employees on the basis of sex.” 20 And § 1 of the Equal Rights Amendment, passed by Congress on March 22, 1972, and submitted to the legislatures of the States for ratification, declares that “[e] quality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.” 21 Thus, Congress itself has concluded that classifications based upon sex are inherently invidious, and this conclusion of a coequal *688branch of Government is not without significance to the question presently under consideration.' Cf. Oregon v. Mitchell, 400 U. S. 112, 240, 248-249 (1970) (opinion of Brennan, White, and Marshall, JJ.); Katzenbach v. Morgan, 384 U. S. 641, 648-649 (1966).

With these considerations in mind, we can only conclude that classifications based upon sex, like classifications based upon race, alienage, or national origin, are inherently suspect, and must therefore be subjected to strict judicial scrutiny. Applying the analysis mandated by that stricter standard of review, it is clear that the statutory scheme now before us is constitutionally invalid.

III

The sole basis of the classification established in the challenged statutes is the sex of the individuals involved. Thus, under 37 U. S. C. §§ 401, 403, and 10 U. S. C. §§ 1072, 1076, a female member of the uniformed services seeking to obtain housing and medical benefits for her spouse must prove his dependency in fact, whereas no such burden is imposed upon male members. In addition, the statutes operate so as to deny benefits to a female member, such as appellant Sharron Frontiero, who provides less than one-half of her spouse’s support, while at the same time granting such benefits to a male member who likewise provides less than one-half of his spouse’s support. Thus, to this extent at least, it may fairly be said that these statutes command “dissimilar treatment for men and women who are . . . similarly situated.” Reed v. Reed, 404 U. S., at 77.

Moreover, the Government concedes that the differential treatment accorded men and women under these statutes serves no purpose other than mere “administrative convenience.” In essence, the Government maintains that, as an empirical matter, wives in our society frequently are dependent upon their husbands, while hus*689bands rarely are dependent upon their wives. Thus, the Government argues that Congress might reasonably have concluded that it would be both cheaper and easier simply conclusively to presume that wives of male members are financially dependent upon their husbands, while burdening female members with the task of establishing dependency in fact.22

The Government offers no concrete evidence, however, tending to support its view that such differential treatment in fact saves the Government any money. In order to satisfy the demands of strict judicial scrutiny, the Government must demonstrate, for example, that it is actually cheaper to grant increased benefits with respect to all male members, than it is to determine which male members are in fact entitled to such benefits and to grant increased benefits only to those members whose wives actually meet the dependency requirement. Here, however, there is substantial evidence that, if put to the test, many of the wives of male members would fail to qualify for benefits.23 And in light of the fact that the *690dependency determination with respect to the husbands of female members is presently made solely on the basis of affidavits, rather than through the more costly hearing process,24 the Government’s explanation of the statutory scheme is, to say the least, questionable.

In any case, our prior decisions make clear that, although efficacious administration of governmental programs is not without some importance, “the Constitution recognizes higher values than speed and efficiency.” Stanley v. Illinois, 405 U. S. 645, 656 (1972). And when we enter the realm of “strict judicial scrutiny,” there can be no doubt that “administrative convenience” is not a shibboleth, the mere recitation of which dictates constitutionality. See Shapiro v. Thompson, 394 U. S. 618 (1969); Carrington v. Bash, 380 U. S. 89 (1965). On the contrary, any statutory scheme which draws a sharp line between the sexes, solely for the purpose of achieving administrative convenience, necessarily commands “dissimilar treatment for men and women who are . . . similarly situated,” and therefore involves the “very kind of arbitrary legislative choice forbidden by the [Constitution] . . . .” Reed v. Reed, 404 U. S., at 77, 76. We therefore conclude that, by according differential treatment to male and female members of the uniformed services for the sole purpose of achieving administrative *691convenience, the challenged statutes violate the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment insofar as they require a female member to prove the dependency of her husband.25

Reversed.

Mr. Justice Stewart concurs in the judgment, agreeing that the statutes before us work an invidious discrimination in violation of the Constitution. Reed v. Reed, 404 U. S. 71.

Mr. Justice Rehnquist dissents for the reasons stated by Judge Rives in his opinion for the District Court, Frontiero v. Laird, 341 F. Supp. 201 (1972).

Mr. Justice Powell,

with whom The Chief Justice and Mr. Justice Blackmun join,

concurring in the judgment.

I agree that the challenged statutes constitute an unconstitutional discrimination against servicewomen in violation of the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment, but I cannot join the opinion of Mr. Justice Brennan, which would hold that all classifications based upon sex, “like classifications based upon race, alienage, and national origin,” are “inherently suspect and must therefore be subjected to close judicial scrutiny.” Ante, at 682. It is unnecessary for the Court in this case to *692characterize sex as a suspect classification, with all of the far-reaching implications of such a holding. Reed v. Read, 404 U. S. 71 (1971), which abundantly supports our decision today, did not add sex to the narrowly limited group of classifications which are inherently suspect. In my view, we can and should decide this case on the authority of Reed and reserve for the future any expansion of its rationale.

There is another, and I find compelling, reason for deferring a general categorizing of sex classifications as invoking the strictest test of judicial scrutiny. The Equal Rights Amendment, which if adopted will resolve the substance of this precise question, has been approved by the Congress and submitted for ratification by the States. If this Amendment is duly adopted, it will represent the will of the people accomplished in the manner prescribed by the Constitution. By acting prematurely and unnecessarily, as I view it, the Court has assumed a decisional responsibility at the very time when state legislatures, functioning within the traditional democratic process, are debating the proposed Amendment. It seems to me that this reaching out to pre-empt by judicial action a major political decision which is currently in process of resolution does not reflect appropriate respect for duly prescribed legislative processes.

There are times when this Court, under our system, cannot avoid a constitutional decision on issues which normally should be resolved by the elected representatives of the people. But democratic institutions are weakened, and confidence in the restraint of the Court is impaired, when we appear unnecessarily to decide sensitive issues of broad social and political importance at the very time they are under'consideration within the prescribed constitutional processes.

Me. Justice White

delivered the opinion of the Court.

When this case was tried, Art. VII, § 41,1 of the Louisiana Constitution, and Art. 402 of the Louisiana Code of Criminal Procedure2 provided that a woman should not be selected for jury service unless she had previously filed a written declaration of her desire to be subject to jury service. The constitutionality of these provisions is the issue in this case.

*524I

Appellant, Billy J. Taylor, was indicted by the grand jury of St. Tammany Parish, in the Twenty-second Judicial District of Louisiana, for aggravated kidnaping. On April 12, 1972, appellant moved the trial court to quash the petit jury venire drawn for the special criminal term beginning with his trial the following day. Appellant alleged that women were systematically excluded from the venire and that he would therefore be deprived of what he claimed to be his federal constitutional right to “a fair trial by jury of a representative segment of the community . . . .”

The Twenty-second Judicial District comprises the parishes of St. Tammany and Washington. The ap-pellee has stipulated that 53% of the persons eligible for jury service in these parishes were female, and that no more than 10% of the persons on the jury wheel in St. Tammany Parish were women.3 During the period from December 8, 1971, to November 3, 1972, 12 females were among the 1,800 persons drawn to fill petit jury venires in St. Tammany Parish. It was also stipulated that the discrepancy between females eligible for jury service and those actually included in the venire was the result of the operation of La. Const., Art. VII, § 41, and La. Code Crim. Proc., Art. 402.4 In the present case, a venire totaling 175 persons was drawn for jury service beginning April 13, 1972. There were no females on the venire.

Appellant’s motion to quash the venire was denied that same day. After being tried, convicted, and sentenced to death, appellant sought review in the Supreme Court of Louisiana, where he renewed his claim that the *525petit jury venire should have been quashed. The Supreme Court of Louisiana, recognizing that this claim drew into question the constitutionality of the provisions of the Louisiana Constitution and Code of Criminal Procedure dealing with the service of women on juries, squarely held, one justice dissenting, that these provisions were valid and not unconstitutional under federal law. 282 So. 2d 491, 497 (1973) .5

Appellant appealed from that decision to this Court. We noted probable jurisdiction, 415 U. S. 911 (1974), to consider whether the Louisiana jury-selection system deprived appellant of his Sixth and Fourteenth Amendment right to an impartial jury trial. We hold that it did and that these Amendments were violated in this case by the operation of La. Const., Art. VII, § 41, and La. Code Crim. Proc., Art. 402. In consequence, appellant’s conviction must be reversed.

II

The Louisiana jury-selection system does not disqualify women from jury service, but in operation its conceded systematic impact is that only a very few women, grossly disproportionate to the number of eligible women in the community, are called for jury service. In this case, no women were on the venire from which the petit jury was drawn. The issue we have, therefore, is whether a jury-selection system which operates to exclude from jury service an identifiable class of citizens constituting 53% *526of eligible jurors in the community comports with the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments.

The State first insists that Taylor, a male, has no standing to object to the exclusion of women from his jury. But Taylor’s claim is that he was constitutionally entitled to a jury drawn from a venire constituting a fair cross section of the community and that the jury that tried him was not such a jury by reason of the exclusion of women. Taylor was not a member of the excluded class; but there is no rule that claims such as Taylor presents may be made only by those defendants who are members of the group excluded from jury service. In Peters v. Kiff, 407 U. S. 493 (1972), the defendant, a white man, challenged his conviction on the ground that Negroes had been systematically excluded from jury service. Six Members of the Court agreed that petitioner was entitled to present the issue and concluded that he had been deprived of his federal rights. Taylor,, in the case before us, was similarly entitled to tender and have adjudicated the claim that the exclusion of women from jury service deprived him of the kind of factfinder to which he was constitutionally entitled.

Ill

The background against which this case must be decided includes our holding in Duncan v. Louisiana, 391 U. S. 145 (1968), that the Sixth Amendment’s provision for jury trial is made binding on the States by virtue of the Fourteenth Amendment. Our inquiry is whether the presence of a fair cross section of the community on venires, panels, or lists from which petit juries are drawn is essential to the fulfillment of the Sixth Amendment’s guarantee of an impartial jury trial in criminal prosecutions.

The Court’s prior cases are instructive. Both in the *527course of exercising its supervisory powers over trials in federal courts and in the constitutional context, the Court has unambiguously declared that the American concept of the jury trial contemplates a jury drawn from a fair cross section of the community. A unanimous Court stated in Smith v. Texas, 311 U. S. 128, 130 (1940), that “[i]t is part of the established tradition in the use of juries as instruments of public justice that the jury be a body truly representative of the community.” To exclude racial groups from jury service was said to be “at war with our basic concepts of a democratic society and a representative government.” A state jury system that resulted in systematic exclusion of Negroes as jurors was therefore held to violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Glosser v. United States, 315 U. S. 60, 85-86 (1942), in the context of a federal criminal case and the Sixth Amendment’s jury trial requirement, stated that “[o]ur notions of what a proper jury is have developed in harmony with our basic concepts of a democratic society and a representative government,” and repeated the Court’s understanding that the jury “ ‘be a body truly representative of the community’ . . . and not the organ of any special group or class.”

A federal conviction by a jury from which women had been excluded, although eligible for service under state law, was reviewed in Ballard v. United States, 329 U. S. 187 (1946). Noting the federal statutory “design to make the jury ‘a cross-section of the community’ ” and the fact that women had been excluded, the Court exercised its supervisory powers over the federal courts and reversed the conviction. In Brown v. Allen, 344 U. S. 443, 474 (1953), the Court declared that “[o]ur duty to protect the federal constitutional rights of all does not mean we must or should impose on states our conception of the proper source of jury lists, so long as the source *528reasonably reflects a cross-section of the population suitable in character and intelligence for that civic duty.”

Some years later in Carter v. Jury Comm’n, 396 U. S. 320, 330 (1970), the Court observed that the exclusion of Negroes from jury service because of their race “contravenes the very idea of a jury — ‘a body truly representative of the community’ . . . (Quoting from Smith v. Texas, supra.) At about the same time it was contended that the use of six-man juries in noncapital criminal cases violated the Sixth Amendment for failure to provide juries drawn from a cross section of the community, Williams v. Florida, 399 U. S. 78 (1970). In the course of rejecting that challenge, we said that the number of persons on the jury should “be large enough to promote group deliberation, free from outside attempts at intimidation, and to provide a fair possibility for obtaining a representative cross-section of the community.” Id., at 100. In like vein, in Apodaca v. Oregon, 406 U. S. 404, 410-411 (1972) (plurality opinion), it was said that “a jury will come to such a [commonsense] judgment as long as it consists of a group of laymen representative of a cross section of the community who have the duty and the opportunity to deliberate ... on the question of a defendant’s guilt.” Similarly, three Justices in Peters v. Kiff, 407 U. S., at 500, observed that the Sixth Amendment comprehended a fair possibility for obtaining a jury constituting a representative cross section of the community.

The unmistakable import of this Court’s opinions, at least since 1940, Smith v. Texas, supra, and not repudiated by intervening decisions, is that the selection of a petit jury from a representative cross section of the community is an essential component of the Sixth Amendment right to a jury trial. Recent federal legislation governing jury selection within the federal court system has a similar thrust. Shortly prior to this Court’s decision *529in Duncan v. Louisiana, supra, the Federal Jury Selection and Service Act of 1968 6 was enacted. In that Act, Congress stated “the policy of the United States that all litigants in Federal courts entitled to trial by jury shall have the right to grand and petit juries selected at random from a fair cross section of the community in the district or division wherein the court convenes.” 28 U. S. C. § 1861. In that Act, Congress also established the machinery by which the stated policy was to be implemented. 28 U. S. C. §§ 1862-1866. In passing this legislation, the Committee Reports of both the House7 and the Senate8 recognized that the jury plays a political function in the administration of the law and *530that the requirement of a jury’s being chosen from a fair cross section of the community is fundamental to the American system of justice. Debate on the floors of the House and Senate on the Act invoked the Sixth Amendment,9 the Constitution generally,10 and prior decisions of this Court11 in support of the Act.

We accept the fair-cross-section requirement as fundamental to the jury trial guaranteed by the Sixth Amendment and are convinced that the requirement has solid foundation. The purpose of a jury is to guard against the exercise of arbitrary power — to make available the commonsense judgment of the community as a hedge against the overzealous or mistaken prosecutor and in preference to the professional or perhaps over-conditioned or biased response of a judge. Duncan v. Louisiana, 391 U. S., at 155-156. This prophylactic vehicle is not provided if the jury pool is made up of only special segments of the populace or if large, distinctive groups are excluded from the pool. Community participation in the administration of the criminal law, moreover, is not only consistent with our democratic heritage but is also critical to public confidence in the fairness of the criminal justice system. Restricting jury service to only special groups or excluding identifiable segments playing major roles in the community cannot be squared with the constitutional concept of jury trial. “Trial by jury presupposes a jury drawn from a pool broadly representative of the community as well as impartial in a specific case.... [T]he broad representative character of the jury should be maintained, partly as assurance of a diffused impartiality and partly *531because sharing in the administration of justice is a phase of civic responsibility.” Thiel v. Southern Pacific Co., 328 U. S. 217, 227 (1946) (Frankfurter, J., dissenting).

IV

We are also persuaded that the fair-cross-section requirement is violated by the systematic exclusion of women, who in the judicial district involved here amounted to 53% of the citizens eligible for jury service. This conclusion necessarily entails the judgment that women are sufficiently numerous and distinct from men and that if they are systematically eliminated from jury panels, the Sixth Amendment’s fair-cross-section requirement cannot be satisfied. This very matter was debated in Ballard v. United States, supra. Positing the fair-cross-section rule — there said to be a statutory one — the Court concluded that the systematic exclusion of women was unacceptable. The dissenting view that an all-male panel drawn from various groups in the community would be as truly representative as if women were included, was firmly rejected:

“The thought is that the factors which tend to influence the action of women are the same as those which influence the action of men — personality, background, economic status — and not sex. Yet it is not enough to say that women when sitting as jurors neither act nor tend to act as a class. Men likewise do not act as a class. But, if the shoe were on the other foot, who would claim that a jury was truly representative of the community if all men were intentionally and systematically excluded from the panel? The truth is that the two sexes are not fungible; a community made up exclusively of one is different from a community composed of both; the subtle interplay of influence one on the other is *532among the imponderables. To insulate the courtroom from either may not in a given case make an iota of difference. ■ Yet a flavor, a distinct quality is lost if either sex is excluded. The exclusion of one may indeed make the jury less representative of the community than would be true if an economic or racial group were excluded.” 329 U. S., at 193-194.12

*533In this respect, we agree with the Court in Ballard: If the fair-cross-section rule is to govern the selection of juries, as we have concluded it must, women cannot be systematically excluded from jury panels from which petit juries are drawn. This conclusion is consistent with the current judgment of the country, now evidenced by legislative or constitutional provisions in every State and at the federal level qualifying women for jury service.13

V

There remains the argument that women as a class serve a distinctive role in society and that jury service would so substantially interfere with that function that the State has ample justification for excluding women from service unless they volunteer, even though the result is that almost all jurors are men. It is true that Hoyt v. Florida, 368 U. S. 57 (1961), held that such a system14 did not deny due process of law or equal pro*534tection of the laws because there was a sufficiently rational basis for such an exemption.15 But Hoyt did not involve a defendant’s Sixth Amendment right to a jury drawn from a fair cross section of the community and the prospect of depriving him of that right if women as a class are systematically excluded. The right to a proper jury cannot be overcome on merely rational grounds.16 There must be weightier reasons if a distinctive class representing 53% of the eligible jurors is for all practical purposes to be excluded from jury service. No such basis has been tendered here.

The States are free to grant exemptions from jury service to individuals in case of special hardship or incapacity and to those engaged in particular occupations the uninterrupted performance of which is critical to the community’s welfare. Rawlins v. Georgia, 201 U. S. 638 (1906). It would not appear that such exemptions would pose substantial threats that the remaining pool of jurors would not be representative of the community. A system excluding all women, however, is a wholly different matter. It is untenable to suggest these days that it would be a special hardship for each and every woman to perform jury service or that society cannot *535spare any women from their present duties.17 This may be the case with many, and it may be burdensome to sort out those who should be exempted from those who should serve. But that task is performed in the case of men, and the administrative convenience in dealing with women as a class is insufficient justification for diluting the quality of community judgment represented by the jury in criminal trials.

VI

Although this judgment may appear a foregone conclusion from the pattern of some of the Court’s cases over the past 30 years, as well as from legislative developments at both federal and state levels, it is nevertheless true that until today no case had squarely held that the exclusion of women from jury venires deprives a criminal *536defendant of his Sixth Amendment right to trial by an impartial jury drawn from a fair cross section of the community. It is apparent that the first Congress did not perceive the Sixth Amendment as requiring women on criminal jury panels; for the direction of the First Judiciary Act of 1789 was that federal jurors were to have the qualifications required by the States in which the federal court was sitting18 and at the time women were disqualified under state law in every State. Necessarily, then, federal juries in criminal cases were all male, and it was not until the Civil Rights Act of 1967, 71 Stat. 638, 28 U. S. C. § 1861 (1964 ed.), that Congress itself provided that all citizens, with limited exceptions, were competent to sit on federal juries. Until that time, federal courts were required by statute to exclude women from jury duty in those States where women were disqualified. Utah was the first State to qualify women for juries;, it did so in 1898, n. 13, supra. Moreover, Hoyt v. Florida was decided and has stood for the proposition that, even if women as a group could not be constitutionally disqualified from jury service, there was ample reason to treat all women differently from men for the purpose of jury service and to exclude them unless they volunteered.19

*537Accepting as we do, however, the view that the Sixth Amendment affords the defendant in a criminal trial the opportunity to have the jury drawn from venires representative of the community, we think it is no longer tenable to hold that women as a class may be excluded or given automatic exemptions based solely on sex if the consequence is that criminal jury venires are almost totally male. To this extent we cannot follow the contrary implications of the prior cases, including Hoyt v. Florida. If it was ever the case that women were unqualified to sit on juries or were so situated that none of them should be required to perform jury service, that time has long since passed. If at one time it could be held that Sixth Amendment juries must be drawn from a fair cross section of the community but that this requirement permitted the almost total exclusion of women, this is not the case today. Communities differ at different times and places. What is a fair cross section at one time or place is not necessarily a fair cross section at another time or a different place. Nothing persuasive has been presented to us in this case suggesting that all-male venires in the parishes involved here are fairly representative of the local population otherwise eligible for jury service.

^

Our holding does not augur or authorize the fashioning of detailed jury-selection codes by federal courts. The *538fair-cross-section principle must have much leeway in application. The States remain free to prescribe relevant qualifications for their jurors and to provide reasonable exemptions so long as it may be fairly said that the jury lists or panels are representative of the community. Carter v. Jury Comm’n, supra, as did Brown v. Allen, supra; Rawlins v. Georgia, supra, and other cases, recognized broad discretion in the States in this respect. We do not depart from the principles enunciated in Carter. But, as we have said, Louisiana’s special exemption for women operates to exclude them from petit juries, which in our view is contrary to the command of the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments.

It should also be emphasized that in holding that petit juries must be drawn from a source fairly representative of the community we impose no requirement that petit juries actually chosen must mirror the community and reflect the various distinctive groups in the population. Defendants are not entitled to a jury of any particular composition, Fay v. New York, 332 U. S. 261, 284 (1947); Apodaca v. Oregon, 406 U. S., at 413 (plurality opinion) ; but the jury wheels, pools of names, panels, or venires from which juries are drawn must not systematically exclude distinctive groups in the community and thereby fail to be reasonably representative thereof.

The judgment of the Louisiana Supreme Court is reversed and the case remanded to that court for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.

So ordered.

Mr. Chief Justice Burger concurs in the result.

Mr. Justice Rehnquist,

dissenting.

The Court’s opinion reverses a conviction without a suggestion, much less a showing, that the appellant has been unfairly treated or prejudiced in any way by the *539manner in which his jury was selected. In so doing, the Court invalidates a jury-selection system which it approved by a substantial majority only 13 years ago. I disagree with the Court and would afl&rm the judgment of the Supreme Court of Louisiana.

The majority opinion canvasses various of our jury trial cases, beginning with Smith v. Texas, 311 U. S. 128 (1940). Relying on carefully chosen quotations, it concludes that the “unmistakable import” of our cases is that the fair-cross-section requirement “is an essential component of the Sixth Amendment right to a jury trial.” I disagree. Fairly read, the only “unmistakable import” of those cases is that due process and equal protection prohibit jury-selection systems which are likely to result in biased or partial juries. Smith v. Texas, supra, concerned the equal protection claim of a Negro who was indicted by a grand jury from which Negroes had been systematically excluded. Glasser v. United States, 315 U. S. 60 (1942), dealt with allegations that the only women selected for jury service were members of a private organization which had conducted pro-prosecution classes for prospective jurors. Brown v. Allen, 344 U. S. 443 (1953), rejected the equal protection and due process contentions of several black defendants that members of their race had been discriminatorily excluded from their juries. Carter v. Jury Comm’n, 396 U. S. 320 (1970), similarly dealt with equal protection challenges to a jury-selection system, but the persons claiming such rights were blacks who had sought to serve as jurors.

In Hoyt v. Florida, 368 U. S. 57 (1961), this Court gave plenary consideration to contentions that a system such as Louisiana’s deprived a defendant of equal protection and due process. These contentions were rejected, despite circumstances which were much more suggestive of possible bias and prejudice than are those here — the de*540fendant in Hoyt was a woman whose defense to charges of murdering her husband was that she had been driven temporarily insane by his suspected infidelity and by his rejection of her efforts at reconciliation. Id., at 58-59. The complete swing of the judicial pendulum 13 years later must depend for its validity on the proposition that during those years things have changed in constitutionally significant ways. I am not persuaded of the sufficiency of either of the majority’s proffered explanar tions as to intervening events.

The first determinative event, in the Court’s view, is Duncan v. Louisiana, 391 U. S. 145 (1968). Because the Sixth Amendment was there held applicable to the States, the Court feels free to dismiss Hoyt as a case which dealt with entirely different issues — even though in fact it presented the identical problem. But Duncan’s rationale is a good deal less expansive than is suggested by the Court’s present interpretation of that case. Duncan rests on the following reasoning:

“The test for determining whether a right extended by the Fifth and Sixth Amendments with respect to federal criminal proceedings is also protected against state action by the Fourteenth Amendment has been phrased in a variety of ways in the opinions of this Court. The question has been asked whether a right is among those ‘ “fundamental principles of liberty and justice which lie at the base of all our civil and political institutions,” ’ Powell v. Alabama, 287 U. S. 45, 67 (1932); whether it is ‘basic in our system of jurisprudence,’ In re Oliver, 333 U. S. 257, 273 (1948); and whether it is ‘a fundamental right, essential to a fair trial,’ Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U. S. 335, 343-344 (1963); Malloy v. Hogan, 378 U. S. 1, 6 (1964); Pointer v. Texas, 380 U. S. 400, 403 (1965). . . . Because we believe that trial by *541jury in criminal cases is fundamental to the American scheme of justice, we hold that the Fourteenth Amendment guarantees a right of jury trial in all criminal cases . . . Id., at 148-149. (Emphasis added.)

That this is a sturdy test, one not readily satisfied by every discrepancy between federal and state practice, was made clear not only in Williams v. Florida, 399 U. S. 78 (1970), and Apodaca v. Oregon, 406 U. S. 404 (1972), but also in Duncan itself. In explaining the conclusion that a jury trial is fundamental to our scheme of justice, and therefore should be required of the States, the Court pointed out that jury trial was designed to be a defense “against arbitrary law enforcement,” 391 U. S., at 156, and “to prevent oppression by the Government.” Id., at 155. The Court stated its belief that jury trial for serious offenses is “essential for preventing miscarriages of justice and for assuring that fair trials are provided for all defendants.” Id., at 158.

I cannot conceive that today’s decision is necessary to guard against oppressive or arbitrary law enforcement, or to prevent miscarriages of justice and to assure fair trials. Especially is this so when the criminal defendant involved makes no claims of prejudice or bias. The Court does accord some slight attention to justifying its ruling in terms of the basis on which the right to jury trial was read into the Fourteenth Amendment. It concludes that the jury is not effective, as a prophylaxis against arbitrary prosecutorial and judicial power, if the “jury pool is made up of only special segments of the populace or if large, distinctive groups are excluded from the pool.” Ante, at 530. It fails, however, to provide any satisfactory explanation of the mechanism by which the Louisiana system undermines the prophylactic role of the jury, either in general or in this case. The best it can do is to *542posit “ ‘a flavor, a distinct quality,’ ” which allegedly is lost if either sex is excluded. Ante, at 532. However, this “flavor” is not of such importance that the Constitution is offended if any given petit jury is not so enriched. Ante, at 538. This smacks more of mysticism than of law. The Court does not even purport to practice its mysticism in a consistent fashion — presumably doctors, lawyers, and other groups, whose frequent exemption from jury service is endorsed by the majority, also offer qualities as distinct and important as those at issue here.

In Hoyt, this Court considered a stronger due process claim than is before it today, but found that fundamental fairness had not been offended. I do not understand how our intervening decision in Duncan can support a different result. After all, Duncan imported the Sixth Amendment into the Due Process Clause only because, and only to the extent that, this was perceived to be required by fundamental fairness.

The second change since Hoyt that appears to under-gird the Court’s turnabout is societal in nature, encompassing both our higher degree of sensitivity to distinctions based on sex, and the “evolving nature of the structure of the family unit in American society.” Ante, at 535 n. 17. These are matters of degree, and it is perhaps of some significance that in 1961 Mr. Justice Harlan saw fit to refer to the “enlightened emancipation of women from the restrictions and protections of bygone years, and their entry into many parts of community life formerly considered to be reserved to men.” Hoyt, 368 U. S., at 61-62. Nonetheless, it may be fair to conclude that the Louisiana system is in fact an anachronism, inappropriate at this “time or place.” Ante, at 537. But surely constitutional adjudication is a more canalized function than enforcing as against the States this Court’s perception of modern life.

*543Absent any suggestion that appellant’s trial was unfairly conducted, or that its result was unreliable, I would not require Louisiana to retry him (assuming the State can once again produce its evidence and witnesses) in order to impose on him the sanctions which its laws provide.

Mr. Justice Brennan

delivered the opinion of the Court.

The interaction of two sections of an Oklahoma statute, Okla. Stat., Tit. 37, §§ 241 and 245 (.1958 and Supp. 1976) ,1 *192prohibits the sale of “nonintoxicating” 3.2% beer to males under the age of 21 and to females under the age of 18. The question to be decided is whether such a gender-based differential constitutes a denial to males 18-20 years of age of the equal protection of the laws in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment.

This action was brought in the District Court for the Western District of Oklahoma on December 20, 1972, by appellant Craig, a male then between 18 and 21 years of age, and by appellant Whitener, a licensed vendor of 3.2% beer. The complaint sought declaratory and injunctive relief against enforcement of the gender-based differential on the ground that it constituted invidious discrimination against males 18-20 years of age. A three-judge court convened under 28 U. S. C. § 2281 sustained the constitutionality of the statutory differential and dismissed the action. 399 F. Supp. 1304 (1975). We noted probable jurisdiction of appellants’ appeal, 423 U. S. 1047 (1976). We reverse.

I

We first address a preliminary question of standing. Appellant Craig attained the age of 21 after we noted probable jurisdiction. Therefore, since only declaratory and injunctive relief against enforcement of the gender-based differential is sought, the controversy has been rendered moot as to Craig. See, e. g., DeFunis v. Odegaard, 416 U. S. 312 (1974).2 The question thus arises whether appellant Whitener, the licensed vendor of 3.2% beer, who has a live controversy against enforcement of the statute, may rely upon the equal protection objections of males 18-20 years of age to establish her claim of *193unconstitutionality of the age-sex differential. We conclude that she may.

Initially, it should be noted that, despite having had the opportunity to do so,3 appellees never raised before the District Court any objection to Whitener’s reliance upon the claimed unequal treatment of 18-20-year-old males as the premise of her equal protection challenge to Oklahoma’s 3.2% beer law. See 399 P. Supp., at 1306 n. 1. Indeed, at oral argument Oklahoma acknowledged that appellees always “presumed” that the vendor, subject to sanctions and loss of license for violation of the statute, was a proper party in interest to object to the enforcement of the sex-based regulatory provision. Tr. of Oral Arg. 41. While such a concession certainly would not be controlling upon the reach of this Court’s constitutional authority to exercise jurisdiction under Art. III, see, e. g., Sierra Club v. Morton, 405 U. S. 727, 732 n. 3 (1972); cf. Data Processing Service v. Camp, 397 U. S. 150, 151 (1970), our decisions have settled that limitations on a litigant’s assertion of jus tertii are not constitutionally mandated, but rather stem from a salutary “rule of self-restraint” designed to minimize unwarranted intervention into controversies where the applicable constitutional questions are ill-defined and speculative. See, e. g., Barrows v. Jackson, 346 U. S. 249, 255, 257 (1953); see also Singleton v. Wulff, 428 U. S. 106, 123-124 (1976) (Powell, J.; dissenting). These prudential objectives, thought to be enhanced by restrictions on third-party standing, cannot be furthered here, where the lower court already has entertained the relevant constitutional challenge and the parties have sought — or at least have never resisted — an authoritative constitutional determination. In such circumstances, a decision by us to forgo *194consideration of the constitutional merits in order to await the initiation of a new challenge to the statute by injured third parties would be impermissibly to foster repetitive and time-consuming litigation under the guise of caution and prudence. Moreover, insofar as the applicable constitutional questions have been and continue to be presented vigorously and “cogently,” Holden v. Hardy, 169 U. S. 366, 397 (1898), the denial of jus tertii standing in deference to a direct class suit can serve no functional purpose. Our Brother Blackmun’s comment is pertinent: “[I]t may be that a class could be assembled, whose fluid membership always included some [males] with live claims. But if the assertion of the right is to be ‘representative’ to such an extent anyway, there seems little loss in terms of effective advocacy from allowing its assertion by” the present jus tertii champion. Singleton v. Wulff, supra, at 117-118.

In any event, we conclude that appellant Whitener has established independently her claim to assert jus tertii standing. The operation of §§ 241 and 245 plainly has inflicted “injury in fact” upon appellant sufficient to guarantee her “concrete adverseness,” Baker v. Carr, 369 U. S. 186, 204 (1962), and to satisfy the constitutionally based standing requirements imposed by Art. III. The legal duties created by the statutory sections under challenge are addressed directly to vendors such as appellant. She is obliged either to heed the statutory discrimination, thereby incurring a direct economic injury through the constriction of her buyers’ market, or to disobey the statutory command and suffer, in the words of Oklahoma’s Assistant Attorney General, “sanctions and perhaps loss of license.” Tr. of Oral Arg. 41. This Court repeatedly has recognized that such injuries establish the threshold requirements of a “case or controversy” mandated by Art. III. See, e. g., Singleton v. Wulff, supra, at 113 (doctors who receive payments for their abortion services are “classically adverse” to government as payer); Sullivan v. Little Hunting *195Park, 396 U. S. 229, 237 (1969); Barrows v. Jackson, supra, at 255-256.

As a vendor with standing to challenge the lawfulness of § § 241 and 245, appellant Whitener is entitled to assert those concomitant rights of third parties that would be “diluted or adversely affected” should her constitutional challenge fail and the statutes remain in force. Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U. S. 479, 481 (1965); see Note, Standing to Assert Constitutional Jus Tertii, 88 Harv. L. Rev. 423, 432 (1974). Otherwise, the threatened imposition of governmental sanctions might deter appellant Whitener and other similarly situated vendors from selling 3.2% beer to young males, thereby ensuring that “enforcement of the challenged restriction against the [vendor] would result indirectly in the violation of third parties' rights.” Warth v. Seldin, 422 U. S. 490, 510 (1975). Accordingly, vendors and those in like positions have been uniformly permitted to resist efforts at restricting their operations by acting as advocates of the rights of third parties who seek access to their market or function. See, e. g., Eisenstadt v. Baird, 405 U. S. 438 (1972); Sullivan v. Little Hunting Park, supra; Barrows v. Jackson, supra.4

*196Indeed, the jus tertii question raised here is answered by our disposition of a like argument in Eisenstadt v. Baird, supra. There, as here, a state statute imposed legal duties and disabilities upon the claimant, who was convicted of distributing a package of contraceptive foam to a third party.5 Since the statute was directed at Baird and penalized his conduct, the Court did not hesitate — again as here — to conclude that the “case or controversy” requirement of Art. Ill was satisfied. 405 U. S., at 443. In considering Baird’s constitutional objections, the Court fully recognized his standing to defend the privacy interests of third parties. Deemed crucial to the decision to permit jus tertii standing was the recognition of “the impact of the litigation on the third-party interests.” Id., at 445. Just as the defeat of Baird’s suit and the “[enforcement of the Massachusetts statute will materially impair the ability of single persons to obtain contraceptives,” id., at 446, so too the failure of Whitener to prevail in this suit and the continued enforcement of §§ 241 and 245 will “materially impair the ability of” males 18-20 years of age to purchase 3.2% beer despite their classification by an overt gender-based criterion. Similarly, just as the Massachusetts law in Eisenstadt “prohibit[ed], *197not use, but distribution,” 405 U. S., at 446, and consequently the least awkward challenger was one in Baird’s position who was subject to that proscription, the law challenged here explicitly regulates the sale rather than use of 3.2% beer, thus leaving a vendor as the obvious claimant.

We therefore hold that Whitener has standing to- raise relevant equal protection challenges to Oklahoma’s gender-based law. We now consider those arguments.

II

A

Before 1972, Oklahoma defined the commencement of civil majority at age 18 for females and age 21 for males. Okla. Stat., Tit. 15, § 13 (1972 and Supp. 1976). In contrast, females were held criminally responsible as adults at age 18 and males at age 16. Okla. Stat., Tit. 10, § 1101 (a) (Supp. 1976). After the Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit held in 1972, on the authority of Reed v. Reed, 404 U. S. 71 (1971), that the age distinction was unconstitutional for purposes of establishing criminal responsibility as adults, Lamb v. Brown, 456 F. 2d 18, the Oklahoma Legislature fixed age 18 as applicable to both males and females. Okla. Stat., Tit. 10, § 1101 (a) (Supp. 1976). In 1972, 18 also was established as the age of majority for males and females in civil matters, Okla. Stat., Tit. 15, § 13 (1972 and Supp. 1976), except that §§241 and 245 of the 3.2% beer statute were simultaneously codified to create an exception to the gender-free rule.

Analysis may appropriately begin with the reminder that Reed emphasized that statutory classifications that distinguish between males and females are “subject to scrutiny under the Equal Protection Clause.” 404 U. S., at 75. To withstand constitutional challenge, previous cases establish that classifications by gender must serve important governmental objectives and must be substantially related to achievement of those objectives. Thus, in Reed, the ob*198jectives of “reducing the workload on probate courts,” id., at 76, and “avoiding intrafamily controversy,” id., at 77, were deemed of insufficient importance to sustain use of an overt gender criterion in the appointment of administrators of intestate decedents’ estates. Decisions following Reed similarly have rejected administrative ease and convenience as sufficiently important objectives to justify gender-based classifications. See, e. g., Stanley v. Illinois, 405 U. S. 645, 656 (1972); Frontiero v. Richardson, 411 U. S. 677, 690 (1973); cf. Schlesinger v. Ballard, 419 U. S. 498, 506-507 (1975). And only two Terms ago, Stanton v. Stanton, 421 U. S. 7 (1975), expressly stating that Reed v. Reed was “controlling,” 421 U. S., at 13, held that Reed required invalidation of a Utah differential age-of-majority statute, notwithstanding the statute’s coincidence with and furtherance of the State’s purpose of fostering “old notions” of role typing and preparing boys for their expected performance in the economic and political worlds. 421 U. S., at 14-15.6

Reed v. Reed has also provided the underpinning for decisions that have invalidated statutes employing gender as an inaccurate proxy for other, more germane bases of classification. Hence, “archaic. and overbroad” generalizations, Schlesinger v. Ballard, supra, at 508, concerning the financial position of servicewomen, Frontiero v. Richardson, supra, at 689 n. 23, and working women, Weinberger v. Wiesenfeld, 420 U. S. 636, 643 (1975), could not justify use of a gender line in determining eligibility for certain governmental entitlements. Similarly, increasingly outdated *199misconceptions concerning the role of females in the home rather than in the “marketplace and world of ideas” were rejected as loose-fitting characterizations incapable of supporting state statutory schemes that were premised upon their accuracy. Stanton v. Stanton, supra; Taylor v. Louisiana, 419 U. S. 522, 535 n. 17 (1975). In light of the weak congruence between gender and the characteristic or trait that gender purported to represent, it was necessary that the legislatures choose either to realign their substantive laws in a gender-neutral fashion, or to adopt procedures for identifying those instances where the sex-centered generalization actually comported with fact. See, e. g., Stanley v. Illinois, supra, at 658; cf. Cleveland Board of Education v. LaFleur, 414 U. S. 632, 650 (1974).

In this case, too, “Reed, we feel, is controlling ...,” Stanton v. Stanton, supra, at 13. We turn then to the question whether, under Reed, the difference between males and females with respect to the purchase of 3.2% beer warrants the differential in age drawn by the Oklahoma statute. We conclude that it does not.

B

The District Court recognized that Reed v. Reed was controlling. In applying the teachings of that case, the court found the requisite important governmental objective in the traffic-safety goal proffered by the Oklahoma Attorney General, It then concluded that the statistics introduced by the appellees established that the gender-based distinction was substantially related to achievement of that goal.

C

We accept for purposes of discussion the District Court’s identification of the objective underlying §§ 241 and 245 as the enhancement of traffic safety.7 Clearly; the protection *200of public health and safety represents an important function of state and local governments However, appellees’ statistics in our view cannot support the conclusion that the gender-based distinction closely serves to achieve that objective and therefore the distinction cannot under Reed withstand equal protection challenge.

The appellees introduced a variety of statistical surveys. First, an analysis of arrest statistics for 1973 demonstrated that 18-20-year-old male arrests for “driving' under the influence” and “drunkenness” substantially exceeded female arrests for that same age period.8 Similarly, youths aged 17-21 were found to be overrepresented among those killed *201or injured in traffic accidents, with males again numerically exceeding females in this regard.9 Third, a random roadside survey in Oklahoma City revealed that young males were more inclined to drive and drink beer than were their female counterparts.10 Fourth, Federal Bureau of Investigation nationwide statistics exhibited a notable increase in arrests for “driving under the influence.”11 Finally, statistical evidence gathered in other jurisdictions, particularly Minnesota and Michigan, was offered to corroborate Oklahoma’s experience by indicating the pervasiveness of youthful participation in motor vehicle accidents following the imbibing of alcohol. Conceding that “the case is not free from doubt,” 399 F. Supp., at 1314, the District Court nonetheless concluded that this statistical showing substantiated “a rational basis for the legislative judgment underlying the challenged classification.” Id., at 1307.

Even were this statistical evidence accepted as accurate, it nevertheless offers only a weak answer to the equal protection question presented here. The most focused and relevant of the statistical surveys, arrests of 18-20-year-olds for alcohol-related driving offenses, exemplifies the ultimate unpersuasiveness of this evidentiary record. Viewed in terms of the correlation between sex and the actual activity that Oklahoma seeks to regulate — driving while under the influence of alcohol — the statistics broadly establish that .18% of females and 2% of males in that age group were arrested for that offense. While such a disparity is not trivial in a statistical sense, it hardly can form the basis for employment of a gender line as a classifying device. Certainly if male*202ness is to serve as a proxy for drinking and driving, a correlation of 2% must be considered an unduly tenuous “fit.” 12 Indeed, prior cases have consistently rejected the use of sex as a decisionmaking factor even though the statutes in question certainly rested on far more predictive empirical relationships than this.13

Moreover, the statistics exhibit a variety of other shortcomings that seriously impugn their value to equal protection analysis. Setting aside the obvious methodological problems,14 the surveys do not adequately justify the salient *203features of Oklahoma’s gender-based traffic-safety law. None purports to measure the use and dangerousness of 3.2% beer as opposed to alcohol generally, a detail that is of particular importance since, in light of its low alcohol level, Oklahoma apparently considers the 3.2% beverage to be “nonintoxicating.” Okla. Stat., Tit. 37, § 163.1 (1958); see State ex rel. Springer v. Bliss, 199 Okla. 198, 185 P. 2d 220 (1947). Moreover, many of the studies, while graphically documenting the unfortunate increase in driving while under the influence of alcohol, make no effort to relate their findings to age-sex differentials as involved here.15 Indeed, the only survey that explicitly centered its attention upon young drivers and their use of beer — albeit apparently not of the diluted 3.2% variety — reached results that hardly can be viewed as impressive in justifying either a gender or age classification.16

*204There is no reason to belabor this line of analysis. It is unrealistic to expect either members of the judiciary or state officials to be well versed in the rigors of experimental or statistical technique. But this merely illustrates that proving broad sociological propositions by statistics is a dubious business, and one that inevitably is in tension with the normative philosophy that underlies the Equal Protection Clause.17 Suffice to say that the showing offered by the appellees does not satisfy us that sex represents a legitimate, accurate proxy for the regulation of drinking and driving. In fact, when it is further recognized that Oklahoma’s statute prohibits only the selling of 3.2% beer to young males and not their drinking the beverage once acquired (even after purchase by their 18-20-year-old female companions), the relationship between gender and traffic safety becomes far too tenuous to satisfy Reed’s requirement that the gender-based difference be substantially related to achievement of the statutory objective.

We hold, therefore, that under Reed, Oklahoma’s 3.2% beer statute invidiously discriminates against males 18-20 years of age.

D

Appellees argue, however, that §§241 and 245 enforce state policies concerning the sale and distribution of alcohol and by force of the Twenty-first Amendment should therefore be held to withstand the equal protection challenge. The District Court’s response to this contention is unclear. The court assumed that the Twenty-first Amendment “strengthened” the State’s police powers with respect to alcohol regulation, 399 F. Supp., at 1307, but then said that “the standards of review that [the Equal Protection Clause] mandates are not relaxed.” Id., at 1308. Our view is, and we hold, that the Twenty-first Amendment does not save the *205invidious gender-based discrimination from invalidation as a denial of equal protection of the laws in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment.

The history of state regulation of alcoholic beverages dates from long before adoption of the Eighteenth Amendment. In the License Cases, 5 How. 504, 579 (1847), the Court recognized a broad authority in state governments to regulate the trade of alcoholic beverages within their borders free from implied restrictions under the Commerce Clause. Later in the century, however, Leisy v. Hardin, 135 U. S. 100 (1890), undercut the theoretical underpinnings of the License Cases. This led Congress, acting pursuant to its powers under the Commerce Clause, to reinvigorate the State's regulatory role through the passage of the Wilson18 and Webb-Kenyon Acts.19 See, e. g., Clark Distilling Co. v. Western Maryland R. Co., 242 U. S. 311 (1917) (upholding Webb-Kenyon Act); In re Rahrer, 140 U. S. 545 (1891) (upholding Wilson Act). With passage of the Eighteenth Amendment, the uneasy tension between the Commerce Clause and state police power temporarily subsided.

The Twenty-first Amendment repealed the Eighteenth Amendment in 1933. The wording of § 2 of the Twenty-first Amendment20 closely follows the Webb-Kenyon and Wil*206son Acts, expressing the framers’ clear intention of constitutionalizing the Commerce Clause framework established under those statutes. This Court’s decisions since have confirmed that the Amendment primarily created an exception to the normal operation of the Commerce Clause. See, e. g., Hostetter v. Idlewild Bon Voyage Liquor Corp., 377 U. S. 324, 330 (1964); Carter v. Virginia, 321 U. S. 131, 139-140 (1944) (Frankfurter, J., concurring); Finch & Co. v. McKittrick, 305 U. S. 395, 398 (1939). Even here, however, the Twenty-first Amendment does not pro tanto repeal the Commerce Clause, but merely requires that each provision “be considered in the light of the other, and in the context of the issues and interests at stake in any concrete case.” Hostetter v. Idlewild Bon Voyage Liquor Corp., supra, at 332; cf. Department of Revenue v. James Beam Distilling Co., 377 U. S. 341 (1964); Collins v. Yosemite Park & Curry Co., 304 U. S. 518 (1938).

Once passing beyond consideration of the Commerce Clause, the relevance of the Twenty-first Amendment to other constitutional provisions becomes increasingly doubtful. As one commentator has remarked: “Neither the text nor the history of the Twenty-first Amendment suggests that it qualifies individual rights protected by the Bill of Rights and the Fourteenth Amendment where the sale or use of liquor is concerned.” P. Brest, Processes of Constitutional Decision-making, Cases and Materials, 258 (1975). Any departures from this historical view have been limited and sporadic. Two States successfully relied upon the Twenty-first Amendment to respond to challenges of major liquor importers to state authority to regulate the importation and manufacture of alcoholic beverages on Commerce Clause and Fourteenth Amendment grounds. See Mahoney v. Joseph Triner Corp., 304 U. S. 401 (1938); State Board v. Young’s Market Co., *207299 U. S. 59, 64 (1936). In fact, however, the arguments in both cases centered upon importation of intoxicants, a regulatory area where the State’s authority under the Twenty-first Amendment is transparently clear, Hostetter v. Idlewild Bon Voyage Liquor Corp., supra, at 330, and n. 9, and touched upon purely economic matters that traditionally merit only the mildest review under the Fourteenth Amendment, see, e. g., Joseph E. Seagram & Sons v. Hostetter, 384 U. S. 35, 47-48, 50-51 (1966) (rejecting Fourteenth Amendment objections to state liquor laws on the strength of Ferguson v. Skrupa, 372 U. S. 726, 729-730 (1963) and Williamson v. Lee Optical Co., 348 U. S. 483 (1955)).21 Cases involving individual rights protected by the Due Process Clause have been treated in sharp contrast. For example, when an individual objected to the mandatory “posting” of her name in retail liquor establishments and her characterization as an “excessive drink [er],” the Twenty-first Amendment was held not to qualify the scope of her due process rights. Wisconsin v. Constantineau, 400 U. S. 433, 436 (1971).

It is true that California v. LaRue, 409 U. S. 109, 115 (1972), relied upon the Twenty-first Amendment to “strengthen” the State’s authority to regulate live entertainment at establishments licensed to dispense liquor, at least when the performances “partake more of gross sexuality than of communication,” id., at 118. Nevertheless, the Court has never recognized sufficient “strength” in the Amendment to defeat an otherwise established claim of invidious discrimination in violation of the Equal Protection Clause. *208Rather, Moose Lodge No. 107 v. Irvis, 407 U. S. 163, 178-179 (1972), establishes that state liquor regulatory schemes cannot work invidious discriminations that violate the Equal Protection Clause.

Following this approach, both federal and state courts uniformly have declared the unconstitutionality of gender lines that restrain the activities of customers of state-regulated liquor establishments irrespective of the operation of the Twenty-first Amendment. See, e. g., White v. Fleming, 522 F. 2d 730 (CA7 1975); Women’s Liberation Union of R. I. v. Israel, 512 F. 2d 106 (CA1 1975); Daugherty v. Daley, 370 F. Supp. 338 (ND Ill. 1974) (three-judge court) ; Seidenberg v. McSorleys’ Old Ale House, Inc., 317 F. Supp. 593 (SDNY 1970); Commonwealth Alcoholic Beverage Control Bd. v. Burke, 481 S. W. 2d 52 (Ky. 1972); cf. Sail’er Inn, Inc. v. Kirby, 5 Cal. 3d 1, 485 P. 2d 529 (1971); Paterson Tavern & G. O. A. v. Hawthorne, 57 N. J. 180, 270 A. 2d 628 (1970). Even when state officials have posited sociological or empirical justifications for these gender-based differentiations, the courts have struck down discriminations aimed at an entire class under the guise of alcohol regulation. In fact, social science studies that have uncovered quantifiable differences in drinking tendencies dividing along both racial and ethnic lines strongly suggest the need for application of the Equal Protection Clause in preventing discriminatory treatment that almost certainly would be perceived as invidious.’22 In sum, the principles embodied in the Equal *209Protection Clause are not to be rendered inapplicable by statistically measured but loose-fitting generalities concerning the drinking tendencies of aggregate- groups. We thus hold that the operation of the Twenty-first Amendment does not alter the application of equal protection standards that otherwise govern this case.

*210We conclude that the gender-based differential contained in Okla. Stat., Tit. 37, § 245 (1976 Supp.) constitutes a denial of the equal protection of the laws to males aged 18-2023 and reverse the judgment of the District Court.24

It is so ordered.

Mr. Justice Powell,

concurring.

I join the opinion of the Court as I am in general agreement with it. I do have reservations as to some of the discussion concerning the appropriate standard for equal protection analysis and the relevance of the statistical evidence. Accordingly, I add this concurring statement.

With respect to the equal protection standard, I agree that Reed v. Reed, 404 U. S. 71 (1971), is the most relevant precedent. But I find it unnecessary, in deciding this case, to read that decision as broadly as some of the Court’s language may imply. Reed and subsequent cases involving gender-based classifications make clear that the Court subjects such classifications to a more critical examination than is normally applied when “fundamental” constitutional rights and “suspect classes” are not present.*

*211I view this as a relatively easy case. No one questions the legitimacy or importance of the asserted governmental objective: the promotion of highway safety. The decision of the case turns on whether the state legislature, by the classification it has chosen, has adopted a means that bears a “ 'fair and substantial relation' ” to this objective. Id., at 76, quoting Royster Guano Co. v. Virginia, 253 U. S. 412, 415 (1920).

It seems to me that the statistics offered by appellees and relied upon by the District Court do tend generally to support the view that young men drive more, possibly are inclined to drink more, and — for various reasons — are involved in more accidents than young women. Even so, I am not persuaded that these facts and the inferences fairly drawn from them justify this classification based on a three-year age differential between the sexes, and especially one that is so easily circumvented as to be virtually meaningless. Putting it differently, this gender-based classification does not bear a fair and substantial relation to the object of the legislation.

Mr. Justice Stevens,

concurring.

There is only one Equal Protection Clause. It requires every State to govern impartially. It does not direct the *212courts to apply one standard of review in some cases and a different standard in other cases. Whatever criticism may be leveled at a judicial opinion implying that there are at least three such standards applies with the same force to a double standard.

1 am inclined to believe that what has become known as the two-tiered analysis of equal protection claims does not describe a completely logical method of deciding cases, but rather is a method the Court has employed to explain decisions that actually apply a single standard in a reasonably consistent fashion. I also suspect that a careful explanation of the reasons motivating particular decisions may contribute more to an identification of that standard than an attempt to articulate it in all-encompassing terms. It may therefore be appropriate for me to state the principal reasons which persuaded me to join the Court’s opinion.

In this case, the classification is not as obnoxious as some the Court has condemned,1 nor as inoffensive as some the Court has accepted. It is objectionable because it is based on an accident of birth,2 because it is a mere remnant of the now almost universally rejected tradition of discriminating against males in this age bracket,3 and because, to the extent it reflects any physical difference between males and *213females, it is actually perverse.4 The question then is whether the traffic safety justification put forward by the State is sufficient to make an otherwise offensive classification acceptable.

The classification is not totally irrational. For the evidence does indicate that there are more males than females in this age bracket who drive and also more who drink. Nevertheless, there are several reasons why I regard the justification as unacceptable. It is difficult to believe that the statute was actually intended to cope with the problem of traffic safety,5 since it has only a minimal effect on access to a not very intoxicating beverage and does not prohibit its consumption.6 Moreover, the empirical data submitted by *214the State accentuate the unfairness of treating all 18-20-year-old males as inferior to their female counterparts. The legislation imposes a restraint on 100% of the males in the class allegedly because about 2% of them have probably violated one or more laws relating to the consumption of alcholic beverages.7 It is unlikely that this law will have a significant deterrent effect either on that 2% or on the law-abiding 98%. But even assuming some such slight benefit, it does not seem to me that an insult to all of the young men of the State can be justified by visiting the sins of the 2% on the 98%.

Mr. Justice Blackmun,

concurring in part.

I join the Court’s opinion except Part II-D thereof. I agree, however, that the Twenty-first Amendment does not save the challenged Oklahoma statute.

Mr. Justice Stewart,

concurring in the judgment.

I agree that the appellant Whitener has standing to assert the equal protection claims of males between 18 and 21 years old. Eisenstadt v. Baird, 405 U. S. 438, 443-446; Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U. S. 479, 481; Barrows v. Jackson, 346 U. S. 249, 255-260; Buchanan v. Warley, 245 U. S. 60, 72-73; see Note, Standing To Assert Constitutional Jus Tertii, 88 Harv. L. Rev. 423, 431-436 (1974). I also concur in the Court’s judgment on the merits of the constitutional issue before us.

*215Every State has broad power under the Twenty-first Amendment to control the dispensation of alcoholic beverages within its borders. E. g., California v. LaRue, 409 U. S. 109; Joseph E. Seagram & Sons v. Hostetter, 384 U. S. 35; Hostetter v. Idlewild Bon Voyage Liquor Corp., 377 U. S. 324, 330; Mahoney v. Joseph Triner Corp., 304 U. S. 401; State Board v. Young’s Market Co., 299 U. S. 59. But “[t]his is not to say that the Twenty-first Amendment empowers a State to act with total irrationality or invidious discrimination in controlling the distribution and dispensation of liquor . . . .” California v. LaRue, supra, at 120 n. (concurring opinion).

The disparity created by these Oklahoma statutes amounts to total irrationality. For the statistics upon which the State now relies, whatever their other shortcomings, wholly fail to prove or even suggest that 3.2% beer is somehow more deleterious when it comes into the hands of a male aged 18-20 than of a female of like age. The disparate statutory treatment of the sexes here, without even a colorably valid justification or explanation, thus amounts to invidious discrimination. See Reed v. Reed, 404 U. S. 71.

Mb. Chief Justice Burger,

dissenting.

I am in general agreement with Mr. Justice Rehnquist’s dissent, but even at the risk of compounding the obvious confusion created by those voting to reverse the District Court, I will add a few words.

At the outset I cannot agree that appellant Whitener has standing arising from her status as a saloonkeeper to assert the constitutional rights of her customers. In this Court “a litigant may only assert his own constitutional rights or immunities.” United States v. Raines, 362 U. S. 17, 22 (1960). There are a few, but strictly limited exceptions to that rule; despite the most creative efforts, this case fits within none of them.

*216This is not Sullivan v. Little Hunting Park, 396 U. S. 229 (1969), or Barrows v. Jackson, 346 U. S. 249 (1953), for there is here no barrier whatever to Oklahoma males 18-20 years of age asserting, in an appropriate forum, any constitutional rights they may claim to purchase 3.2% beer. Craig’s successful litigation of this very issue was prevented only by the advent of his 21st birthday. There is thus no danger of interminable dilution of those rights if appellant Whitener is not permitted to litigate them here. Cf. Eisenstadt v. Baird, 405 U. S. 438, 445-446 (1972).

Nor is this controlled by Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U. S. 479 (1965). It borders on the ludicrous to draw a parallel between a vendor of beer and the intimate professional physician-patient relationship which undergirded relaxation of standing rules in that case.

Even in Eisenstadt, the Court carefully limited its recognition of third-party standing to cases in which the relationship between the claimant and the relevant third party “was not simply the fortuitous connection between a vendor and potential vendees, but the relationship between one who acted to protect the rights of a minority and the minority itself.” 405 U. S., at 445. This is plainly not the case here. See also McGowan v. Maryland, 366 U. S. 420, 429-430 (1961); Brown v. United States, 411 U. S. 223, 230 (1973).

In sum, permitting a vendor to assert the constitutional rights of vendees whenever those rights are arguably infringed introduces a new concept of constitutional standing to which I cannot subscribe.

On the merits, we have only recently recognized that our duty is not “to create substantive constitutional rights in the name of guaranteeing equal protection of the laws.” San Antonio School Dist. v. Rodriguez, 411 U. S. 1, 33 (1973). Thus, even interests of such importance in our society as public education and housing do not qualify as “fundamental rights” for equal protection purposes because they have no *217textually independent constitutional status. See id., at 29-39 (education); Lindsey v. Normet, 405 U. S. 56 (1972) (bousing). Though today’s decision does not go so far as to make gender-based classifications “suspect,” it makes gender a disfavored classification. Without an independent constitutional basis supporting the right asserted or disfavoring the classification adopted, I can justify no substantive constitutional protection other than the normal McGowan v. Maryland, supra, at 425-426, protection afforded by the Equal Protection Clause.

The means employed by the Oklahoma Legislature to achieve the objectives sought may not be agreeable to some judges, but since eight Members of the Court think the means not irrational, I see no basis for striking down the statute as violative of the Constitution simply because we find it unwise, unneeded, or possibly even a bit foolish.

With Mr. Justice Rehnquist, I would affirm the judgment of the District Court.

Mr. Justice Rehnquist,

dissenting.

The Court’s disposition of this case is objectionable on two grounds. First is its conclusion that men challenging a gender-based statute which treats them less favorably than women may invoke a more stringent standard of judicial review than pertains to most other types of classifications. Second is the Court’s enunciation of this standard, without citation to any source, as being that “classifications by gender must serve important governmental objectives and must be substantially related to achievement of those objectives.” Ante, at 197 (emphasis added). . The only redeeming feature of the Court’s opinion, to my mind, is that it apparently signals a retreat by those who joined the plurality opinion in Frontiero v. Richardson, 411 U. S. 677 (1973), from their view that sex is a “suspect” classification for purposes of equal protection analysis. I think the Oklahoma statute challenged here need pass only the “rational basis” equal *218protection analysis expounded in cases such as McGowan v. Maryland, 366 U. S. 420 (1961), and Williamson v. Lee Optical Co., 348 U. S. 483 (1955), and I believe that it is constitutional under that analysis.

I

In Frontiero v. Richardson, supra, the opinion for the plurality sets forth the reasons of four Justices for concluding that sex should be regarded as a suspect classification for purposes of equal protection analysis. These reasons center on our Nation’s “long and unfortunate history of sex discrimination,” 411 U. S., at 684, which has been reflected in a whole range of restrictions on the legal rights of women, not the least of which have concerned the ownership of property and participation in the electoral process. Noting that the pervasive and persistent nature of the discrimination experienced by women is in part the result of their ready identifiability, the plurality rested its invocation of strict scrutiny largely upon the fact that “statutory distinctions between the sexes often have the effect of invidiously relegating the entire class of females to inferior legal status without regard to the actual capabilities of its individual members.” Id., at 686-687. See Stanton v. Stanton, 421 U. S. 7, 14-15 (1975).

Subsequent to Frontiero, the Court has declined to hold that sex is a suspect class, Stanton v. Stanton, supra, at 13, and no such holding is imported by the Court’s resolution of this case. However, the Court’s application here of an elevated or “intermediate” level scrutiny, like that invoked in cases dealing with discrimination against females, raises the question of why the statute here should be treated any differently from countless legislative classifications unrelated to sex which have been upheld under a minimum rationality standard. Jefferson v. Hackney, 406 U. S. 535, 546-547 (1972); Richardson v. Belcher, 404 U. S. 78, 81-84 (1971); Dandridge v. Williams, 397 U. S. 471, 484-485 (1970); *219McGowan v. Maryland, supra, at 425-426; Flemming v. Nestor, 363 U. S. 603, 611 (1960); Williamson v. Lee Optical Co., supra, at 488-489.

Most obviously unavailable to support any kind of special scrutiny in this case, is a history or pattern of past discrimination, such as was relied on by the plurality in Frontiero to support its invocation of strict scrutiny. There is no suggestion in the Court’s opinion that males in this age group are in any way peculiarly disadvantaged, subject to systematic discriminatory treatment, or otherwise in need of special solicitude from the courts.

The Court does not discuss the nature of the right involved, and there is no reason to believe that it sees the purchase of 3.2% beer as implicating any important interest, let alone one that is “fundamental” in the constitutional sense of invoking strict scrutiny. Indeed, the Court’s accurate observation that the statute affects the selling but not the drinking of 3.2% beer, ante, at 204, further emphasizes the limited effect that it has on even those persons in the age group involved. There is, in sum, nothing about the statutory classification involved here to suggest that it affects an interest, or works against a group, which can claim under the Equal Protection Clause that it is entitled to special judicial protection.

It is true that a number of our opinions contain broadly phrased dicta implying that the same test should be applied to all classifications based on sex, whether affecting females or males. E. g., Frontiero v. Richardson, supra, at 688; Reed v. Reed, 404 U. S. 71, 76 (1971). However, before today, no decision of this Court has applied an elevated level of scrutiny to invalidate a statutory discrimination harmful to males, except where the statute impaired an important personal interest protected by the Constitution.1 There being no such interest *220here, and there being no plausible argument that this is a discrimination against .females,2 the Court’s reliance on our previous sex-discrimination cases is ill-founded. It treats gender classification as a talisman which — without regard to the rights involved or the persons affected- — calls into effect a heavier burden of judicial review.

The Court’s conclusion that a law which treats males less favorably than females "must serve important governmental objectives and must be substantially related to achievement of those objectives” apparently comes out of thin air. The Equal Protection Clause contains no such language, and none of our previous cases adopt that standard. I would think we have had enough difficulty with the two standards of review which our cases have recognized — the *221norm of “rational basis,” and the “compelling state interest” required where a “suspect classification” is involved — so as to counsel weightily against the insertion of still another “standard” between those two. How is this Court to divine what objectives are important? How is it to determine whether a particular law is “substantially” related to the achievement of such objective, rather than related in some other way to its achievement? Both of the phrases used are so diaphanous and elastic as to invite subjective judicial preferences or prejudices relating to particular types of legislation, masquerading as judgments whether such legislation is directed at “important” objectives or, whether the relationship to those objectives is “substantial” enough.

I would have thought that if this Court were to leave anything to decision by the popularly elected branches of the Government, where no constitutional claim other than that of equal protection is invoked, it would be the decision as to what governmental objectives to be achieved by law are “important,” and which are not. As for the second part of the Court’s new test, the Judicial Branch is probably in no worse position than the Legislative or Executive Branches to determine if there is any rational relationship between a classification and the purpose which it might be thought to serve. But the introduction of the adverb “substantially” requires courts to make subjective judgments as to operational effects, for which neither their expertise nor their access to data fits them. And even if we manage to avoid both confusion and the mirroring of our own preferences in the development of this new doctrine, the thousands of judges in other courts who must interpret the Equal Protection Clause may not be so fortunate.

II

The applicable ra.tional-basis test is one which

“permits the States a wide scope of discretion in enacting laws which affect some groups of citizens differently than *222others. The constitutional safeguard is offended only if the classification rests on grounds wholly irrelevant to the achievement of the State's objective. State legislatures are presumed to have acted within their constitutional power despite the fact that, in practice, their laws result in some inequality. A statutory discrimination will not be set aside if any state of facts reasonably may be conceived to justify it.” McGowan v. Maryland, 366 U. S., at 425-426 (citations omitted).

Our decisions indicate that application of the Equal Protection Clause in a context not justifying an elevated level of scrutiny does not demand “mathematical nicety” or the elimination of all inequality. Those cases recognize that the practical problems of government may require rough accommodations of interests, and hold that such accommodations should be respected unless no reasonable basis can be found to support them. Dandridge v. Williams, 397 U. S., at 485. Whether the same ends might have been better or more precisely served by a different approach is no part of the judicial inquiry under the traditional minimum rationality approach. Richardson v. Belcher, 404 U. S., at 84.

The Court “accept[s] for purposes of discussion” the District Court's finding that the purpose of the provisions in question was traffic safety, and proceeds to examine the statistical evidence in the record in order to decide if “the gender-based distinction closely serves to achieve that objective.” Ante, at 199, 200 (emphasis added).. (Whether there is a difference between laws which “closely serv[e]” objectives and those which are only “substantially related” to their achievement, ante, at 197, we are not told.) I believe that a more traditional type of scrutiny is appropriate in this case, and I think that the Court would have done well here to heed its own warning that “[i]t is unrealistic to expect .. . members of the judiciary ... to be well versed in the rigors of experimental or statistical technique.” Ante, at 204. One *223need not immerse oneself in the fine points of statistical analysis, however, in order to see the weaknesses in the Court’s attempted denigration of the evidence at hand.

One survey of arrest statistics assembled in 1973 indicated that males in the 18-20 age group were arrested for “driving under the influence” almost 18 times as often as their female counterparts, and for “drunkenness” in a ratio of almost 10 to l.3 Accepting, as the Court does, appellants’ comparison of the total figures with 1973 Oklahoma census data, this survey indicates a 2% arrest rate among males in the age group, as compared to a .18% rate among females.

Other surveys indicated (1) that over the five-year period from 1967 to 1972, nationwide arrests among those under 18 for drunken driving increased 138%, and that 93% of all persons arrested for drunken driving were male; 4 (2) that youths in the 17-21 age group were overrepresented among those killed or injured in Oklahoma traffic accidents, that male casualties substantially exceeded female, and that deaths in this age group continued to rise while overall traffic deaths declined;5 (3) that over three-fourths of the drivers under 20 in the Oklahoma City area are males, and that each of them, on average, drives half again as many miles per year as their female counterparts;6 (4) that four-fifths of male drivers *224under 20 in the Oklahoma City area state a drink preference for beer, while about three-fifths of female drivers of that age state the same preference;7 and (5) that the percentage of male drivers under 20 admitting to drinking within two hours of driving was half again larger than the percentage for females, and that the percentage of male drivers of that age group with a blood alcohol content greater than .01% was almost half again larger than for female drivers.8

The Court's criticism of the statistics relied on by the District Court conveys the impression that a legislature in enacting a new law is to be subjected to the judicial equivalent of a doctoral examination in statistics. Legislatures are not held to any rules of evidence such as those which may govern courts or other administrative bodies, and are entitled to draw factual conclusions on the basis of the determination of probable cause which an arrest by a police officer normally represents. In this situation, they could reasonably infer that the incidence of drunk driving is a good deal higher than the incidence of arrest.

And while, as the Court observes, relying on a report to a Presidential Commission which it cites in a footnote, such statistics may be distorted as a result of stereotyping, the legislature is not required to prove before a court that its statistics are perfect. In any event, if stereotypes are as pervasive as the Court suggests, they may in turn influence the conduct of the men and women in question, and cause the young men to conform to the wild and reckless image which is their stereotype.

The Court also complains of insufficient integration of the various surveys on several counts — that the injury and death figures are in no way directly correlated with intoxication, ante, at 201 n. 9; that the national figures for drunk driving contain no breakdown for the 18-21-year-old group, *225ante, at 201 n. 11; and that the arrest records for intoxication are not tied to the consumption of 3.2% beer, ante, at 201-202, nn. 11 and 12. But the State of Oklahoma — and certainly this Court for purposes of equal protection review — can surely take notice of the fact that drunkenness is a significant cause of traffic casualties, and that youthful offenders have participated in the increase of the drunk-driving problem. On this latter point, the survey data indicating increased driving casualties among 18-21-year-olds, while overall casualties dropped, are not irrelevant.

Nor is it unreasonable to conclude from the expressed preference for beer by four-fifths of the age-group males that that beverage was a predominant source of their intoxication-related arrests. Taking that as the predicate, the State could reasonably bar those males from any purchases of alcoholic beer, including that of the 3.2% variety. This Court lacks the expertise or the data to evaluate the intoxicating properties of that beverage, and in that posture our only appropriate course is to defer to the reasonable inference supporting the statute — that taken in sufficient quantity this beer has the same effect as any alcoholic beverage.

Quite apart from these alleged methodological deficiencies in the statistical evidence, the Court appears to hold that that evidence, on its face, fails to support the distinction drawn in the statute. The Court notes that only 2% of males (as against .18% of females) in the age group were arrested for drunk driving, and that this very low figure establishes “an unduly tenuous ‘fit’ ” between maleness and drunk driving in the 18-20-year-old group. On this point the Court misconceives the nature of the equal protection inquiry.

The rationality of a statutory classification for equal protection purposes does not depend upon the statistical “fit” between the class and the trait sought to be singled out. It turns on whether there may be a sufficiently higher in*226cidence of the trait within the included class than in the excluded class to justify different treatment. Therefore the present equal protection challenge to this gender-based discrimination poses only the question whether the incidence of drunk driving among young men is sufficiently greater than among young women to justify differential treatment. Notwithstanding the Court’s critique of the statistical evidence, that evidence suggests clear differences between the drinking and driving habits of young men and women. Those differences are grounds enough for the State reasonably to conclude that young males pose by far the greater drunk-driving hazard, both in terms of sheer numbers and in terms of hazard on a per-driver basis. The gender-based difference in treatment in this case is therefore not irrational.

The Court’s argument that a 2% correlation between maleness and drunk driving is constitutionally insufficient therefore does not pose an equal protection issue concerning discrimination between males and females. The clearest demonstration of this is the fact that the precise argument made by the Court would be equally applicable to a flat bar on such purchases by anyone, male or female, in the 18-20 age group; in fact it would apply a fortiori in that case given the even more “tenuous 'fit’ ” between drunk-driving arrests and femaleness. The statistics indicate that about 1 % of the age group population as a whole is arrested. What the Court’s argument is relevant to is not equal protection, but due process — whether there are enough persons in the category who drive while drunk to justify a bar against purchases by all members of the group.

Cast in those terms, the argument carries little weight, in light of our decisions indicating that such questions call for a balance of the State’s interest against the harm resulting from any overinclusiveness or underinclusiveness. Vlandis v. Kline, 412 U. S. 441, 448-452 (1973). The personal interest harmed *227here is very minor — the present legislation implicates only the right to purchase 3.2% beer, certainly a far cry from the important personal interests which have on occasion supported this Court’s invalidation of statutes on similar reasoning. Cleveland Board of Education v. LaFleur, 414 U. S. 632, 640 (1974); Stanley v. Illinois, 405 U. S. 645, 651 (1972). And the state interest involved is significant — the prevention of injury and death on the highways.

This is not a case where the classification can only be justified on grounds of administrative convenience. Vlandis v. Kline, supra, at 451; Stanley v. Illinois, supra, at 656. There being no apparent way to single out persons likely to drink and drive, it seems plain that the legislature was faced here with the not atypical legislative problem of legislating in terms of broad categories with regard to the purchase and consumption of alcohol. I trust, especially in light of the Twenty-first Amendment, that there would be no due process violation if no one in this age group were allowed to purchase 3.2% beer. Since males drink and drive at a higher rate than the age group as a whole, I fail to see how a statutory bar with regard only to them can create any due process problem.

The Oklahoma Legislature could have believed that 18-20-year-old males drive substantially more, and tend more often to be intoxicated than their female counterparts; that they prefer beer and admit to drinking and driving at a higher rate than females; and that they suffer traffic injuries out of proportion to the part they make up of the population. Under the appropriate rational-basis test for equal protection, it is neither irrational nor arbitrary to bar them from making purchases of 3.2% beer, which purchases might in many cases be made by a young man who immediately returns to his vehicle with the beverage in his possession. The record does not give any good indication of the true proportion of males in the age group who drink and drive (ex*228cept that it is no doubt greater than the 2% who are arrested), but whatever it may be I cannot see that the mere purchase right involved could conceivably raise a due process question. There being no violation of either equal protection or due process, the statute should accordingly be upheld.

Justice O’Connor

delivered the opinion of the Court.

This case presents the narrow issue of whether a state statute that excludes males from enrolling in a state-supported professional nursing school violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

I

The facts are not in dispute. In 1884, the Mississippi Legislature created the Mississippi Industrial Institute and Col*720lege for the Education of White Girls of the State of Mississippi, now the oldest state-supported all-female college in the United States. 1884 Miss. Gen. Laws, Ch. 30, § 6. The school, known today as Mississippi University for Women (MUW), has from its inception limited its enrollment to women.1

In 1971, MUW established a School of Nursing, initially offering a 2-year associate degree. Three years later, the school instituted a 4-year baccalaureate program in nursing and today also offers a graduate program. The School of Nursing has its own faculty and administrative officers and establishes its own criteria for admission.2

Respondent, Joe Hogan, is a registered nurse but does not hold a baccalaureate degree in nursing. Since 1974, he has worked as a nursing supervisor in a medical center in Columbus, the city in which MUW is located. In 1979, Hogan applied for admission to the MUW School of Nursing’s baccalaureate program.3 Although he was otherwise qualified, he *721was denied admission to the School of Nursing solely because of his sex. School officials informed him that he could audit the courses in which he was interested, but could not enroll for credit. Tr. 26.4

Hogan filed an action in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Mississippi, claiming the single-sex admissions policy of MUW’s School of Nursing violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Hogan sought injunctive and declaratory relief, as well as compensatory damages.

Following a hearing, the District Court denied preliminary injunctive relief. App. to Pet. for Cert. A4. The court concluded that maintenance of MUW as a single-sex school bears a rational relationship to the State’s legitimate interest “in providing the greatest practical range of educational opportunities for its female student population.” Id., at A3. Furthermore, the court stated, the admissions policy is not arbitrary because providing single-sex schools is consistent with a respected, though by no means universally accepted, educational theory that single-sex education affords unique benefits to students. Ibid. Stating that the case presented no issue of fact, the court informed Hogan that it would enter summary judgment dismissing his claim unless he tendered a factual issue. When Hogan offered no further evidence, the District Court entered summary judgment in favor of the State. Record 73.

The Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit reversed, holding that, because the admissions policy discriminates on the basis of gender, the District Court improperly used a “rational relationship” test to judge the constitutionality of the policy. 646 F. 2d 1116, 1118 (1981). Instead, the Court of Appeals stated, the proper test is whether the State has carried the heavier burden of showing that the gender-based classification is substantially related to an important govern*722mental objective. Id,., at 1118, 1119. Recognizing that the State has a significant interest in providing educational opportunities for all its citizens, the court then found that the State had failed to show that providing a unique educational opportunity for females, but not for males, bears a substantial relationship to that interest. Id., at 1119. Holding that the policy excluding Hogan because of his sex denies him equal protection of the laws, the court vacated the summary judgment entered against Hogan as to his claim for monetary damages, and remanded for entry of a declaratory judgment in conformity with its opinion and for further appropriate proceedings. Id., at 1119-1120.

On rehearing, the State contended that Congress, in enacting § 901(a)(5) of Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, Pub. L. 92-318, 86 Stat. 373, 20 U. S. C. § 1681 et seq., expressly had authorized MUW to continue its single-sex admissions policy by exempting public undergraduate institutions that traditionally have used single-sex admissions policies from the gender discrimination prohibition of Title IX.5 Through that provision, the State argued, Congress limited the reach of the Fourteenth Amendment by exercising *723its power under §5 of the Amendment.6 The Court of Appeals rejected the argument, holding that §5 of the Fourteenth Amendment does not grant Congress power to authorize States to maintain practices otherwise violative of the Amendment. 653 F. 2d 222 (1981).

We granted certiorari, 454 U. S. 962 (1981), and now affirm the judgment of the Court of Appeals.7

II

We begin our analysis aided by several firmly established principles. Because the challenged policy expressly discriminates among applicants on the basis of gender, it is subject to scrutiny under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Reed v. Reed, 404 U. S. 71, 75 (1971). That this statutory policy discriminates against males rather than against females does not exempt it from scrutiny or reduce the standard of review.8 Caban v. Mo*724hammed, 441 U. S. 380, 394 (1979); Orr v. Orr, 440 U. S. 268, 279 (1979). Our decisions also establish that the party seeking to uphold a statute that classifies individuals on the basis of their gender must carry the burden of showing an “exceedingly persuasive justification” for the classification. Kirchberg v. Feenstra, 450 U. S. 455, 461 (1981); Personnel Administrator of Mass. v. Feeney, 442 U. S. 256, 273 (1979). The burden is met only by showing at least that the classification serves “important governmental objectives and that the discriminatory means employed” are “substantially related to the achievement of those objectives.” Wengler v. Druggists Mutual Ins. Co., 446 U. S. 142, 150 (1980).9

Although the test for determining the validity of a gender-based classification is straightforward, it must be applied free *725of fixed notions concerning the roles and abilities of males and females. Care must be taken in ascertaining whether the statutory objective itself reflects archaic and stereotypic notions. Thus, if the statutory objective is to exclude or “protect” members of one gender because they are presumed to suffer from an inherent handicap or to be innately inferior, the objective itself is illegitimate. See Frontiero v. Richardson, 411 U. S. 677, 684-685 (1973) (plurality opinion).10

If the State’s objective is legitimate and important, we next determine whether the requisite direct, substantial relationship between objective and means is present. The purpose of requiring that close relationship is to assure that the *726Validity of a classification is determined through reasoned analysis rather than through the mechanical application of traditional, often inaccurate, assumptions about the proper roles of men and women.11 The need for the requirement is amply revealed by reference to the broad range of statutes already invalidated by this Court, statutes that relied upon the simplistic, outdated assumption that gender could be used as a “proxy for other, more germane bases of classification,” Craig v. Boren, 429 U. S. 190, 198 (1976), to establish a link between objective and classification.12

*727Applying this framework, we now analyze the arguments advanced by the State to justify its refusal to allow males to enroll for credit in MUW’s School of Nursing.

Ill

A

The State’s primary justification for maintaining the single-sex admissions policy of MUW’s School of Nursing is that it compensates for discrimination against women and, therefore, constitutes educational affirmative action. Brief for Petitioners 8.13 As applied to the School of Nursing, we find the State’s argument unpersuasive.

*728In limited circumstances, a gender-based classification favoring one sex can be justified if it intentionally and directly assists members of the sex that is disproportionately burdened. See Schlesinger v. Ballard, 419 U. S. 498 (1975). However, we consistently have emphasized that “the mere recitation of a benign, compensatory purpose is not an automatic shield which protects against any inquiry into the actual purposes underlying a statutory scheme.” Weinberger v. Wiesenfeld, 420 U. S. 636, 648 (1975). The same searching analysis must be made, regardless of whether the State’s objective is to eliminate family controversy, Reed v. Reed, 404 U. S. 71 (1971), to achieve administrative efficiency, Frontiero v. Richardson, 411 U. S. 677 (1973), or to balance the burdens borne by males and females.

It is readily apparent that a State can evoke a compensatory purpose to justify an otherwise discriminatory classification only if members of the gender benefited by the classification actually suffer a disadvantage related to the classification. We considered such a situation in Califano v. Webster, 430 U. S. 313 (1977), which involved a challenge to a statutory classification that allowed women to eliminate more low-earning years than men for purposes of computing Social Security retirement benefits. Although the effect of the classification was to allow women higher monthly benefits than were available to men with the same earning history, we ■ upheld the statutory scheme, noting that it took into account that women “as such have been unfairly hindered from earning as much as men” and “work[ed] directly to remedy” the resulting economic disparity. Id., at 318.

A similar pattern of discrimination against women influenced our decision in Schlesinger v. Ballard, supra. There, we considered a federal statute that granted female Naval officers a 13-year tenure of commissioned service before mandatory discharge, but accorded male officers only a 9-year tenure. We recognized that, because women were barred from combat duty, they had had fewer opportunities for promotion than had their male counterparts. By allow*729ing women an additional four years to reach a particular rank before subjecting them to mandatory discharge, the statute directly compensated for other statutory barriers to advancement.

In sharp contrast, Mississippi has made no showing that women lacked opportunities to obtain training in the field of nursing or to attain positions of leadership in that field when the MUW School of Nursing opened its door or that women currently are deprived of such opportunities. In fact, in 1970, the year before the School of Nursing’s first class enrolled, women earned 94 percent of the nursing baccalaureate degrees conferred in Mississippi and 98.6 percent of the degrees earned nationwide. U. S. Dept. of Health, Education, and Welfare, Earned Degrees Conferred: 1969-1970, Institutional Data 388 (1972). That year was not an aberration; one decade earlier, women had earned all the nursing degrees conferred in Mississippi and 98.9 percent of the degrees conferred nationwide. U. S. Dept. of Health, Education, and Welfare, Earned Degrees Conferred, 1959-1960: Bachelor’s and Higher Degrees 135 (1960). As one would expect, the labor force reflects the same predominance of women in nursing. When MUW’s School of Nursing began operation, nearly 98 percent of all employed registered nurses were female.14 United States Bureau of Census, 1981 Statistical Abstract of the United States 402 (1981).

Rather than compensate for discriminatory barriers faced by women, MUW’s policy of excluding males from admission to the School of Nursing tends to perpetuate the stereotyped view of nursing as an exclusively woman’s job.15 By assuring *730that Mississippi allots more openings in its state-supported nursing schools to women than it does to men, MUW’s admissions policy lends credibility to the old view that women, not men, should become nurses, and makes the assumption that nursing is a field for women a self-fulfilling prophecy. See Stanton v. Stanton, 421 U. S. 7 (1975). Thus, we conclude that, although the State recited a “benign, compensatory purpose,” it failed to establish that the alleged objective is the actual purpose underlying the discriminatory classification.16

The policy is invalid also because it fails the second part of the equal protection test, for the State has made no showing that the gender-based classification is substantially and directly related to its proposed compensatory objective. To the contrary, MUW’s policy of permitting men to attend classes as auditors fatally undermines its claim that women, at least those in the School of Nursing, are adversely affected by the presence of men.

*731MUW permits men who audit to participate fully in classes. Additionally, both men and women take part in continuing education courses offered by the School of Nursing, in which regular nursing students also can enroll. Deposition of Dr. James Strobel 56-60 and Deposition of Dean Annette K. Barrar 24-26. The uncontroverted record reveals that admitting men to nursing classes does not affect teaching style, Deposition of Nancy L. Herban 4, that the presence of men in the classroom would not affect the performance of the female nursing students, Tr. 61 and Deposition of Dean Annette K. Barrar 7-8, and that men in coeducational nursing schools do not dominate the classroom. Deposition of Nancy Herban 6. In sum, the record in this case is flatly inconsistent with the claim that excluding men from the School of Nursing is necessary to reach any of MUW’s educational goals.

Thus, considering both the asserted interest and the relationship between the interest and the methods used by the State, we conclude that the State has fallen far short of establishing the “exceedingly persuasive justification” needed to sustain the gender-based classification. Accordingly, we hold that MUW’s policy of denying males the right to enroll for credit in its School of Nursing violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.17

B

In an additional attempt to justify its exclusion of men from MUW’s School of Nursing, the State contends that MUW is *732the direct beneficiary “of specific congressional legislation which, on its face, permits the institution to exist as it has in the past.” Brief for Petitioners 19. The argument is based upon the language of § 901(a) in Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, 20 U. S. C. § 1681(a). Although § 901(a) prohibits gender discrimination in education programs that receive federal financial assistance, subsection 5 exempts the admissions policies of undergraduate institutions “that traditionally and continually from [their] establishment [have] had a policy of admitting only students of one sex” from the general prohibition. See n. 5, supra. Arguing that Congress enacted Title IX in furtherance of its power to enforce the Fourteenth Amendment, a power granted by § 5 of that Amendment, the State would have us conclude that § 901(a)(5) is but “a congressional limitation upon the broad prohibitions of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.” Brief for Petitioners 20.

The argument requires little comment. Initially, it is far from clear that Congress intended, through § 901(a)(5), to exempt MUW from any constitutional obligation. Rather, Congress apparently intended, at most, to exempt MUW from the requirements of Title IX.

Even if Congress envisioned a constitutional exemption, the State’s argument would fail. Section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment gives Congress broad power indeed to enforce the command of the Amendment and “to secure to all persons the enjoyment of perfect equality of civil rights and the equal protection of the laws against State denial or invasion . . . .” Ex parte Virginia, 100 U. S. 339, 346 (1880). Congress’ power under § 5, however, “is limited to adopting measures to enforce the guarantees of the Amendment; § 5 grants Congress no power to restrict, abrogate, or dilute these guarantees.” Katzenbach v. Morgan, 384 U. S. 641, 651, n. 10 (1966). Although we give deference to congressional decisions and classifications, neither Congress nor a State can validate a law that denies the rights guaranteed by the Four*733teenth Amendment. See, e. g., Califano v. Goldfarb, 430 U. S. 199, 210 (1977); Williams v. Rhodes, 393 U. S. 23, 29 (1968).

The fact that the language of § 901(a)(5) applies to MUW provides the State no solace: “[A] statute apparently governing a dispute cannot be applied by judges, consistently with their obligations under the Supremacy Clause, when such an application of the statute would conflict with the Constitution. Marburg v. Madison, 1 Cranch 137 (1803).” Younger v. Harris, 401 U. S. 37, 52 (1971).

IV

Because we conclude that the State’s policy of excluding males from MUW’s School of Nursing violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, we affirm the judgment of the Court of Appeals.

It is so ordered.

Chief Justice Burger,

dissenting.

I agree generally with Justice Powell’s dissenting opinion. I write separately, however, to emphasize that the Court’s holding today is limited to the context of a professional nursing school. Ante, at 723, n. 7, 727. Since the Court’s opinion relies heavily on its finding that women have traditionally dominated the nursing profession, see ante, at 729-731, it suggests that a State might well be justified in maintaining, for example, the option of an all-women’s business school or liberal arts program.

Justice Blackmun,

dissenting.

Unless Mississippi University for Women wished to preserve a historical anachronism, one only states the obvious when he observes that the University long ago should have replaced its original statement of purpose and brought its corporate papers into the 20th century. It failed to do so and, perhaps in partial consequence, finds itself in this litigation, with the Court’s opinion, ante, at 719-720, and n. 1, now *734taking full advantage of that failure, to MUW’s embarrassment and discomfiture.

Despite that failure, times have changed in the intervening 98 years. What was once an “Institute and College” is now a genuine university, with a 2-year School of Nursing established 11 years ago and then expanded to a 4-year baccalaureate program in 1974. But respondent Hogan “wants in” at this particular location in his home city of Columbus. It is not enough that his State of Mississippi offers baccalaureate programs in nursing open to males at Jackson and at Hattiesburg. Mississippi thus has not closed the doors of its educational system to males like Hogan. Assuming that he is qualified — and I have no reason whatsoever to doubt his qualifications — those doors are open and his maleness alone does not prevent his gaining the additional education he professes to seek.

I have come to suspect that it is easy to go too far with rigid rules in this area of claimed sex discrimination, and to lose — indeed destroy — values that mean much to some people by forbidding the State to offer them a choice while not depriving others of an alternative choice. Justice Powell in his separate opinion, post, p. 735, advances this theme well.

While the Court purports to write narrowly, declaring that it does not decide the same issue with respect to “separate but equal” undergraduate institutions for females and males, ante, at 720, n. 1, or with respect to units of MUW other than its School of Nursing, ante, at 723, n. 7, there is inevitable spillover from the Court’s ruling today. That ruling, it seems to me, places in constitutional jeopardy any state-supported educational institution that confines its student body in any area to members of one sex, even though the State elsewhere provides an equivalent program to the complaining applicant. The Court’s reasoning does not stop with the School of Nursing of the Mississippi University for Women.

I hope that we do not lose all values that some think are worthwhile (and are not based on differences of race or reli*735gion) and relegate ourselves to needless conformity. The ringing words of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment — what Justice Powell aptly describes as its “liberating spirit,” post, at 741 — do not demand that price.

Justice Powell,

with whom Justice Rehnquist joins,

dissenting.

The Court’s opinion bows deeply to conformity. Left without honor — indeed, held unconstitutional — is an element of diversity that has characterized much of American education and enriched much of American life. The Court in effect holds today that no State now may provide even a single institution of higher learning open only to women students. It gives no heed to the efforts of the State of Mississippi to provide abundant opportunities for young men and young women to attend coeducational institutions, and none to the preferences of the more than 40,000 young women who over the years have evidenced their approval of an all-women’s college by choosing Mississippi University for Women (MUW) over seven coeducational universities within the State. The Court decides today that the Equal Protection Clause makes it unlawful for the State to provide women with a traditionally popular and respected choice of educational environment. It does so in a case instituted by one man, who represents no class, and whose primary concern is personal convenience.

It is undisputed that women enjoy complete equality of opportunity in Mississippi’s public system of higher education. Of the State’s 8 universities and 16 junior colleges, all except MUW are coeducational. At least two other Mississippi universities would have provided respondent with the nursing curriculum that he wishes to pursue.1 No other *736male has joined in his complaint. The only groups with any personal acquaintance with MUW to file amicus briefs are female students and alumnae of MUW. And they have emphatically rejected respondent’s arguments, urging that the State of Mississippi be allowed to continue offering the choice from which they have benefited.

Nor is respondent significantly disadvantaged by MUW’s all-female tradition. His constitutional complaint is based upon a single asserted harm: that he must travel to attend the state-supported nursing schools that concededly are available to him. The Court characterizes this injury as one of “inconvenience.” Ante, at 724, n. 8. This description is fair and accurate, though somewhat embarrassed by the fact that there is, of course, no constitutional right to attend a state-supported university in one’s home town. Thus the Court, to redress respondent’s injury of inconvenience, must rest its invalidation of MUW’s single-sex program on a mode of “sexual stereotype” reasoning that has no application whatever to the respondent or to the “wrong” of which he complains. At best this is anomalous. And ultimately the anomaly reveals legal error — that of applying a heightened equal protection standard, developed in cases of genuine sexual stereotyping, to a narrowly utilized state classification that provides an additional choice for women. Moreover, I believe that Mississippi’s educational system should be upheld in this case even if this inappropriate method of analysis is applied.

I

Coeducation, historically, is a novel educational theory. From grade school through high school, college, and graduate and professional training, much of the Nation’s population during much of our history has been educated in sexually segregated classrooms. At the college level, for instance, until recently some of the most prestigious colleges and universi*737ties — including most of the Ivy League — had long histories of single-sex education. As Harvard, Yale, and Princeton remained all-male colleges well into the second half of this century, the “Seven Sister” institutions established a parallel standard of excellence for women’s colleges. Of the Seven Sisters, Mount Holyoke opened as a female seminary in 1837 and was chartered as a college in 1888. Vassar was founded in 1865, Smith and Wellesley in 1875, Radcliffe in 1879, Bryn Mawr in 1885, and Barnard in 1889. Mount Holyoke, Smith, and Wellesley recently have made considered decisions to remain essentially single-sex institutions. See Carnegie Commission on Higher Education, Opportunities for Women in Higher Education 70-75 (1973) (Carnegie Report), excerpted in B. Babcock, A. Freedman, E. Norton, & S. Ross, Sex Discrimination and the Law 1013, 1014 (1975) (Babcock). Barnard retains its independence from Columbia, its traditional coordinate institution. Harvard and Radcliffe maintained separate admissions policies as recently as 1975.2

The sexual segregation of students has been a reflection of, rather than an imposition upon, the preference of those subject to the policy. It cannot be disputed, for example, that the highly qualified women attending the leading women’s colleges could have earned admission to virtually any college of their choice.3 Women attending such colleges have cho*738sen to be there, usually expressing a preference for the special benefits of single-sex institutions. Similar decisions were made by the colleges that elected to remain open to women only.4

The arguable benefits of single-sex colleges also continue to be recognized by students of higher education. The Carnegie Commission on Higher Education has reported that it “favor[s] the continuation of colleges for women. They provide an element of diversity . . . and [an environment in which women] generally . . . speak up more in their classes, . . . hold more positions of leadership on campus, . . . and . . . have more role models and mentors among women teachers and administrators." Carnegie Report, quoted in K. Davidson, R. Ginsburg, & H. Kay, Sex-Based Discrimination 814 (1975 ed.). A 10-year empirical study by the Cooperative Institutional Research Program of the American Counsel of Education and the University of California, Los Angeles, also has affirmed the distinctive benefits of single-sex colleges and universities. As summarized in A. Astin, Four Critical Years 232 (1977), the data established that

“[b]oth [male and female] single-sex colleges facilitate student involvement in several areas: academic, interaction with faculty, and verbal aggressiveness. . . . Men’s and women’s colleges also have a positive effect on intellectual self-esteem. Students at single-sex colleges are more satisfied than students at coeducational col*739leges with virtually all aspects of college life .... The only area where students are less satisfied is social life.”5

Despite the continuing expressions that single-sex institutions may offer singular advantages to their students, there is no doubt that coeducational institutions are far more numerous. But their numerical predominance does not establish — in any sense properly cognizable by a court — that individual preferences for single-sex education are misguided or illegitimate, or that a State may not provide its citizens with a choice.6

II

The issue in this case is whether a State transgresses the Constitution when — within the context of a public system that offers a diverse range of campuses, curricula, and educa*740tional alternatives — it seeks to accommodate the legitimate personal preferences of those desiring the advantages of an all-women’s college. In my view, the Court errs seriously by assuming — without argument or discussion — that the equal protection standard generally applicable to sex discrimination is appropriate here. That standard was designed to free women from “archaic and overbroad generalizations . . . .” Schlesinger v. Ballard, 419 U. S. 498, 508 (1975). In no previous case have we applied it to invalidate state efforts to expand women’s choices. Nor are there prior sex discrimination decisions by this Court in which a male plaintiff, as in this case, had the choice of an equal benefit.

The cases cited by the Court therefore do not control the issue now before us. In most of them women were given no opportunity for the same benefit as men.7 Cases involving male plaintiffs are equally inapplicable. In Craig v. Boren, 429 U. S. 190 (1976), a male under 21 was not permitted to buy beer anywhere in the State, and women were afforded no choice as to whether they would accept the “statistically measured but loose-fitting generalities concerning the drinking *741tendencies of aggregate groups.” Id., at 209. A similar situation prevailed in Orr v. Orr, 440 U. S. 268, 279 (1979), where men had no opportunity to seek alimony from their divorced wives, and women had no escape from the statute’s stereotypical announcement of “the State’s preference for an allocation of family responsibilities under which the wife plays a dependent role . . . .”8

By applying heightened equal protection analysis to this case,9 the Court frustrates the liberating spirit of the Equal Protection Clause. It prohibits the States from providing women with an opportunity to choose the type of university they prefer. And yet it is these women whom the Court regards as the victims of an illegal, stereotyped perception of the role of women in our society. The Court reasons this way in a case in which no woman has complained, and the only complainant is a man who advances no claims on behalf of anyone else. His claim, it should be recalled, is not that he is being denied a substantive educational opportunity, or even the right to attend an all-male or a coeducational col*742lege. See Brief for Respondent 24.10 It is only that the colleges open to him are located at inconvenient distances.11

Ill

The Court views this case as presenting a serious equal protection claim of sex discrimination. I do not, and I would sustain Mississippi’s right to continue MUW on a rational-basis analysis. But I need not apply this “lowest tier” of scrutiny. I can accept for present purposes the standard applied by the Court: that there is a gender-based distinction that must serve an important governmental objective by means that are substantially related to its achievement. E. g., Wengler v. Druggists Mutual Ins. Co., 446 U. S. 142, 150 (1980). The record in this case reflects that MUW has a historic position in the State’s educational system dating back to 1884. More than 2,000 women presently evidence their preference for MUW by having enrolled there. The choice is *743one that discriminates invidiously against no one.12 And the State’s purpose in preserving that choice is legitimate and substantial. Generations of our finest minds, both among educators and students, have believed that single-sex, college-level institutions afford distinctive benefits. There are many persons, of course, who have different views. But simply because there are these differences is no reason— certainly none of constitutional dimension — to conclude that no substantial state interest is served when such a choice is made available.

In arguing to the contrary, the Court suggests that the MUW is so operated as to “perpetuate the stereotyped view of nursing as an exclusively women’s job.” Ante, at 729. But as the Court itself acknowledges, ante, at 720, MUW’s School of Nursing was not created until 1971 — about 90 years after the single-sex campus itself was founded. This hardly supports a link between nursing as a woman’s profession and MUW’s single-sex admission policy. Indeed, MUW’s School of Nursing was not instituted until more than a decade after a separate School of Nursing was established at the coeducational University of Mississippi at Jackson. See University of Mississippi, 1982 Undergraduate Catalog 162. The School of Nursing makes up only one part — a relatively small part13 — of MUW’s diverse modern university campus and curriculum. The other departments on the MUW campus offer a typical range of degrees14 and a typical range of sub*744jects.15 There is no indication that women suffer fewer opportunities at other Mississippi state campuses because of MUW’s admission policy.16

In sum, the practice of voluntarily chosen single-sex education is an honored tradition in our country, even if it now rarely exists in state colleges and universities. Mississippi’s accommodation of such student choices is legitimate because it is completely consensual and is important because it permits students to decide for themselves the type of college education they think will benefit them most. Finally, Mississippi’s policy is substantially related to its long-respected objective.17

*745IV

A distinctive feature of America’s tradition has been respect for diversity. This has been characteristic of the peoples from numerous lands who have built our country. It is the essence of our democratic system. At stake in this case as I see it is the preservation of a small aspect of this diversity. But that aspect is by no means insignificant, given our heritage of available choice between single-sex and coeducational institutions of higher learning. The Court answers that there is discrimination — not just that which may be tolerable, as for example between those candidates for admission able to contribute most to an educational institution and those able to contribute less — but discrimination of constitutional dimension. But, having found “discrimination,” the Court finds it difficult to identify the victims. It hardly can claim that women are discriminated against. A constitutional case is held to exist solely because one man found it inconvenient to travel to any of the other institutions made available to him by the State of Mississippi. In essence he insists that he has a right to attend a college in his home community. This simply is not a sex discrimination case. The Equal Protection Clause was never intended to be applied to this kind of case.18

Justice Brennan

announced the judgment of the Court and delivered an opinion, in which Justice Marshall, Justice Blackmun, and Justice Stevens join.

Ann Hopkins was a senior manager in an office of Price Waterhouse when she was proposed for partnership in 1982. She was neither offered nor denied admission to the partnership; instead, her candidacy was held for reconsideration the following year. When the partners in her office later re*232fused to repropose her for partnership, she sued Price Waterhouse under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 78 Stat. 253, as amended, 42 U. S. C. §2000e et seq., charging that the firm had discriminated against her on the basis of sex in its decisions regarding partnership. Judge Gesell in the Federal District Court for the District of Columbia ruled in her favor on the question of liability, 618 F. Supp. 1109 (1985), and the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit affirmed. 263 U. S. App. D. C. 321, 825 F. 2d 458 (1987). We granted certiorari to resolve a conflict among the Courts of Appeals concerning the respective burdens of proof of a defendant and plaintiff in a suit under Title VII when it has been shown that an employment decision resulted from a mixture of legitimate and illegitimate motives. 485 U. S. 933 (1988).

I

At Price Waterhouse, a nationwide professional accounting partnership, a senior manager becomes a candidate for partnership when the partners in her local office submit her name as a candidate. All of the other partners in the firm are then invited to submit written comments on each candidate— either on a “long” or a “short” form, depending on the partner’s degree of exposure to the candidate. Not every partner in the firm submits comments on every candidate. After reviewing the comments and interviewing the partners who submitted them, the firm’s Admissions Committee makes a recommendation to the Policy Board. This recommendation will be either that the firm accept the candidate for partnership, put her application on “hold,” or deny her the promotion outright. The Policy Board then decides whether to submit the candidate’s name to the entire partnership for a vote, to “hold” her candidacy, or to reject her. The recommendation of the Admissions Committee, and the decision of the Policy Board, are not controlled by fixed guidelines: a certain number of positive comments from partners will not guarantee a candidate’s admission to the partnership, nor will a specific *233quantity of negative comments necessarily defeat her application. Price Waterhouse places no limit on the number of persons whom it will admit to the partnership in any given year.

Ann Hopkins had worked at Price Waterhouse’s Office of Government Services in Washington, D. C., for five years when the partners in that office proposed her as a candidate for partnership. Of the 662 partners at the firm at that time, 7 were women. Of the 88 persons proposed for partnership that year, only 1 — Hopkins—was a woman. Forty-seven of these candidates were admitted to the partnership, 21 were rejected, and 20 — including Hopkins — were “held” for reconsideration the following year.1 Thirteen of the 32 partners who had submitted comments on Hopkins supported her bid for partnership. Three partners recommended that her candidacy be placed on hold, eight stated that they did not have an informed opinion about her, and eight recommended that she be denied partnership.

In a jointly prepared statement supporting her candidacy, the partners in Hopkins’ office showcased her successful 2-year effort to secure a $25 million contract with the Department of State, labeling it “an outstanding performance” and one that Hopkins carried out “virtually at the partner level.” Plaintiff’s Exh. 15. Despite Price Waterhouse’s attempt at trial to minimize her contribution to this project, Judge Ge-*234sell specifically found that Hopkins had “played a key role in Price Waterhouse’s successful effort to win a multi-million dollar contract with the Department of State.” 618 F. Supp., at 1112. Indeed, he went on, “[n]one of the other partnership candidates at Price Waterhouse that year had a comparable record in terms of successfully securing major contracts for the partnership.” Ibid.

The partners in Hopkins’ office praised her character as well as her accomplishments, describing her in their joint statement as “an outstanding professional” who had a “deft touch,” a “strong character, independence and integrity.” Plaintiff’s Exh. 15. Clients appear to have agreed with these assessments. At trial, one official from the State Department described her as “extremely competent, intelligent,” “strong and forthright, very productive, energetic and creative.” Tr. 150. Another high-ranking official praised Hopkins’ decisiveness, broadmindedness, and “intellectual clarity”; she was, in his words, “a stimulating conversationalist.” Id., at 156-157. Evaluations such as these led Judge Gesell to conclude that Hopkins “had no difficulty dealing with clients and her clients appear to have been very pleased with her work” and that she “was generally viewed as a highly competent project leader who worked long hours, pushed vigorously to meet deadlines and demanded much from the multidisciplinary staffs with which she worked.” 618 F. Supp., at 1112-1113.

On too many occasions, however, Hopkins’ aggressiveness apparently spilled over into abrasiveness. Staff members seem to have borne the brunt of Hopkins’ brusqueness. Long before her bid for partnership, partners evaluating her work had counseled her to improve her relations with staff members. Although later evaluations indicate an improvement, Hopkins’ perceived shortcomings in this important area eventually doomed her bid for partnership. Virtually all of the partners’ negative remarks about Hopkins — even those of partners supporting her — had to do with her “inter*235personal skills.” Both “[s]upporters and opponents of her candidacy,” stressed Judge Gesell, “indicated that she was sometimes overly aggressive, unduly harsh, difficult to work with and impatient with staff.” Id., at 1113.

There were clear signs, though, that some of the partners reacted negatively to Hopkins’ personality because she was a woman. One partner described her as “macho” (Defendant’s Exh. 30); another suggested that she “overcompensated for being a woman” (Defendant’s Exh. 31); a third advised her to take “a course at charm school” (Defendant’s Exh. 27). Several partners criticized her use of profanity; in response, one partner suggested that those partners objected to her swearing only “because it’s a lady using foul language.” Tr. 321. Another supporter explained that Hopkins “ha[d] matured from a tough-talking somewhat masculine hard-nosed mgr to an authoritative, formidable, but much more appealing lady ptr candidate.” Defendant’s Exh. 27. But it was the man who, as Judge Gesell found, bore responsibility for explaining to Hopkins the reasons for the Policy Board’s decision to place her candidacy on hold who delivered the coup de grace: in order to improve her chances for partnership, Thomas Beyer advised, Hopkins should “walk more femininely, talk more femininely, dress more femininely, wear make-up, have her hair styled, and wear jewelry.” 618 F. Supp., at 1117.

Dr. Susan Fiske, a social psychologist and Associate Professor of Psychology at Carnegie-Mellon University, testified at trial that the partnership selection process at Price Waterhouse was likely influenced by sex stereotyping. Her testimony focused not only on the overtly sex-based comments of partners but also on gender-neutral remarks, made by partners who knew Hopkins only slightly, that were intensely critical of her. One partner, for example, baldly stated that Hopkins was “universally disliked” by staff (Defendant’s Exh. 27), and another described her as “consistently annoying and irritating” (ibid.); yet these were people who had had very little contact with Hopkins. According to *236Fiske, Hopkins’ uniqueness (as the only woman in the pool of candidates) and the subjectivity of the evaluations made it likely that sharply critical remarks such as these were the product of sex stereotyping — although Fiske admitted that she could not say with certainty whether any particular comment was the result of stereotyping. Fiske based her opinion on a review of the submitted comments, explaining that it was commonly accepted practice for social psychologists to reach this kind of conclusion without having met any of the people involved in the decisionmaking process.

In previous years, other female candidates for partnership also had been evaluated in sex-based terms. As a general matter, Judge Gesell concluded, “[candidates were viewed favorably if partners believed they maintained their femin[injity while becoming effective professional managers”; in this environment, “[t]o be identified as a ‘women’s lib[b]er’ was regarded as [a] negative comment.” 618 F. Supp., at 1117. In fact, the judge found that in previous years “[o]ne partner repeatedly commented that he could not consider any woman seriously as a partnership candidate and believed that women were not even capable of functioning as senior managers —yet the firm took no action to discourage his comments and recorded his vote in the overall summary of the evaluations.” Ibid.

Judge Gesell found that Price Waterhouse legitimately emphasized interpersonal skills in its partnership decisions, and also found that the firm had not fabricated its complaints about Hopkins’ interpersonal skills as a pretext for discrimination. Moreover, he concluded, the firm did not give decisive emphasis to such traits only because Hopkins was a woman; although there were male candidates who lacked these skills but who were admitted to partnership, the judge found that these candidates possessed other, positive traits that Hopkins lacked.

The judge went on to decide, however, that some of the partners’ remarks about Hopkins stemmed from an imper*237missibly cabined view of the proper behavior of women, and that Price Waterhouse had done nothing to disavow reliance on such comments. He held that Price Waterhouse had unlawfully discriminated against Hopkins on the basis of sex by consciously giving credence and effect to partners’ comments that resulted from sex stereotyping. Noting that Price Waterhouse could avoid equitable relief by proving by clear and convincing evidence that it would have placed Hopkins’ candidacy on hold even absent this discrimination, the judge decided that the firm had not carried this heavy burden.

The Court of Appeals affirmed the District Court’s ultimate conclusion, but departed from its analysis in one particular: it held that even if a plaintiff proves that discrimination played a role in an employment decision, the defendant will not be found liable if it proves, by clear and convincing evidence, that it would have made the same decision in the absence of discrimination. 263 U. S. App. D. C., at 333-334, 825 F. 2d, at 470-471. Under this approach, an employer is not deemed to have violated Title VII if it proves that it would have made the same decision in the absence of an impermissible motive, whereas under the District Court’s approach, the employer’s proof in that respect only avoids equitable relief. We decide today that the Court of Appeals had the better approach, but that both courts erred in requiring the employer to make its proof by clear and convincing evidence.

II

The specification of the standard of causation under Title VII is a decision about the kind of conduct that violates that statute. According to Price Waterhouse, an employer violates Title VII only if it gives decisive consideration to an employee’s gender, race, national origin, or religion in making a decision that affects that employee. On Price Waterhouse’s theory, even if a plaintiff shows that her gender played a part in an employment decision, it is still her burden to show that the decision would have been different if the employer had *238not discriminated. In Hopkins’ view, on the other hand, an employer violates the statute whenever it allows one of these attributes to play any part in an employment decision. Once a plaintiff shows that this occurred, according to Hopkins, the employer’s proof that it would have made the same decision in the absence of discrimination can serve to limit equitable relief but not to avoid a finding of liability.2 We conclude that, as often happens, the truth lies somewhere in between.

*239A

In passing Title VII, Congress made the simple but momentous announcement that sex, race, religion, and national origin are not relevant to the selection, evaluation, or compensation of employees.3 Yet, the statute does not purport to limit the other qualities and characteristics that employers may take into account in making employment decisions. The converse, therefore, of “for cause” legislation,4 Title VII eliminates certain bases for distinguishing among employees while otherwise preserving employers’ freedom of choice. This balance between employee rights and employer prerogatives turns out to be decisive in the case before us.

Congress’ intent to forbid employers to take gender into account in making employment decisions appears on the face of the statute. In now-familiar language, the statute forbids *240an employer to “fail or refuse to hire or to discharge any individual, or otherwise to discriminate with respect to his compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges of employment,” or to “limit, segregate, or classify his employees or applicants for employment in any way which would deprive or tend to deprive any individual of employment opportunities or otherwise adversely affect his status as an employee, because of such individual’s . . . sex.” 42 U. S. C. §§2000e-2(a)(l), (2) (emphasis added).5 We take these words to mean that gender must be irrelevant to employment decisions. To construe the words “because of” as colloquial shorthand for “but-for causation,” as does Price Waterhouse, is to misunderstand them.6

But-for causation is a hypothetical construct. In determining whether a particular factor was a but-for cause of a given event, we begin by assuming that that factor was present at the time of the event, and then ask whether, even if that factor had been absent, the event nevertheless would have transpired in the same way. The present, active tense of the operative verbs of § 703(a)(1) (“to fail or refuse”), in contrast, turns our attention to the actual moment of the *241event in question, the adverse employment decision. The critical inquiry, the one commanded by the words of § 703(a)(1), is whether gender was a factor in the employment decision at the moment it was made. Moreover, since we know that the words “because of” do not mean “solely because of,”7 we also know that Title YII meant to condemn even those decisions based on a mixture of legitimate and illegitimate considerations. When, therefore; an employer considers both gender and legitimate factors at the time of making a decision, that decision was “because of” sex and the other, legitimate considerations — even if we may say later, in the context of litigation, that the decision would have been the same if gender had not been taken into account.

To attribute this meaning to the words “because of” does not, as the dissent asserts, post, at 282, divest them of causal significance. A simple example illustrates the point. Suppose two physical forces act upon and move an object, and suppose that either force acting alone would have moved the object. As the dissent would have it, neither physical force was a “cause” of the motion unless we can show that but for one or both of them, the object would not have moved; apparently both forces were simply “in the air” unless we can identify at least one of them as a but-for cause of the object’s movement. Ibid. Events that are causally overdetermined, in other words, may not have any “cause” at all. This cannot be so.

We need not leave our common sense at the doorstep when we interpret a statute. It is difficult for us to imagine that, in the simple words “because of,” Congress meant to obligate a plaintiff to identify the precise causal role played by legitimate and illegitimate motivations in the employment decision she challenges. We conclude, instead, that Congress meant *242to obligate her to prove that the employer relied upon sex-based considerations in coming to its decision.

Our interpretation of the words “because of” also is supported by the fact that Title VII does identify one circumstance in which an employer may take gender into account in making an employment decision, namely, when gender is a “bona fide occupational' qualification [(BFOQ)] reasonably necessary to the normal operation of th[e] particular business or enterprise.” 42 U. S. C. §2000e-2(e). The only plausible inference to draw from this provision is that, in all other circumstances, a person’s gender may not be considered in making decisions that affect her. Indeed, Title VII even forbids employers to make gender an indirect stumbling block to employment opportunities. An employer may not, we have held, condition employment opportunities on the satisfaction of facially neutral tests or qualifications that have a disproportionate, adverse impact on members of protected groups when those tests or qualifications are not required for performance of the job. See Watson v. Fort Worth Bank & Trust, 487 U. S. 977 (1988); Griggs v. Duke Power Co., 401 U. S. 424 (1971).

To say that an employer may not take gender into account is not, however, the end of the matter, for that describes only one aspect of Title VII. The other important aspect of the statute is its preservation of an employer’s remaining freedom of choice. We conclude that the preservation of this freedom means that an employer shall not be liable if it can prove that, even if it had not taken gender into account, it would have come to the same decision regarding a particular person. The statute’s maintenance of employer prerogatives is evident from the statute itself and from its history, both in Congress and in this Court.

To begin with, the existence of the BFOQ exception shows Congress’ unwillingness to require employers to change the very nature of their operations in response to the statute. And our emphasis on “business necessity” in disparate-*243impact cases, see Watson and Griggs, and on “legitimate, nondiscriminatory reason[s]” in disparate-treatment cases, see McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green, 411 U. S. 792, 802 (1973); Texas Dept. of Community Affairs v. Burdine, 450 U. S. 248 (1981), results from our awareness of Title VII’s balance between employee rights and employer prerogatives. In McDonnell Douglas, we described as follows Title VII’s goal to eradicate discrimination while preserving workplace efficiency: “The broad, overriding interest, shared by employer, employee, and consumer, is efficient and trustworthy workmanship assured through fair and racially neutral employment and personnel decisions. In the implementation of such decisions, it is abundantly clear that Title VII tolerates no racial discrimination, subtle or otherwise.” 411 U. S., at 801.

When an employer ignored the attributes enumerated in the statute, Congress hoped, it naturally would focus on the qualifications of the applicant or employee. The intent to drive employers to focus on qualifications rather than on race, religion, sex, or national origin is the theme of a good deal of the statute’s legislative history. An interpretive memorandum entered into the Congressional Record by Senators Case and Clark, comanagers of the bill in the Senate, is representative of this general theme8 According to their memorandum, Title VII “‘expressly protects the employer’s right to insist that any prospective applicant, Negro or white, must meet the applicable job qualifications. Indeed, the very purpose of title VII is to promote hiring on the basis of job qualifications, rather than on the basis of race or color.’”9 110 Cong. Rec. 7247 (1964), quoted in Griggs v. *244Duke Power Co., supra, at 434. The memorandum went on: “To discriminate is to make a distinction, to make a difference in treatment or favor, and those distinctions or differences in treatment or favor which are prohibited by section 704 are those which are based on any five of the forbidden criteria: race, color, religion, sex, and national origin. Any other criterion or qualification for employment is not affected by this title.” 110 Cong. Rec. 7213 (1964).

Many other legislators made statements to a similar effect; we see no need to set out each remark in full here. The' central point is this: while an employer may not take gender into account in making an employment decision (except in those very narrow circumstances in which gender is a BFOQ), it is free to decide against a woman for other reasons. We think these principles require that, once a plaintiff in a Title VII case shows that gender played a motivating part in an employment decision, the defendant may avoid a finding of liability 10 only by proving that it would have made the same *245decision even if it had not allowed gender to play such a role. This balance of burdens is the direct result of Title VII’s balance of rights.

Our holding casts no shadow on Burdine, in which we decided that, even after a plaintiff has made out a prima facie case of discrimination under Title VII, the burden of persuasion does not shift to the employer to show that its stated legitimate reason for the employment decision was the true reason. 450 U. S., at 256-258. We stress, first, that nei*246ther court below shifted the burden of persuasion to Price Waterhouse on this question, and in fact, the District Court found that Hopkins had not shown that the firm’s stated reason for its decision was pretextual. 618 F. Supp., at 1114-1115. Moreover, since we hold that the plaintiff retains the burden of persuasion on the issue whether gender played a part in the employment decision, the situation before us is not the one of “shifting burdens” that we addressed in Burdine. Instead, the employer’s burden is most appropriately deemed an affirmative defense: the plaintiff must persuade the factfinder on one point, and then the employer, if it wishes to prevail, must persuade it on another. See NLRB v. Transportation Management Corp., 462 U. S. 393, 400 (1983).11

Price Waterhouse’s claim that the employer does not bear any burden of proof (if it bears one at all) until the plaintiff has shown “substantial evidence that Price Waterhouse’s explanation for failing to promote Hopkins was not the ‘true .reason’ for its action” (Brief for Petitioner 20) merely restates its argument that the plaintiff in a mixed-motives case *247must squeeze her proof into Burdine’s framework. Where a decision was the product of a mixture of legitimate and illegitimate motives, however, it simply makes no sense to ask whether the legitimate reason was “the ‘true reason’ ” (Brief for Petitioner 20 (emphasis added)) for the decision — which is the question asked by Burdine. See Transportation Management, supra, at 400, n. 5.12 Oblivious to this last point, the dissent would insist that Burdine’s framework perform work that it was never intended to perform. It would require a plaintiff who challenges an adverse employment decision in which both legitimate and illegitimate considerations played a part to pretend that the decision, in fact, stemmed from a single source — for the premise of Burdine is that either a legitimate or an illegitimate set of considerations led to the challenged decision. To say that Burdine’s evidentiary scheme will not help us decide a case admittedly involving both kinds of considerations is not to cast aspersions on the utility of that scheme in the circumstances for which it was designed.

*248B

In deciding as we do today, we do not traverse new ground. We have in the past confronted Title VII cases in which an employer has used an illegitimate criterion to distinguish among employees, and have held that it is the employer’s burden to justify decisions resulting from that practice. When an employer has asserted that gender is a BFOQ within the meaning of § 703(e), for example, we have assumed that it is the employer who must show why it must use gender as a criterion in employment. See Dothard v. Rawlinson, 433 U. S. 321, 332-337 (1977). In a related context, although the Equal Pay Act expressly permits employers to pay different wages to women where disparate pay is the result of a “factor other than sex,” see 29 U. S. C. § 206(d)(1), we have decided that it is the employer, not the employee, who must prove that the actual disparity is not sex linked. See Corning Glass Works v. Brennan, 417 U. S. 188, 196 (1974). Finally, some courts have held that, under Title VII as amended by the Pregnancy Discrimination Act, it is the employer who has the burden of showing that its limitations on the work that it allows a pregnant woman to perform are necessary in light of her pregnancy. See, e. g., Hayes v. Shelby Memorial Hospital, 726 F. 2d 1543, 1548 (CA11 1984); Wright v. Olin Corp., 697 F. 2d 1172, 1187 (CA4 1982). As these examples demonstrate, our assumption always has been that if an employer allows gender to affect its decision-making process, then it must carry the burden of justifying its ultimate decision. We have not in the past required women whose gender has proved relevant to an employment decision to establish the negative proposition that they would not have been subject to that decision had they been men, and we do not do so today.

We have reached a similar conclusion in other contexts where the law announces that a certain characteristic is irrelevant to the allocation of burdens and benefits. In Mt. Healthy City Bd. of Ed. v. Doyle, 429 U. S. 274 (1977), the *249plaintiff claimed that he had been discharged as a public school teacher for exercising his free-speech rights under the First Amendment. Because we did not wish to “place an employee in a better position as a result of the exercise of constitutionally protected conduct than he would have occupied had he done nothing,” id., at 285, we concluded that such an employee “ought not to be able, by engaging in such conduct, to prevent his employer from assessing his performance record and reaching a decision not to rehire on the basis of that record.” Id., at 286. We therefore held that once the plaintiff had shown that his constitutionally protected speech was a “substantial” or “motivating factor” in the adverse treatment of him by his employer, the employer was obligated to prove “by a preponderance of the evidence that it would have reached the same decision as to [the plaintiff] even in the absence of the protected conduct.” Id., at 287. A court that finds for a plaintiff under this standard has effectively concluded that an illegitimate motive was a “but-for” cause of the employment decision. See Givhan v. Western Line Consolidated School Dist., 439 U. S. 410, 417 (1979). See also Arlington Heights v. Metropolitan Housing Development Corp., 429 U. S. 252, 270-271, n. 21 (1977) (applying Mt. Healthy standard where plaintiff alleged that unconstitutional motive had contributed to enactment of legislation); Hunter v. Underwood, 471 U. S. 222, 228 (1985) (same).

In Transportation Management, we upheld the NLRB’s interpretation of § 10(c) of the National Labor Relations Act, which forbids a court to order affirmative relief for discriminatory conduct against a union member “if such individual was suspended or discharged for cause.” 29 U. S. C. § 160(c). The Board had decided that this provision meant that once an employee had shown that his suspension or discharge was based in part on hostility to unions, it was up to the employer to prove by a preponderance of the evidence that it would have made the same decision in the absence of this impermissible motive. In such a situation, we empha*250sized, “[t]he employer is a wrongdoer; he has acted out of a motive that is declared illegitimate by the statute. It is fair that he bear the risk that the influence of legal and illegal motives cannot be separated, because he knowingly created the risk and because the risk was created not by innocent activity but by his own wrongdoing.” 462 U. S., at 403.

We have, in short, been here before. Each time, we have concluded that the plaintiff who shows that an impermissible motive played a motivating part in an adverse employment decision has thereby placed upon the defendant the burden to show that it would have made the same decision in the absence of the unlawful motive. Our decision today treads this well-worn path.

C

In saying that gender played a motivating part in an employment decision, we mean that, if we asked the employer at the moment of the decision what its reasons were and if we received a truthful response, one of those reasons would be that the applicant or employee was a woman.13 In the specific context of sex stereotyping, an employer who acts on the basis of a belief that a woman cannot be aggressive, or that she must not be, has acted on the basis of gender.

Although the parties do not overtly dispute this last proposition, the placement by Price Waterhouse of “sex stereotyping” in quotation marks throughout its brief seems to us an insinuation either that such stereotyping was not present in this case or that it lacks legal relevance. We reject both pos*251sibilities. As to the existence of sex stereotyping in this case, we are not inclined to quarrel with the District Court’s conclusion that a number of the partners’ comments showed sex stereotyping at work. See infra, at 255-256. As for the legal relevance of sex stereotyping, we are beyond the day when an employer could evaluate employees by assuming or insisting that they matched the stereotype associated with their group, for “‘[i]n forbidding employers to discriminate against individuals because of their sex, Congress intended to strike at the entire spectrum of disparate treatment of men and women resulting from sex stereotypes.’” Los Angeles Dept. of Water and Power v. Manhart, 435 U. S. 702, 707, n. 13 (1978), quoting Sprogis v. United Air Lines, Inc., 444 F. 2d 1194, 1198 (CA7 1971). An employer who objects to aggressiveness in women but whose positions require this trait places women in an intolerable and impermissible catch 22: out of a job if they behave aggressively and out of a job if they do not. Title VII lifts women out of this bind.

Remarks at work that are based on sex stereotypes do not inevitably prove that gender played a part in a particular employment decision. The plaintiff must show that the employer actually relied on her gender in making its decision. In making this showing, stereotyped remarks can certainly be evidence that gender played a part. In any event, the stereotyping in this case did not simply consist of stray remarks. On the contrary, Hopkins proved that Price Water-house invited partners to submit comments; that some of the comments stemmed from sex stereotypes; that an important part of the Policy Board’s decision on Hopkins was an assessment of the submitted comments; and that Price Waterhouse in no way disclaimed reliance on the sex-linked evaluations. This is not, as Price Waterhouse suggests, “discrimination in the air”; rather, it is, as Hopkins puts it, “discrimination brought to ground and visited upon” an employee. Brief for Respondent 30. By focusing on Hopkins’ specific proof, however, we do not suggest a limitation on the possible ways *252of proving that stereotyping played a motivating role in an employment decision, and we refrain from deciding here which specific facts, “standing alone,” would or would not establish a plaintiff’s case, since such a decision is unnecessary in this case. But see post, at 277 (O’Connor, J., concurring in judgment).

As to the employer’s proof, in most cases, the employer should be able to present some objective evidence as to its probable decision in the absence of an impermissible motive.14 Moreover, proving “ ‘that the same decision would have been justified ... is not the same as proving that the same decision would have been made.’” Givhan, 439 U. S., at 416, quoting Ayers v. Western Line Consolidated School District, 555 F. 2d 1309, 1315 (CA5 1977). An employer may not, in other words, prevail in a mixed-motives case by offering a legitimate and sufficient reason for its decision if that reason did not motivate it at the time of the decision. Finally, an employer may not meet its burden in such a case by merely showing that at the time of the decision it was motivated only in part by a legitimate reason. The very premise of a mixed-motives case is that a legitimate reason was present, and indeed, in this case, Price Waterhouse already has made this showing by convincing Judge Gesell that Hopkins’ interpersonal problems were a legitimate concern. The employer instead must show that its legitimate reason, standing alone, would have induced it to make the same decision.

I — I I — I h-<

The courts below held that an employer who has allowed a discriminatory impulse to play a motivating part in an employment decision must prove by clear and convincing evidence that it would have made the same decision in the ab*253sence of discrimination. We are persuaded that the better rule is that the employer must make this showing by a preponderance of the evidence.

Conventional rules of civil litigation generally apply in Title VII cases, see, e. g., United States Postal Service Bd. of Governors v. Aikens, 460 U. S. 711, 716 (1983) (discrimination not to be “treat[ed]. . . differently from other ultimate questions of fact”), and one of these rules is that parties to civil litigation need only prove their case by a preponderance of the evidence. See, e. g., Herman & MacLean v. Huddleston, 459 U. S. 375, 390 (1983). Exceptions to this standard are uncommon, and in fact are ordinarily recognized only when the government seeks to take unusual coercive action— action more dramatic than entering an award of money damages or other conventional relief — against an individual. See Santosky v. Kramer, 455 U. S. 745, 756 (1982) (termination of parental rights); Addington v. Texas, 441 U. S. 418, 427 (1979) (involuntary commitment); Woodby v. INS, 385 U. S. 276 (1966) (deportation); Schneiderman v. United States, 320 U. S. 118, 122, 125 (1943) (denaturalization). Only rarely have we required clear and convincing proof where the action defended against seeks only conventional relief, see, e. g., Gertz v. Robert Welch, Inc., 418 U. S. 323, 342 (1974) (defamation), and we find it significant that in such cases it was the defendant rather than the plaintiff who sought the elevated standard of proof — suggesting that this standard ordinarily serves as a shield rather than, as Hopkins seeks to use it, as a sword.

It is true, as Hopkins emphasizes, that we have noted the “clear distinction between the measure of proof necessary to establish the fact that petitioner had sustained some damage and the measure of proof necessary to enable the jury to fix the amount.” Story Parchment Co. v. Paterson Parchment Paper Co., 282 U. S. 555, 562 (1931). Likewise, an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) regulation does require federal agencies proved to have violated *254Title VII to show by clear and convincing evidence that an individual employee is not entitled to relief. See 29 CFR § 1613.271(c)(2) (1988). And finally, it is true that we have emphasized the importance of make-whole relief for victims of discrimination. See Albemarle Paper Co. v. Moody, 422 U. S. 405 (1975). Yet each of these sources deals with the proper determination of relief rather than with the initial finding of liability. This is seen most easily in the EEOC’s regulation, which operates only after an agency or the EEOC has found that “an employee of the agency was discriminated against.” See 29 CFR § 1613.271(c) (1988). Because we have held that, by proving that it would have made the same decision in the absence of discrimination, the employer may avoid a finding of liability altogether and not simply avoid certain equitable relief, these authorities do not help Hopkins to show why we should elevate the standard of proof for an employer in this position.

Significantly, the cases from this Court that most resemble this one, Mt. Healthy and Transportation Management, did not require clear and convincing proof. Mt. Healthy, 429 U. S., at 287; Transportation Management, 462 U. S., at 400, 403. We are not inclined to say that the public policy against firing employees because they spoke out on issues of public concern or because they affiliated with a union is less important than the policy against discharging employees on the basis of their gender. Each of these policies is vitally important, and each is adequately served by requiring proof by a preponderance of the evidence.

Although Price Waterhouse does not concretely tell us how its proof was preponderant even if it was not clear and convincing, this general claim is implicit in its request for the less stringent standard. Since the lower courts required Price Waterhouse to make its proof by clear and convincing evidence, they did not determine whether Price Waterhouse had proved by a preponderance of the evidence that it would have placed Hopkins’ candidacy on hold even if it had not per*255mitted sex-linked evaluations to play a part in the decision-making process. Thus, we shall remand this case so that that determination can be made.

i>

The District Court found that sex stereotyping was permitted to play a part” in the evaluation of Hopkins as a candidate for partnership. 618 F. Supp., at 1120. Price Water-house disputes both that stereotyping occurred and that it played any part in the decision to place Hopkins’ candidacy on hold. In the firm’s view, in other words, the District Court’s factual conclusions are clearly erroneous. We do not agree.

In finding that some of the partners’ comments reflected sex stereotyping, the District Court relied in part on Dr. Fiske’s expert testimony. Without directly impugning Dr. Fiske’s credentials or qualifications, Price Waterhouse insinuates that a social psychologist is unable to identify sex stereotyping in evaluations without investigating whether those evaluations have a basis in reality. This argument comes too late. At trial, counsel for Price Waterhouse twice assured the court that he did not question Dr. Fiske’s expertise (App. 25) and failed to challenge the legitimacy of her discipline. Without contradiction from Price Waterhouse, Fiske testified that she discerned sex stereotyping in the partners’ evaluations of Hopkins, and she further explained that it was part of her business to identify stereotyping in written documents. Id., at 64. We are not inclined to accept petitioner’s belated and unsubstantiated characterization of Dr. Fiske’s testimony as “gossamer evidence” (Brief for Petitioner 20) based only on “intuitive hunches” (id., at 44) and of her detection of sex stereotyping as “intuitively divined” (id., at 43). Nor are we disposed to adopt the dissent’s dismissive attitude toward Dr. Fiske’s field of study and toward her own professional integrity, see post, at 293-294, n. 5.

*256Indeed, we are tempted to say that Dr. Fiske’s expert testimony was merely icing on Hopkins’ cake. It takes no special training to discern sex stereotyping in a description of an aggressive female employee as requiring “a course at charm school.” Nor, turning to Thomas Beyer’s memorable advice to Hopkins, does it require expertise in psychology to know that, if an employee’s flawed “interpersonal skills” can be corrected by a soft-hued suit or a new shade of lipstick, perhaps it is the employee’s sex and not her interpersonal skills that has drawn the criticism.15

Price Waterhouse also charges that Hopkins produced no evidence that sex stereotyping played a role in the decision to place her candidacy on hold. As we have stressed, however, Hopkins showed that the partnership solicited evaluations from all of the firm’s partners; that it generally relied very heavily on such evaluations in making its decision; that some of the partners’ comments were the product of stereotyping; and that the firm in no way disclaimed reliance on those particular comments, either in Hopkins’ case or in the past. Certainly a plausible — and, one might say, inevitable — conclusion to draw from this set of circumstances is that the Policy Board in making its decision did in fact take into account all of the partners’ comments, including the comments that were motivated by stereotypical notions about women’s proper deportment.16

*257Price Waterhouse concedes that the proof in Transportation Management adequately showed that the employer there had relied on an impermissible motivation in firing the plaintiff. Brief for Petitioner 45. But the only evidence in that case that a discriminatory motive contributed to the plaintiff’s discharge was that the employer harbored a grudge toward the plaintiff on account of his union activity; there was, contrary to Price Waterhouse’s suggestion, no direct evidence that that grudge had played a role in the decision, and, in fact, the employer had given other reasons in explaining the plaintiff’s discharge. See 462 U. S., at 396. If the partnership considers that proof sufficient, we do not know why it takes such vehement issue with Hopkins’ proof.

Nor is the finding that sex stereotyping played a part in the Policy Board’s decision undermined by the fact that many of the suspect comments were made by supporters rather than detractors of Hopkins. A negative comment, even when made in the context of a generally favorable review, nevertheless may influence the decisionmaker to think less highly of the candidate; the Policy Board, in fact, did not simply tally the “yesses” and “noes” regarding a candidate, but carefully reviewed the content of the submitted comments. The additional suggestion that the comments were made by “persons outside the decisionmaking chain” (Brief for Petitioner 48) — and therefore could not have harmed Hopkins — simply ignores the critical role that partners’ comments played in the Policy Board’s partnership decisions.

Price Waterhouse appears to think that we cannot affirm the factual findings of the trial court without deciding that, instead of being overbearing and aggressive and curt, Hopkins is, in fact, kind and considerate and patient. If this is indeed its impression, petitioner misunderstands the theory *258on which Hopkins prevailed. The District Judge acknowledged that Hopkins’ conduct justified complaints about her behavior as a senior manager. But he also concluded that the reactions of at least some of the partners were reactions to her as a woman manager. Where an evaluation is based on a subjective assessment of a person’s strengths and weaknesses, it is simply not true that each evaluator will focus on, or even mention, the sáme weaknesses. Thus, even if we knew that Hopkins had “personality problems,” this would not tell us that the partners who cast their evaluations of Hopkins in sex-based terms would have criticized her as sharply (or criticized her at all) if she had been a man. It is not our job to review the evidence and decide that the negative reactions to Hopkins were based on reality; our perception of Hopkins’ character is irrelevant. We sit not to determine whether Ms. Hopkins is nice, but to decide whether the partners reacted negatively to her personality because she is a woman.

V

We hold that when a plaintiff in a Title VII case proves that her gender played a motivating part in an employment decision, the defendant may avoid a finding of liability only by proving by a preponderance of the evidence that it would have made the same decision even if it had not taken the plaintiff’s gender into account. Because the courts below erred by deciding that the defendant must make this proof by clear and convincing evidence, we reverse the Court of Appeals’ judgment against Price Waterhouse on liability and remand the case to that court for further proceedings.

It is so ordered.

Justice White,

concurring in the judgment.

In my view, to determine the proper approach to causation in this case, we need look only to the Court’s opinion in Mt. Healthy City Bd. of Ed. v. Doyle, 429 U. S. 274 (1977). In Mt. Healthy, a public employee was not rehired, in part *259because of his exercise of First Amendment rights and in part because of permissible considerations. The Court rejected a rule of causation that focused “solely on whether protected conduct played a part, ‘substantial’ or otherwise, in a decision not to rehire,” on the grounds that such a rule could make the employee better off by exercising his constitutional rights than by doing nothing at all. Id., at 285. Instead, the Court outlined the following approach:

“Initially, in this case, the burden was properly placed upon respondent to show that his conduct was constitutionally protected, and that his conduct was a ‘substantial factor’ — or, to put it in other words, that it was a ‘motivating factor’ in the Board’s decision not to rehire him. Respondent having carried that burden, however, the District Court should have gone on to determine whether the Board had shown by a preponderance of the evidence that it would have reached the same decision as to respondent’s reemployment even in the absence of the protected conduct.” Id., at 287 (footnote omitted).

It is not necessary to get into semantic discussions on whether the Mt. Healthy approach is “but-for” causation in another guise or creates an affirmative defense on the part of the employer to see its clear application to the issues before us in this case. As in Mt. Healthy, the District Court found that the employer was motivated by both legitimate and illegitimate factors. And here, as in Mt. Healthy, and as the Court now holds, Hopkins was not required to prove that the illegitimate factor was the only, principal, or true reason for petitioner’s action. Rather, as Justice O’Connor states, her burden was to show that the unlawful motive was a substantial factor in the adverse employment action. The District Court, as its opinion was construed by the Court of Appeals, so found, 263 U. S. App. D. C. 321, 333, 334, 825 F. 2d 458, 470, 471 (1987), and I agree that the finding was supported by the record. The burden of persuasion then *260should have shifted to Price Waterhouse to prove “by a preponderance of the evidence that it would have reached the same decision ... in the absence of” the unlawful motive. Mt. Healthy, supra, at 287.

I agree with Justice Brennan that applying this approach to causation in Title VII cases is not a departure from, and does not require modification of, the Court’s holdings in Texas Dept. of Community Affairs v. Burdine, 450 U. S. 248 (1981), and McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green, 411 U. S. 792 (1973). The Court has made clear that “mixed-motives” cases, such as the present one, are different from pretext cases such as McDonnell Douglas and Burdine. In pretext cases, “the issue is whether either illegal or legal motives, but not both, were the ‘true’ motives behind the decision.” NLRB v. Transportation Management Corp., 462 U. S. 393, 400, n. 5 (1983). In mixed-motives cases, however, there is no one “true” motive behind the decision. Instead, the decision is a result of multiple factors, at least one of which is legitimate. It can hardly be said that our decision in this case is a departure from cases that are “inapposite.” Ibid. 1 also disagree with the dissent’s assertion that this approach to causation is inconsistent with our statement in Burdine that “[t]he ultimate burden of persuading the trier of fact that the defendant intentionally discriminated against the plaintiff remains at all times with the plaintiff.” 450 U. S., at 253. As we indicated in Transportation Management Corp., the showing required by Mt. Healthy does not improperly shift from the plaintiff the ultimate burden of persuasion on whether the defendant intentionally discriminated against him or her. See 462 U. S., at 400, n. 5.

Because the Court of Appeals required Price Waterhouse to prove by clear and convincing evidence that it would have reached the same employment decision in the absence of the improper motive, rather than merely requiring proof by a preponderance of the evidence as in Mt. Healthy, I concur in the judgment reversing this case in part and remanding. *261With respect to the employer’s burden, however, the plurality seems to require, at least in most cases, that the employer submit objective evidence that the same result would have occurred absent the unlawful motivation. Ante, at 252. In my view, however, there is no special requirement that the employer carry its burden by objective evidence. In a mixed-motives case, where the legitimate motive found would have been ample grounds for the action taken, and the employer credibly testifies that the action would have been taken for the legitimate reasons alone, this should be ample proof. This would even more plainly be the case where the employer denies any illegitimate motive in the first place but the court finds that illegitimate, as well as legitimate, factors motivated the adverse action.*

Justice O’Connor,

concurring in the judgment.

I agree with the plurality that, on the facts presented in this ease, the burden of persuasion should shift to the employer to demonstrate by a preponderance of the evidence that it would have reached the same decision concerning Ann Hopkins’ candidacy absent consideration of her gender. I further agree that this burden shift is properly part of the liability phase of the litigation. I thus concur in the judgment of the Court. My disagreement stems from the plurality’s conclusions concerning the substantive requirement of causation under the statute and its broad statements regarding the applicability of the allocation of the burden of proof applied in this case. The evidentiary rule the Court adopts today should be viewed as a supplement to the careful framework established by our unanimous decisions in McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green, 411 U. S. 792 (1973), and Texas Dept. of Community Affairs v. Burdine, 450 U. S. 248 (1981), for use in cases such as this one where the employer has created uncertainty as to causation by knowingly giving *262substantial weight to an impermissible criterion. I write separately to explain why I believe such a departure from the McDonnell Douglas standard is justified in the circumstances presented by this and like cases, and to express my views as to when and how the strong medicine of requiring the employer to bear the burden of persuasion on the issue of causation should be administered.

I

Title VII provides in pertinent part: “It shall be an unlawful employment practice for an employer ... to fail or refuse to hire or to discharge any individual, or otherwise to discriminate against any individual with respect to his compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges of employment, because of such individual’s race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.” 42 U. S. C. §2000e-2(a) (emphasis added). The legislative history of Title VII bears out what its plain language suggests: a substantive violation of the statute only occurs when consideration of an illegitimate criterion is the “but-for” cause of an adverse employment action. The legislative history makes it clear that Congress was attempting to' eradicate discriminatory actions in the employment setting, not mere discriminatory thoughts. Critics of the bill that became Title VII labeled it a “thought control bill,” and argued that it created a “punishable crime that does not require an illegal external act as a basis for judgment.” 100 Cong. Rec. 7254 (1964) (remarks of Sen. Ervin). Senator Case, whose views the plurality finds so persuasive elsewhere, responded:

“The man must do or fail to do something in regard to employment. There must be some specific external act, more than a mental act. Only if he does the act because of the grounds stated in the bill would there be any legal consequences.” Ibid.

Thus, I disagree with the plurality’s dictum that the words “because of” do not mean “but-for” causation; manifestly they *263do. See Sheet Metal Workers v. EEOC, 478 U. S. 421, 499 (1986) (White, J., dissenting) (“[T]he general policy under Title VII is to limit relief for racial discrimination in employment practices to actual victims of the discrimination”). We should not, and need not, deviate from that policy today. The question for decision in this case is what allocation of the burden of persuasion on the issue of causation best conforms with the intent of Congress and the purposes behind Title VII.

The evidence of congressional intent as to which party should bear the burden of proof on the issue of causation is considerably less clear. No doubt, as a general matter, Congress assumed that the plaintiff in a Title VII action would bear the burden of proof on the elements critical to his or her case. As the dissent points out, post, at 287, n. 3, the interpretative memorandum submitted by sponsors of Title VII indicates that “the plaintiff, as in any civil case, would have the burden of proving that discrimination had occurred.” 110 Cong. Rec. 7214 (1964) (emphasis added). But in the area of tort liability, from whence the dissent’s “but-for” standard of causation is derived, see post, at 282, the law has long recognized that in certain “civil cases” leaving the burden of persuasion on the plaintiff to prove “but-for” causation would be both unfair and destructive of the deterrent purposes embodied in the concept of duty of care. Thus, in multiple causation cases, where a breach of duty has been established, the common law of torts has long shifted the burden of proof to multiple defendants to prove that their negligent actions were not the “but-for” cause of the plaintiff’s injury. See e. g., Summers v. Tice, 33 Cal. 2d 80, 84-87, 199 P. 2d 1, 3-4 (1948). The same rule has been applied where the effect of a defendant’s tortious conduct combines with a force of unknown or innocent origin to produce the harm to the plaintiff. See Kingston v. Chicago & N. W. R. Co., 191 Wis. 610, 616, 211 N. W. 913, 915 (1927) (“Granting that the union of that fire [caused by defendant’s *264negligence] with another of natural origin, or with another of much greater proportions, is available as a defense, the burden is on the defendant to show that. . . the fire set by him was not the proximate cause of the damage”). See also 2 J. Wigmore, Select Cases on the Law of Torts § 153, p. 865 (1912) (“When two or more persons by their acts are possibly the sole cause of a harm, or when two or more acts of the same person are possibly the sole cause, and the plaintiff has introduced evidence that one of the two persons, or one of the same person’s two acts, is culpable, then the defendant has the burden of proving that the other person, or his other act, was the sole cause of the harm”).

While requiring that the plaintiff in a tort suit or a Title VII action prove that the defendant’s “breach of duty” was the “but-for” cause of an injury does not generally hamper effective enforcement of the policies behind those causes of action,

“at other times the [but-for] test demands the impossible. It challenges the imagination of the trier to probe into a purely fanciful and unknowable state of affairs. He is invited-to make an estimate concerning facts that concededly never existed. The very uncertainty as to what might have happened opens the door wide for conjecture. But when conjecture is demanded it can be given a direction that is consistent with the policy considerations that underlie the controversy.” Malone, Ruminations on Cause-In-Fact, 9 Stan. L. Rev. 60, 67 (1956).

Like the common law of torts, the statutory employment “tort” created by Title VII has two basic purposes. The first is to deter conduct which has been identified as contrary to public policy and harmful to society as a whole. As we have noted in the past, the award of backpay to a Title VII plaintiff provides “the spur or catalyst which causes employers and unions to self-examine and to self-evaluate their employment practices and to endeavor to eliminate, so far as *265possible, the last vestiges” of discrimination in employment. Albemarle Paper Co. v. Moody, 422 U. S. 405, 417-418 (1975) (citation omitted). The second goal of Title VII is “to make persons whole for injuries suffered on account of unlawful employment discrimination.” Id., at 418.

Both these goals are reflected in the elements of a disparate treatment action. There is no doubt that Congress considered reliance on gender or race in making employment decisions an evil in itself. As Senator Clark put it, “[t]he bill simply eliminates consideration of color [or other forbidden criteria] from the decision to hire or promote.” 110 Cong. Rec. 7218 (1964). See also id., at 13088 (remarks of Sen. Humphrey) (“What the bill does ... is simply to make it an illegal practice to use race as a factor in denying employment”). Reliance on such factors is exactly what the threat of Title VII liability was meant to deter. While the main concern of the statute was with employment opportunity, Congress was certainly not blind to the stigmatic harm which comes from being evaluated by a process which treats one as an inferior by reason of one’s race or sex. This Court’s decisions under the Equal Protection Clause have long recognized that whatever the final outcome of a decisional process, the inclusion of race or sex as a consideration within it harms both society and the individual. See Richmond v. J. A. Croson Co., 488 U. S. 469 (1989). At the same time, Congress clearly conditioned legal liability on a determination that the consideration of an illegitimate factor caused a tangible employment injury of some kind.

Where an individual disparate treatment plaintiff has shown by a preponderance of the evidence that an illegitimate criterion was a substantial factor in an adverse employment decision, the deterrent purpose of the statute has clearly been triggered. More importantly, as an evidentiary matter, a reasonable factfinder could conclude that absent further explanation, the employer’s discriminatory motivation “caused” the employment decision. The employer has *266not yet been shown to be a violator, but neither is it entitled to the same presumption of good faith concerning its employment decisions which is accorded employers facing only circumstantial evidence of discrimination. Both the policies behind the statute, and the evidentiary principles developed in the analogous area of causation in the law of torts, suggest that at this point the employer may be required to convince the factfinder that, despite the smoke, there is no fire.

We have given recognition to these principles in our cases which have discussed the “remedial phase” of class action disparate treatment cases. Once the class has established that discrimination against a protected group was essentially the employer’s “standard practice,” there has been harm to the group and injunctive relief is appropriate. But as to the individual members of the class, the liability phase of the litigation is not complete. See Dillon v. Coles, 746 F. 2d 998, 1004 (CA3 1984) (“It is misleading to speak of the additional proof required by an individual class member for relief as being a part of the damage phase, that evidence is actually an element of the liability portion of the case”) (footnote omitted). Because the class has already demonstrated that, as a rule, illegitimate factors were considered in the employer’s decisions, the burden shifts to the employer “to demonstrate that the individual applicant was denied an employment opportunity for legitimate reasons.” Teamsters v. United States, 431 U. S. 324, 362 (1977). See also Franks v. Bowman Transportation Co., 424 U. S. 747, 772 (1976).

The individual members of a class action disparate treatment case stand in much the same position as Ann Hopkins here. There has been a strong showing that the employer has done exactly what Title VII forbids, but the connection between the employer’s illegitimate motivation and any injury to the individual plaintiff is unclear. At this point calling upon the employer to show that despite consideration of illegitimate factors the individual plaintiff would not have been hired or promoted in any event hardly seems “unfair” or *267contrary to the substantive command of the statute. In fact, an individual plaintiff who has shown that an illegitimate factor played a substantial role in the decision in his or her case has proved more than the class member in a Teamsters type action. The latter receives the benefit of a burden shift to the defendant based on the likelihood that an illegitimate criterion was a factor in the individual employment decision.

There is a tension between the Franks and Teamsters line of decisions and the individual disparate treatment cases cited by the dissent. See post, at 286-289. Logically, under the dissent’s view, each member of a disparate treatment class action would have to show “but-for” causation as to his or her individual employment decision, since it is not an element of the pattern or practice proof of the entire class and it is statutorily mandated that the plaintiff bear the burden of proof on this issue throughout the litigation. While the Court has properly drawn a distinction between the elements of a class action claim and an individual disparate treatment claim, see Cooper v. Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, 467 U. S. 867, 873-878 (1984), and I do not suggest the wholesale transposition of rules from one setting to the other, our decisions in Teamsters and Franks do indicate a recognition that presumptions shifting the burden of persuasion based on evidentiary probabilities and the policies behind the statute are not alien to our Title VII jurisprudence.

Moreover, placing the burden on the defendant in this case to prove that the same decision would have been justified by legitimate reasons is consistent with our interpretation of the constitutional guarantee of equal protection. Like a disparate treatment plaintiff, one who asserts that governmental action violates the Equal Protection Clause must show that he or she is “the victim of intentional discrimination.” Burdine, 450 U. S., at 256. Compare post, at 286, 289 (Kennedy, J., dissenting), with Washington v. Davis, 426 U. S. 229, 240 (1976). In Alexander v. Louisiana, 405 U. S. 625 (1972), we dealt with a criminal defendant’s allegation that *268members of his race had been invidiously excluded from the grand jury which indicted him in violation of the Equal Protection Clause. In addition to the statistical evidence presented by petitioner in that case, we noted that the State’s “selection procedures themselves were not racially neutral.” Id., at 630. Once the consideration of race in the decisional process had been established, we held that “the burden of proof shifts to the State to rebut the presumption of unconstitutional action by showing that permissible racially neutral selection criteria and procedures have produced the monochromatic result.” Id., at 632.

We adhered to similar principles in Arlington Heights v. Metropolitan Housing Development Corp., 429 U. S. 252 (1977), a case which, like this one, presented the problems of motivation and causation in the context of a multimember decisionmaking body authorized to consider a wide range of factors in arriving at its decisions. In Arlington Heights a group of minority plaintiffs claimed that a municipal governing body’s refusal to rezone a plot of land to allow for the construction of low-income integrated housing was racially motivated. On the issue of causation, we indicated that the plaintiff was not required

“to prove that the challenged action rested solely on racially discriminatory purposes. Rarely can it be said that a legislature or administrative body operating under a broad mandate made a decision motivated solely by a single concern, or even that a particular purpose was the ‘dominant’ or ‘primary’ one. In fact, it is because legislators and administrators are properly concerned with balancing numerous competing considerations that courts refrain from reviewing the merits of their decisions, absent a showing of arbitrariness or irrationality. But racial discrimination is not just another competing consideration. When there is a proof that a discriminatory purpose has been a motivating factor in the deci*269sion, this judicial deference is no longer justified.” Id., at 265-266 (citation omitted).

If the strong presumption of regularity and rationality of legislative decisionmaking must give way in the face of evidence that race has played a significant part in a legislative decision, I simply cannot believe that Congress intended Title VII to accord more deference to a private employer in the face of evidence that its decisional process has been substantially infected by discrimination. Indeed, where a public employee brings a “disparate treatment” claim under 42 U. S. C. § 1983 and the Equal Protection Clause the employee is entitled to the favorable evidentiary framework of Arlington Heights. See, e. g., Hervey v. Little Rock, 787 F. 2d 1223, 1233-1234 (CA8 1986) (applying Arlington Heights to public employee’s claim of sex discrimination in promotion decision); Lee v. Russell County Bd. of Education, 684 F. 2d 769, 773-774 (CA11 1982) (applying Arlington Heights to public employees’ claims óf race discrimination in discharge case). Under the dissent’s reading of Title VII, Congress’ extension of the coverage of the statute to public employers in 1972 has placed these employees under a less favorable evidentiary regime. In my view, nothing in the language, history, or purpose of Title VII prohibits adoption of an evidentiary rule which places the burden of persuasion on the defendant to demonstrate that legitimate concerns would have justified an adverse employment action where the plaintiff has convinced the factfinder that a forbidden factor played a substantial role in the employment decision. Even the dissenting judge below “[had] no quarrel with [the] principle” that “a party with one permissible motive and one unlawful one may prevail only by affirmatively proving that it would have acted as it did even if the forbidden motive were absent.” 263 U. S. App. D. C. 321, 341, 825 F. 2d 458, 478 (1987) (Williams, J. dissenting).

*270II

The dissent’s summary of our individual disparate treatment cases to date is fair and accurate, and amply demonstrates that the rule we adopt today is at least a change in direction from some of our prior precedents. See post, at 286-289. We have indeed emphasized in the past that in an individual disparate treatment action the plaintiff bears the burden of persuasion throughout the litigation. Nor have we confined the word “pretext” to the narrow definition which the plurality attempts to pin on it today. See ante, at 244-247. McDonnell Douglas and Burdine clearly contemplated that a disparate treatment plaintiff could show that the employer’s proffered explanation for an event was not “the true reason” either because it never motivated the employer in its employment decisions or because it did not do so in a particular case. McDonnell Douglas and Burdine assumed that the plaintiff would bear the burden of persuasion as to both these attacks, and we clearly depart from that framework today. Such a departure requires justification, and its outlines should be carefully drawn.

First, McDonnell Douglas itself dealt with a situation where the plaintiff presented no direct evidence that the employer had relied on a forbidden factor under Title VII in making an employment decision. The prima facie case established there was not difficult to prove, and was based only on the statistical probability that when a number of potential causes for an employment decision are eliminated an inference arises that an illegitimate factor was in fact the motivation behind the decision. See Teamsters, 431 U. S., at 358, n. 44 (“[T]he McDonnell Douglas formula does not require direct proof of discrimination”). In the face of this inferential proof, the employer’s burden was deemed to be only one of production; the employer must articulate a legitimate reason for the adverse employment action. See Furnco Construction Corp. v. Waters, 438 U. S. 567, 577 (1978). The plaintiff must then be given an “opportunity to demonstrate *271by competent evidence that the presumptively valid reasons for his rejection were in fact a coverup for a racially discriminatory decision.” McDonnell Douglas, 411 U. S., at 805. Our decision in Texas Dept. of Community Affairs v. Burdine, 450 U. S. 248 (1981), also involved the “narrow question” whether, after a plaintiff had carried the “not onerous” burden of establishing the prima facie case under McDonnell Douglas, the burden of persuasion should be shifted to the employer to prove that a legitimate reason for the adverse employment action existed. 450 U. S., at 250. As the discussion of Teamsters and Arlington Heights indicates, I do not think that the employer is entitled to the same presumption of good faith where there is direct evidence that it has placed substantial reliance on factors whose consideration is forbidden by Title VII.

The only individual disparate treatment case cited by the dissent which involved the kind of direct evidence of discriminatory animus with which we are confronted here is United States Postal Service Bd. of Governors v. Aikens, 460 U. S. 711, 713-714, n. 2 (1983). The question presented to the Court in that case involved only a challenge to the elements of the prima facie case under McDonnell Douglas and Burdine, see Pet. for Cert. in United States Postal Service Bd. of Governors v. Aikens, O. T. 1981, No. 81-1044, and the question we confront today was neither briefed nor argued to the Court. As should be apparent, the entire purpose of the McDonnell Douglas prima facie case is to compensate for the fact that direct evidence of intentional discrimination is hard to come by. That the employer’s burden in rebutting such an inferential case of discrimination is only one of production does not mean that the scales should be weighted in the same manner where there is direct evidence of intentional discrimination. Indeed, in one Age Discrimination in Employment Act case, the Court seemed to indicate that “the McDonnell Douglas test is inapplicable where the plaintiff presents direct evidence of discrimination.” Trans World *272Airlines, Inc. v. Thurston, 469 U. S. 111, 121 (1985). See also East Texas Motor Freight System, Inc. v. Rodriguez, 431 U. S. 395, 403-404, n. 9 (1977).

Second, the facts of this case, and a growing number like it decided by the Courts of Appeals, convince me that the evidentiary standard I propose is necessary to make real the promise of McDonnell Douglas that “[i]n the implementation of [employment] decisions, it is abundantly clear that Title VII tolerates no . . . discrimination, subtle or otherwise.” 411 U. S., at 801. In this case, the District Court found that a number of the evaluations of Ann Hopkins submitted by partners in the firm overtly referred to her failure to conform to certain gender stereotypes as a factor militating against her election to the partnership. 618 F. Supp. 1109, 1116— 1117 (DC 1985). The District Court further found that these evaluations were given “great weight” by the decisionmakers at Price Waterhouse. Id., at 1118. In addition, the District Court found that the partner responsible for informing Hopkins of the factors which caused her candidacy to be placed on hold, indicated that her “professional” problems would be solved if she would “walk more femininely, talk more femininely, wear make-up, have her hair styled, and wear jewelry.” Id., at 1117 (footnote omitted). As the Court of Appeals characterized it, Ann Hopkins proved that Price Waterhouse “permitted] stereotypical attitudes towards women to play a significant, though unquantifiable, role in its decision not to invite her to become a partner.” 263 U. S. App. D. C., at 324, 825 F. 2d, at 461.

At this point Ann Hopkins had taken her proof as far as it could go. She had proved discriminatory input into the decisional process, and had proved that participants in the process considered her failure to conform to the stereotypes credited by a number of the decisionmakers had been a substantial factor in the decision. It is as if Ann Hopkins were sitting in the hall outside the room where partnership decisions were being made. As the partners filed in to consider *273her candidacy, she heard several of them make sexist remarks in discussing her suitability for partnership. As the decisionmakers exited the room, she was told by one of those privy to the decisionmaking process that her gender was a major reason for the rejection of her partnership bid. If, as we noted in Teamsters, “[presumptions shifting the burden of proof are often created to reflect judicial evaluations of probabilities and to conform with a party’s superior access to the proof,” 431 U. S., at 359, n. 45, one would be hard pressed to think of a situation where it would be more appropriate to require the defendant to show that its decision would have been justified by wholly legitimate concerns.

Moreover, there is mounting evidence in the decisions of the lower courts that respondent here is not alone in her inability to pinpoint discrimination as the precise cause of her injury, despite having shown that it played a significant role in the decisional process. Many of these courts, which deal with the evidentiary issues in Title VII cases on a regular basis, have concluded that placing the risk of nonpersuasion on the defendant in a situation where uncertainty as to causation has been created by its consideration of an illegitimate criterion makes.sense as a rule of evidence and furthers the substantive command of Title VII. See, e. g., Bell v. Birmingham Linen Service, 715 F. 2d 1552, 1556 (CA11 1983) (Tjoflat, J.) (“It would be illogical, indeed ironic, to hold a Title VII plaintiff presenting direct evidence of a defendant’s intent to discriminate to a more stringent burden of proof, or to allow a defendant to meet that direct proof by merely articulating, but not proving, legitimate, nondiscriminatory reasons for its action”). Particularly in the context of the professional world, where decisions are often made by collegial bodies on the basis of largely subjective criteria, requiring the plaintiff to prove that any one factor was the definitive cause of the decisionmakers’ action may be tantamount to declaring Title VII inapplicable to such decisions. See, e. g., Fields v. Clark University, 817 F. 2d 931, 935-937 *274(CA1 1987) (where plaintiff produced “strong evidence” that sexist attitudes infected faculty tenure decision, burden properly shifted to defendant to show that it would have reached the same decision absent discrimination); Thompkins v. Morris Brown College, 752 F. 2d 558, 563 (CA11 1985) (direct evidence of discriminatory animus in decision to discharge college professor shifted burden of persuasion to defendant).

Finally, I am convinced that a rule shifting the burden to the defendant where the plaintiff has shown that an illegitimate criterion was a “substantial factor” in the employment decision will not conflict with other congressional policies embodied in Title VII. Title VII expressly provides that an employer need not give preferential treatment to employees or applicants of any race, color, religion, sex, or national origin in order to maintain a work force in balance with the general population. See 42 U. S. C. §2000e-2(j). The interpretive memorandum, whose authoritative force is noted by the plurality, see ante, at 243, n. 8, specifically provides: “There is no requirement in title VII that an employer maintain a racial balance in his work force. On the contrary, any deliberate attempt to maintain a racial balance, whatever such a balance may be, would involve a violation of title VII because maintaining such a balance would require an employer to hire or refuse to hire on the basis of race.” 110 Cong. Rec. 7213 (1964).

Last Term, in Watson v. Fort Worth Bank & Trust, 487 U. S. 977 (1988), the Court unanimously concluded that the disparate impact analysis first enunciated in Griggs v. Duke Power Co., 401 U. S. 424 (1971), should be extended to subjective or discretionary selection processes. At the same time a plurality of the Court indicated concern that the focus on bare statistics in the disparate impact setting could force employers to adopt “inappropriate prophylactic measures” in violation of § 2000e-2(j). The plurality went on to emphasize that in a disparate impact case, the plaintiff may not simply *275point to a statistical disparity in the employer’s work force. Instead, the plaintiff must identify a particular employment practice and “must offer statistical evidence of a kind and degree sufficient to show that the practice in question has caused the exclusion of applicants for jobs or promotions because of their membership in a protected group.” 487 U. S., at 994. The plurality indicated that “the ultimate burden of proving that discrimination against a protected group has been caused by a specific employment practice remains with the plaintiff at all times.” Id., at 997.

I believe there are significant differences between shifting the burden of persuasion to the employer in a case resting purely on statistical proof as in the disparate impact setting and shifting the burden of persuasion in a case like this one, where an employee has demonstrated by direct evidence that an illegitimate factor played a substantial role in a particular employment decision. First, the explicit consideration of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin in making employment decisions “was the most obvious evil Congress had in mind when it enacted Title VII.” Teamsters, 431 U. S., at 335, n. 15. While the prima facie case under McDonnell Douglas and the statistical showing of imbalance involved in a disparate impact case may both be indicators of discrimination or its “functional equivalent,” they are not, in and of themselves, the evils Congress sought to eradicate from the employment setting. Second, shifting the burden of persuasion to the employer in a situation like this one creates no incentive to preferential treatment in violation of §2000e-(2)(j). To avoid bearing the burden of justifying its decision, the employer need not seek racial or sexual balance in its work force; rather, all it need do is avoid substantial reliance on forbidden criteria in making its employment decisions.

While the danger of forcing employers to engage in unwarranted preferential treatment is thus less dramatic in this setting than in the situation the Court faced in Watson, it is far from wholly illusory. Based on its misreading of *276the words “because of” in the statute, see ante, at 240-242, the plurality appears to conclude that if a decisional process is “tainted” by awareness of sex or race in any way, the employer has violated the statute, and Title VII thus commands that the burden shift to the employer to justify its decision. Ante, at 250-252. The plurality thus effectively reads the causation requirement out of the statute, and then replaces it with an “affirmative defense.” Ante, at 244-247.

In my view, in order to justify shifting the burden on the issue of causation to the defendant, a disparate treatment plaintiff must show by direct evidence that an illegitimate criterion was a substantial factor in the decision. As the Court of Appeals noted below: “While most circuits have not confronted the question squarely, the consensus among those that have is that once a Title VII plaintiff has demonstrated by direct evidence that discriminatory animus played a significant or substantial role in the employment decision, the burden shifts to the employer to show that the decision would have been the same absent discrimination.” 263 U. S. App. D. C., at 333-344, 825 F. 2d, at'470-471. Requiring that the plaintiff demonstrate that an illegitimate factor played a substantial role in the employment decision identifies those employment situations where the deterrent purpose of Title VII is most clearly implicated. As an evidentiary matter, where a plaintiff has made this type of strong showing of illicit motivation, the factfinder is entitled to presume that the employer’s discriminatory animus made a difference to the outcome, absent proof to the contrary from the employer. Where a disparate treatment plaintiff has made such a showing, the burden then rests with the employer to convince the trier of fact that it is more likely than not that the decision would have been the same absent consideration of the illegitimate factor. The employer need not isolate the sole cause for the decision; rather it must demonstrate that with the illegitimate factor removed from the calculus, sufficient business reasons would have induced it to take the same employment *277action. This evidentiary scheme essentially requires the employer to place the employee in the same position he or she would have occupied absent discrimination. Cf. Mt. Healthy City Bd. of Ed. v. Doyle, 429 U. S. 274, 286 (1977). If the employer fails to carry this burden, the factfinder is justified in concluding that the decision was made “because of” consideration of the illegitimate factor and the substantive standard for liability under the statute is satisfied.

Thus, stray remarks in the workplace, while perhaps probative of sexual harassment, see Meritor Savings Bank v. Vinson, 477 U. S. 57, 63-69 (1986), cannot justify requiring the employer to prove that its hiring or promotion decisions were based on legitimate criteria. Nor can statements by nondecisionmakers, or statements by decisionmakers unrelated to the decisional process itself, suffice to satisfy the plaintiff’s burden in this regard. In addition, in my view testimony such as Dr. Fiske’s in this case, standing alone, would not justify shifting the burden of persuasion to the employer. Race and gender always “play a role” in an employment decision in the benign sense that these are human characteristics of which decisionmakers are aware and about which they may comment in a perfectly neutral and nondiscriminatory fashion. For example, in the context of this case, a mere reference to “a lady candidate” might show that gender “played a role” in the decision, but by no means could support a rational factfinder’s inference that the decision was made “because of” sex. What is required is what Ann Hopkins showed here: direct evidence that decisionmakers placed substantial negative reliance on an illegitimate criterion in reaching their decision.

It should be obvious that the threshold standard I would adopt for shifting the burden of persuasion to the defendant differs substantially from that proposed by the plurality, the plurality’s suggestion to the contrary notwithstanding. See ante, at 250, n. 13. The plurality proceeds from the premise that the words “because of” in the statute do not embody any *278causal requirement at all. Under my approach, the plaintiff must produce evidence sufficient to show that an illegitimate criterion was a substantial factor in the particular employment decision such that a reasonable factfinder could draw an inference that the decision was made “because of” the plaintiff’s protected status. Only then would the burden of proof shift to the defendant to prove that the decision would have been justified by other, wholly legitimate considerations. See also ante, at 259-260 (White, J., concurring in judgment).

In sum, because of the concerns outlined above, and because I believe that the deterrent purpose of Title VII is disserved by a rule which places the burden of proof on plaintiffs on the issue of causation in all circumstances, I would retain but supplement the framework we established in McDonnell Douglas and subsequent cases. The structure of the presentation of evidence in an individual disparate treatment case should conform to the general outlines we established in McDonnell Douglas and Burdine. First, the plaintiff must establish the McDonnell Douglas prima facie case by showing membership in a protected group, qualification for the job, rejection for the position, and that after rejection the employer continued to seek applicants of complainant’s general qualifications. McDonnell Douglas, 411 U. S., at 802. The plaintiff should also present any direct evidence of discriminatory animus in the decisional process. The defendant should then present its case, including its evidence as to legitimate, nondiscriminatory reasons for the employment decision. As the dissent notes, under this framework, the employer “has every incentive to convince the trier of fact that the decision was lawful.” Post, at 292, citing Burdine, 450 U. S., at 258. Once all the evidence has been received, the court should determine whether the McDonnell Douglas or Price Waterhouse framework properly applies to the evidence before it. If the plaintiff has failed to satisfy the Price Waterhouse threshold, the case should be decided under the principles enunciated in McDonnell Douglas and Burdine, *279with the plaintiff bearing the burden of persuasion on the ultimate issue whether the employment action was taken because of discrimination. In my view, such a system is both fair and workable, and it calibrates the evidentiary requirements demanded of the parties to the goals behind the statute itself.

I agree with the dissent, see post, at 293, n. 4, that the evidentiary framework I propose should be available to all disparate treatment plaintiffs where an illegitimate consideration played a substantial role in an adverse employment decision. The Court’s allocation of the burden of proof in Johnson v. Transportation Agency, Santa Clara County, 480 U. S. 616, 626-627 (1987), rested squarely on “the analytical framework set forth in McDonnell Douglas,” id., at 626, which we alter today. It would be odd to say the least if the evidentiary rules applicable to Title VII actions were themselves dependent on the gender or the skin color of the litigants. But see ante, at 239, n. 3.

In this case, I agree with the plurality that petitioner should be called upon to show that the outcome would have been the same if respondent’s professional merit had been its only concern. On remand, the District Court should determine whether Price Waterhouse has shown by a preponderance of the evidence that if gender had not been part of the process, its employment decision concerning Ann Hopkins would nonetheless have been the same.

Justice Kennedy,

with whom The Chief Justice and Justice Scalia join,

dissenting.

Today the Court manipulates existing and complex rules for employment discrimination cases in a way certain to result in confusion. Continued adherence to the evidentiary scheme established in McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green, 411 U. S. 792 (1973), and Texas Dept. of Community Affairs v. Burdine, 450 U. S. 248 (1981), is a wiser course than creation of more disarray in an area of the law already difficult for the bench and bar, and so I must dissent.

*280Before turning to my reasons for disagreement with the Court’s disposition of the case, it is important to review the actual holding of today’s decision. I read the opinions as establishing that in a limited number of cases Title VII plaintiffs, by presenting direct and substantial evidence of discriminatory animus, may shift the burden of persuasion to the defendant to show that an adverse employment decision would have been supported by legitimate reasons. The shift in the burden of persuasion occurs only where a plaintiff proves by direct evidence that an unlawful motive was a substantial factor actually relied upon in making the decision. Ante, at 276-277 (opinion of O’Connor, J.); ante, at 259-260 (opinion of White, J.). As the opinions make plain, the evidentiary scheme created today is not for every case in which a plaintiff produces evidence of stray remarks in the workplace. Ante, at 251 (opinion of Brennan, J.); ante, at 277 (opinion of O’Connor, J.).

Where the plaintiff makes the requisite showing, the burden that shifts to the employer is to show that legitimate employment considerations would have justified the decision without reference to any impermissible motive. Ante, at 260-261 (opinion of White, J.); ante, at 278 (opinion of O’Connor, J.). The employer’s proof on the point is to be presented and reviewed just as with any other evidentiary question: the Court does not accept the plurality’s suggestion that an employer’s evidence need be “objective” or otherwise out of the ordinary. Ante, at 261 (opinion of White, J.).

In sum, the Court alters the evidentiary framework of McDonnell Douglas and Burdine for a closely defined set of cases. Although Justice O’Connor advances some thoughtful arguments for this change, I remain convinced that it is unnecessary and unwise. More troubling is the plurality’s rationale for today’s decision, which includes a number of unfortunate pronouncements on both causation and methods of proof in employment discrimination cases. To demonstrate the defects in the plurality’s reasoning, it is nec*281essary to discuss, first, the standard of causation in Title VII cases, and, second, the burden of proof.

I

The plurality describes this as a case about the standard of causation under Title VII, ante, at 237, but I respectfully suggest that the description is misleading. Much of the plurality’s rhetoric is spent denouncing a “but-for” standard of causation. The theory of Title VII liability the plurality adopts, however, essentially incorporates the but-for standard. The importance of today’s decision is not the standard of causation it employs, but its shift to the defendant of the burden of proof. The plurality’s causation analysis is misdirected, for it is clear that, whoever bears the burden of proof on the issue, Title VII liability requires a finding of but-for causation. See also ante, at 261, and n. (opinion of White, J.); ante, at 262-263 (opinion of O’Connor, J.).

The words of Title VII are not obscure. The part of the statute relevant to this case provides:

“It shall be an unlawful employment practice for an employer—

“(1) to fail or refuse to hire or to discharge any individual, or otherwise to discriminate against any individual with respect to his compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges of employment, because of such individual’s race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.” 42 U. S. C. § 2000e-2(a)(1) (emphasis added).

By any normal understanding, the phrase “because of” conveys the idea that the motive in question made a difference to the outcome. We use the words this way in everyday speech. And assuming, as the plurality does, that we ought to consider the interpretive memorandum prepared by the statute’s drafters, we find that this is what the words meant to them as well. “To discriminate is to make a distinction, to make a difference in treatment or favor.” 110 Cong. Rec. 7213 (1964). Congress could not have chosen a clearer way *282to indicate that proof of liability under Title VII requires a showing that race, color, religion, sex, or national origin caused the decision at issue.

Our decisions confirm that Title VII is not concerned with the mere presence of impermissible motives; it is directed to employment decisions that result from those motives. The verbal formulae we have used in our precedents are synonymous with but-for causation. Thus we have said that providing different insurance coverage to male and female employees violates the statute by treating the employee “ ‘in a manner which but-for that person’s sex would be different.’” Newport News Shipbuilding & Dry Dock Co. v. EEOC, 462 U. S. 669, 683 (1983), quoting Los Angeles Dept. of Water and Power v. Manhart, 435 U. S. 702, 711 (1978). We have described the relevant question as whether the employment decision was “based on” a discriminatory criterion, Teamsters v. United States, 431 U. S. 324, 358 (1977), or whether the particular employment decision at issue was “made on the basis of” an impermissible factor, Cooper v. Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, 467 U. S. 867, 875 (1984).

What we term “but-for” cause is the least rigorous standard that is consistent with the approach to causation our precedents describe. If a motive is not a but-for cause of an event, then by definition it did not make a difference to the outcome. The event would have occurred just the same without it. Common-law approaches to causation often require proof of but-for cause as a starting point toward proof of legal cause. The law may require more than but-for cause, for instance proximate cause, before imposing liability. Any standard less than but-for, however, simply represents a decision to impose liability without causation. As Dean Prosser puts it, “[a]n act or omission is not regarded as a cause of an event if the particular event would have occurred without it.” W. Keeton, D. Dobbs, R. Keeton, & D. Owen, Prosser and Keeton on Law of Torts 265 (5th ed. 1984).

*283One of the principal reasons the plurality decision may sow confusion is that it claims Title VII liability is unrelated to but-for causation, yet it adopts a but-for standard once it has placed the burden of proof as to causation upon the employer. This approach conflates the question whether causation must be shown with the question of how it is to be shown. Because the plurality’s theory of Title VII causation is ultimately consistent with a but-for standard, it might be said that my disagreement with the plurality’s comments on but-for cause is simply academic. See ante, at 259 (opinion of White, J.). But since those comments seem to influence the decision, I turn now to that part of the plurality’s analysis.

The plurality begins by noting the quite unremarkable fact that Title VII is written in the present tense. Ante, at 240-241. It is unlawful “to fail” or “to refuse” to provide employment benefits on the basis of sex, not “to have failed” or “to have refused” to have done so. The plurality claims that the present tense excludes a but-for inquiry as the relevant standard because but-for causation is necessarily concerned with a hypothetical inquiry into how a past event would have occurred absent the contested motivation. This observation, however, tells us nothing of particular relevance to Title VII or the cause of action it creates. I am unaware of any federal prohibitory statute that is written in the past tense. Every liability determination, including the novel one constructed by the plurality, necessarily is concerned with the examination of a past event.1 The plurality’s analysis of verb tense serves only to divert attention from the causation requirement that is made part of the statute by the “because *284of” phrase. That phrase, I respectfully submit, embodies a rather simple concept that the plurality labors to ignore.2

We are told next that but-for cause is not required, since the words “because of” do not mean “solely because of.” Ante, at 241. No one contends, however, that sex must be the sole cause of a decision before there is a Title VII violation. This is a separate question from whether consideration of sex must be a cause of the decision. Under the accepted approach to causation that I have discussed, sex is a cause for the employment decision whenever, either by itself or in combination with other factors, it made a difference to the decision. Discrimination need not be the sole cause in order for liability to arise, but merely a necessary element of the set of factors that caused the decision, i. e., a but-for cause. See McDonald v. Santa Fe Trail Transportation Co., 427 U. S. 273, 282, n. 10 (1976). The plurality seems to say that since we know the words “because of” do not mean “solely because of,” they must not mean “because of” at all. This does not follow, as a matter of either semantics or logic.

The plurality’s reliance on the “bona fide occupational qualification” (BFOQ) provisions of Title VII, 42 U. S. C. §2000e-2(e), is particularly inapt. The BFOQ provisions allow an employer, in certain cases, to make an employment decision of which it is conceded that sex is the cause. That sex may be the legitimate cause of an employment decision where gender is a BFOQ is consistent with the opposite com*285mand that a decision caused by sex in any other case justifies the imposition of Title VII liability. This principle does not support, however, the novel assertion that a violation has occurred where sex made no difference to the outcome.

The most confusing aspect of the plurality’s analysis of causation and liability is its internal inconsistency. The plurality begins by saying: “When ... an employer considers both gender and legitimate factors at the time of making a decision, that decision was ‘because of’ sex and the other, legitimate considerations — even if we may say later, in the context of litigation, that the decision would have been the same if gender had not been taken into account.” Ante, at 241. Yet it goes on to state that “an employer shall not be liable if it can prove that, even if it had not taken gender into account, it would have come to the same decision.” Ante, at 242.

Given the language of the statute, these statements cannot both be true. Title VII unambiguously states that an employer who makes decisions “because of” sex has violated the statute. The plurality’s first statement therefore appears to indicate that an employer who considers illegitimate reasons when making a decision is a violator. But the opinion then tells us that the employer who shows that the same decision would have been made absent consideration of sex is not a violator. If the second statement is to be reconciled with the language of Title VII, it must be that a decision that would have been the same absent consideration of sex was not made “because of” sex. In other words, there is no violation of the statute absent but-for causation. The plurality’s description of the “same decision” test it adopts supports this view. The opinion states that “[a] court that finds for a plaintiff under this standard has effectively concluded that an illegitimate motive was a ‘but-for’ cause of the employment decision,” ante, at 249, and that this “is not an imposition of liability ‘where sex made no difference to the outcome,”’ ante, at 246, n. 11.

*286The plurality attempts to reconcile its internal inconsistency on the causation issue by describing the employer’s showing as an “affirmative defense.” This is nothing more than a label, and one not found in the language or legislative history of Title VII. Section 703(a)(1) is the statutory basis of the cause of action, and the Court is obligated to explain how its disparate-treatment decisions are consistent with the terms of § 703(a)(1), not with general themes of legislative history or with other parts of the statute that are plainly in-apposite. While the test ultimately adopted by the plurality may not be inconsistent with the terms of § 703(a)(1), see infra, at 292, the same cannot be said of the plurality’s reasoning with respect to causation. As Justice O’Connor describes it, the plurality “reads the causation requirement out of the statute, and then replaces it with an ‘affirmative defense.’” Ante, at 276. Labels aside, the import of today’s decision is not that Title VII liability can arise without but-for causation, but that in certain cases it is not the plaintiff who must prove the presence of causation, but the defendant who must prove its absence.

II

We established the order of proof for individual Title VII disparate-treatment cases in McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green, 411 J. S. 792 (1973), and reaffirmed this allocation in Texas Dept. of Community Affairs v. Burdine, 450 U. S. 248 (1981). Under Burdine, once the plaintiff presents a prima facie case, an inference of discrimination arises. The employer must rebut the inference by articulating a legitimate nondiscriminatory reason for its action. The final burden of persuasion, however, belongs to the plaintiff. Burdine makes clear that the “ultimate burden of persuading the trier of fact that the defendant intentionally discriminated against the plaintiff remains at all times with the plaintiff.” Id., at 253. See also Board of Trustees of Keene State College v. *287Sweeney, 439 U. S. 24, 29 (1978) (Stevens, J., dissenting).3 I would adhere to this established evidentiary framework, which provides the appropriate standard for this and other individual disparate-treatment cases. Today’s creation of a new set of rules for “mixed-motives” cases is not mandated by the statute itself. The Court’s attempt at refinement provides limited practical benefits at the cost of confusion and complexity, with the attendant risk that the trier of fact will misapprehend the controlling legal principles and reach an incorrect decision.

In view of the plurality’s treatment of Burdine and our other disparate-treatment cases, it is important first to state why those cases are dispositive here. The plurality tries to reconcile its approach with Burdine by announcing that it applies only to a “pretext” case, which it defines as a case in which the plaintiff attempts to prove that the employer’s proffered explanation is itself false. Ante, at 245-247, and n. 11. This ignores the language of Burdine, which states that a plaintiff may succeed in meeting her ultimate burden of persuasion “either directly by persuading the court that a discriminatory reason more likely motivated the employer or indirectly by showing that the employer’s proffered explanation is unworthy of credence.” 450 U. S., at 256 (emphasis added). Under the first of these two alternative methods, a plaintiff meets her burden if she can “persuade the court that the employment decision more likely than not was motivated by a discriminatory reason.” United States Postal Service Bd. of Governors v. Aikens, 460 U. S. 711, 717-718 (1983) *288(Blackmun, J., concurring). The plurality makes no attempt to address this aspect of our cases.

Our opinions make plain that Burdine applies to all individual disparate-treatment cases, whether the plaintiff offers direct proof that discrimination motivated the employer’s actions or chooses the indirect method of showing that the employer’s proffered justification is false, that is to say, a pretext. See Aikens, supra, at 714, n. 3 (“As in any lawsuit, the plaintiff may prove his case by direct or circumstantial evidence”). The plurality is mistaken in suggesting that the plaintiff in a so-called “mixed-motives” case will be disadvantaged by having to “squeeze her proof into Burdine’& framework.” Ante, at 247. As we acknowledged in McDonnell Douglas, “[t]he facts necessarily will vary in Title VII cases,” and the specification of the prima facie case set forth there “is not necessarily applicable in every respect to differing factual situations.” 411 U. S., at 802, n. 13. The framework was “never intended to be rigid, mechanized, or ritualistic.” Aikens, supra, at 715. Burdine compels the employer to come forward with its explanation of the decision and permits the plaintiff to offer evidence under either of the logical methods for proof of discrimination. This is hardly a framework that confines the plaintiff; still less is it a justification for saying that the ultimate burden of proof must be on the employer in a mixed-motives case. Burdine provides an orderly and adequate way to place both inferential and direct proof before the factfinder for a determination whether intentional discrimination has caused the employment decision. Regardless of the character of the evidence presented, we have consistently held that the ultimate burden “remains at all times with the plaintiff.” Burdine, supra, at 253.

Aikens illustrates the point. There, the evidence showed that the plaintiff, a black man, was far more qualified than any of the white applicants promoted ahead of him. More important, the testimony showed that “the person responsible for the promotion decisions at issue had made numerous *289derogatory comments about blacks in general and Aikens in particular.” 460 U. S., at 713-714, n. 2. Yet the Court in Aikens reiterated that the case was to be tried under the proof scheme of Burdine. Justice Brennan and Justice Blackmun concurred to stress that the plaintiff could prevail under the Burdine scheme in either of two ways, one of which was directly to persuade the court that the employment decision was motivated by discrimination. 460 U. S., at 718. Aikens leaves no doubt that the so-called “pretext” framework of Burdine has been considered to provide a flexible means of addressing all individual disparate-treatment claims.

Downplaying the novelty of its opinion, the plurality claims to have followed a “well-worn path” from our prior cases. The path may be well worn, but it is in the wrong forest. The plurality again relies on Title VH’s BFOQ provisions, under which an employer bears the burden of justifying the use of a sex-based employment qualification. See Dothard v. Rawlinson, 433 U. S. 321, 332-337 (1977). In the BFOQ context this is a sensible, indeed necessary, allocation of the burden, for there by definition sex is the but-for cause of the employment decision and the only question remaining is how the employer can justify it. The same is true of the plurality’s citations to Pregnancy Discrimination Act cases, ante, at 248. In such cases there is no question that pregnancy was the cause of the disputed action. The Pregnancy Discrimination Act and BFOQ cases tell us nothing about the case where the employer claims not that a sex-based decision was justified, but that the decision was not sex-based at all.

Closer analogies to the plurality’s new approach are found in Mt. Healthy City Bd. of Ed. v. Doyle, 429 U. S. 274 (1977), and NRLB v. Transportation Management Corp., 462 U. S. 393 (1983), but these cases were decided in different contexts. Mt. Healthy was a First Amendment case involving the firing of a teacher, and Transportation Management involved review of the NLRB’s interpretation of the National Labor Re*290lations Act. The Transportation Management decision was based on the deference that the Court traditionally accords NLRB interpretations of the statutes it administers. See 462 U. S., at 402-403. Neither case therefore tells us why the established Burdine framework should not continue to govern the order of proof under Title VII.

In contrast to the plurality, Justice O’Connor acknowledges that the approach adopted today is a “departure from the McDonnell Douglas standard.” Ante, at 262. Although her reasons for supporting this departure are not without force, they are not dispositive. As Justice O’Connor states, the most that can be said with respect to the Title VII itself is that “nothing in the language, history, or purpose of Title VII prohibits adoption” of the new approach. Ante, at 269 (emphasis added). Justice O’Connor also relies on analogies from the common law of torts, other types of Title VII litigation, and our equal protection cases. These analogies demonstrate that shifts in the burden of proof are not unprecedented in the law of torts or employment discrimination. Nonetheless, I believe continued adherence to the Burdine framework is more consistent with the statutory mandate. Congress’ manifest concern with preventing imposition of liability in cases where discriminatory animus did not actually cause an adverse action, see ante, at 262 (opinion of O’Connor, J.), suggests to me that an affirmative showing of causation should be required. And the most relevant portion of the legislative history supports just this view. See n. 3, supra. The limited benefits that are likely to be produced by today’s innovation come at the sacrifice of clarity and practical application.

The potential benefits of the new approach, in my view, are overstated. First, the Court makes clear that the Price Waterhouse scheme is applicable only in those cases where the plaintiff has produced direct and substantial proof that an impermissible motive was relied upon in making the decision at issue. The burden shift properly will be found to apply in *291only a limited number of employment discrimination cases. The application of the new scheme, furthermore, will make a difference only in a smaller subset of cases. The practical importance of the burden of proof is the “risk of nonpersuasion,” and the new system will make a difference only where the evidence is so evenly balanced that the factfinder cannot say that either side’s explanation of the case is “more likely” true. This category will not include cases in which the allocation of the' burden of proof will be dispositive because of a complete lack of evidence on the causation issue. Cf. Summers v. Tice, 33 Cal. 2d 80, 199 P. 2d 1 (1948) (allocation of burden dispositive because no evidence of which of two negligently fired shots hit plaintiff). Rather, Price Water-house will apply only to cases in which there is substantial evidence of reliance on an impermissible motive, as well as evidence from the employer that legitimate reasons supported its action.

Although the Price Waterhouse system is not for every case, almost every plaintiff is certain to ask for a Price Waterhouse instruction, perhaps on the basis of “stray remarks” or other evidence of discriminatory animus. Trial and appellate courts will therefore be saddled with the task of developing standards for determining when to apply the burden shift. One of their new tasks will be the generation of a jurisprudence of the meaning of “substantial factor.” Courts will also be required to make the often subtle and difficult distinction between “direct” and “indirect” or “circumstantial” evidence. Lower courts long have had difficulty applying McDonnell Douglas and Burdine. Addition of a second burden-shifting mechanism, the application of which itself depends on assessment of credibility and a determination whether evidence is sufficiently direct and substantial, is not likely to lend clarity to the process. The presence of an existing burden-shifting mechanism distinguishes the individual disparate-treatment case from the tort, class-action discrimination, and equal protection cases on which *292Justice O’Connor relies. The distinction makes Justice White’s assertions that one “need look only to” Mt. Healthy and Transportation Management to resolve this case, and that our Title VII cases in this area are “inapposite,” ante, at 258-260, at best hard to understand.

Confusion in the application of dual burden-shifting mechanisms will be most acute in cases brought under 42 U. S. C. § 1981 or the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA), where courts borrow the Title VII order of proof for the conduct of jury trials. See, e. g., Note, The Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 and Trial by Jury: Proposals for Change, 73 Va. L. Rev. 601 (1987) (noting high reversal rate caused by use of Title VII burden shifting in a jury setting). Perhaps such cases in the future will require a bifurcated trial, with the jury retiring first to make the credibility findings necessary to determine whether the plaintiff has proved that an impermissible factor played a substantial part in the decision, and later hearing evidence on the “same decision” or “pretext” issues. Alternatively, perhaps the trial judge will have the unenviable task of formulating a single instruction for the jury on all of the various burdens potentially involved in the cáse.

I do not believe the minor refinement in Title VII procedures accomplished by today’s holding can justify the difficulties that will accompany it. Rather, I “remain confident that the McDonnell Douglas framework permits the plaintiff meriting relief to demonstrate intentional discrimination.” Bur-dine, 450 U. S., at 258. Although the employer does not bear the burden of persuasion under Burdine, it must offer clear and reasonably specific reasons for the contested decision, and has every incentive to persuade the trier of fact that the decision was lawful. Ibid. Further, the suggestion that the employer should bear the burden of persuasion due to superior access to evidence has little force in the Title VII context, where the liberal discovery rules available to all litigants are supplemented by EEOC investigatory files. Ibid. *293In sum, the Burdine framework provides a “sensible, orderly-way to evaluate the evidence in light of common experience as it bears on the critical question of discrimination,” Aikens, 460 U. S., at 715, and it should continue to govern the order of proof in Title VII disparate-treatment cases.4

Ill

The ultimate question in every individual disparate-treatment case is whether discrimination caused the particular decision at issue. Some of the plurality’s comments with respect to the District Court’s findings in this case, however, are potentially misleading. As the plurality notes, the District Court based its liability determination on expert evidence that some evaluations of respondent Hopkins were based on unconscious sex stereotypes,5 and on the fact that *294Price Waterhouse failed to disclaim reliance on these comments when it conducted the partnership review. The District Court also based liability on Price Waterhouse’s failure to “make partners sensitive to the dangers [of stereotyping], to discourage comments tainted by sexism, or to investigate comments to determine whether they were influenced by stereotypes.” 618 F. Supp. 1109, 1119 (DC 1985).

Although the District Court’s version of Title VII liability is improper under any of today’s opinions, I think it important to stress that Title VII creates no independent cause of action for sex stereotyping. Evidence of use by decision-makers of sex stereotypes is, of course, quite relevant to the question of discriminatory intent. The ultimate question, however, is whether discrimination caused the plaintiff’s harm. Our cases do not support the suggestion that failure to “disclaim reliance” on stereotypical comments itself violates Title VII. Neither do they support creation of a “duty to sensitize.” As the dissenting judge in the Court of Appeals observed, acceptance of such theories would turn Title VII “from a prohibition of discriminatory conduct into an engine for rooting out sexist thoughts.” 263 U. S. App. D. C. 321, 340, 825 F. 2d 458, 477 (1987) (Williams, J., dissenting).

Employment discrimination claims require factfinders to make difficult and sensitive decisions. Sometimes this may mean that no finding of discrimination is justified even though a qualified employee is passed over by a less than admirable employer. In other cases, Title VII’s protections properly extend to plaintiffs who are by no means model employees. As Justice Brennan notes, ante, at 258, courts do not sit to determine whether litigants are nice. In this *295case, Hopkins plainly presented a strong case both other own professional qualifications and of the presence of discrimination in Price Waterhouse’s partnership process. Had the District Court found on this record that sex discrimination caused the adverse decision, I doubt it would have been reversible error. Cf. Aikens, supra, at 714, n. 2. That decision was for the finder of fact, however, and the District Court made plain that sex discrimination was not a but-for cause of the decision to place Hopkins’ partnership candidacy on hold. Attempts to evade tough decisions by erecting novel theories of liability or multitiered systems of shifting burdens are misguided.

IV

The language of Title VII and our well-considered precedents require this plaintiff to establish that the decision to place her candidacy on hold was made “because of” sex. Here the District Court found that the “comments of the individual partners and the expert evidence of Dr. Fiske do not prove an intentional discriminatory motive or purpose,” 618 F. Supp., at 1118, and that “[b]ecause plaintiff has considerable problems dealing with staff and peers, the Court cannot say that she would have been elected to partnership if the Policy Board’s decision had not been tainted by sexually based evaluations,” id., at 1120. Hopkins thus failed to meet the requisite standard of proof after a full trial. I would remand the case for entry of judgment in favor of Price Waterhouse.

*519Justice Ginsburg

delivered the opinion of the Court.

Virginia’s public institutions of higher learning include an incomparable military college, Virginia Military Institute (VMI). The United States maintains that the Constitution’s equal protection guarantee precludes Virginia from reserving exclusively to men the unique educational opportunities VMI affords. We agree.

*520I

Founded in 1839, VMI is today the sole single-sex school among Virginia’s 15 public institutions of higher learning. VMI’s distinctive mission is to produce “citizen-soldiers,” men prepared for leadership in civilian life and in military service. VMI pursues this mission through pervasive training of a kind not available anywhere else in Virginia. Assigning prime place to character development, VMI uses an “adversative method” modeled on English public schools and once characteristic of military instruction. VMI constantly endeavors to instill physical and mental discipline in its cadets and impart to them a strong moral code. The school’s graduates leave VMI with heightened comprehension of their capacity to deal with duress and stress, and a large sense of accomplishment for completing the hazardous course.

VMI has notably succeeded in its mission to produce leaders; among its alumni are military generals, Members of Congress, and business executives. The school’s alumni overwhelmingly perceive that their VMI training helped them to realize their personal goals. VMI’s endowment reflects the loyalty of its graduates; VMI has the largest per-student endowment of all public undergraduate institutions in the Nation.

Neither the goal of producing citizen-soldiers nor VMI’s implementing methodology is inherently unsuitable to women. And the school’s impressive record in producing leaders has made admission desirable to some women. Nevertheless, Virginia has elected to preserve exclusively for men the advantages and opportunities a VMI education affords.

II

A

From its establishment in 1839 as one of the Nation’s first state military colleges, see 1839 Va. Acts, ch. 20, VMI has remained financially supported by Virginia and “subject to *521the control of the [Virginia] General Assembly,” Va. Code Ann. §23-92 (1993). First southern college to teach engineering and industrial chemistry, see H. Wise, Drawing Out the Man: The VMI Story 13 (1978) (The VMI Story), VMI once provided teachers for the Commonwealth’s schools, see 1842 Va. Acts, ch. 24, §2 (requiring every cadet to teach in one of the Commonwealth’s schools for a 2-year period).1 Civil War strife threatened the school’s vitality, but a resourceful superintendent regained legislative support by highlighting “VMI’s great potential!,] through its technical know-how,” to advance Virginia’s postwar recovery. The VMI Story 47.

VMI today enrolls about 1,300 men as cadets.2 Its academic offerings in the liberal arts, sciences, and engineering are also available at other public colleges and universities in Virginia. But VMI’s mission is special. It is the mission of the school

“ ‘to produce educated and honorable men, prepared for the varied work of civil life, imbued with love of learning, confident in the functions and attitudes of leadership, possessing a high sense of public service, advocates of the American democracy and free enterprise system, and ready as citizen-soldiers to defend their country in *522time of national peril.”’ 766 F. Supp. 1407, 1425 (WD Va. 1991) (quoting Mission Study Committee of the VMI Board of Visitors, Report, May 16, 1986).

In contrast to the federal service academies, institutions maintained “to prepare cadets for career service in the armed forces,” VMI’s program “is directed at preparation for both military and civilian life”; “[o]nly about 15% of VMI cadets enter career military service.” 766 F. Supp., at 1432.

VMI produces its “citizen-soldiers” through “an adversa-tive, or doubting, model of education” which features “ [physical rigor, mental stress, absolute equality of treatment, absence of privacy, minute regulation of behavior, and indoctrination in desirable values.” Id., at 1421. As one Commandant of Cadets described it, the adversative method “'dissects the young student,’” and makes him aware of his “‘limits and capabilities,’” so that he knows “‘how far he can go with his anger, . . . how much he can take under stress, . . . exactly what he can do when he is physically exhausted.’” Id., at 1421-1422 (quoting Col. N. Bissell).

VMI cadets live in spartan barracks where surveillance is constant and privacy nonexistent; they wear uniforms, eat together in the mess hall, and regularly participate in drills. Id., at 1424, 1432. Entering students are incessantly exposed to the rat line, “an extreme form of the adversative model,” comparable in intensity to Marine Corps boot camp. Id., at 1422. Tormenting and punishing, the rat line bonds new cadets to their fellow sufferers and, when they have completed the 7-month experience, to their former tormentors. Ibid.

VMI’s “adversative model” is further characterized by a hierarchical “class system” of privileges and responsibilities, a “dyke system” for assigning a senior class mentor to each entering class “rat,” and a stringently enforced “honor code,” which prescribes that a cadet “ ‘does not lie, cheat, steal nor tolerate those who do.’” Id., at 1422-1423.

*523VMI attracts some applicants because of its reputation as an extraordinarily challenging military school, and “because its alumni are exceptionally close to the school.” Id., at 1421. “[W]omen have no opportunity anywhere to gain the benefits of [the system of education at VMI].” Ibid.

B

In 1990, prompted by a complaint filed with the Attorney General by a female high-school student seeking admission to VMI, the United States sued the Commonwealth of Virginia and VMI, alleging that VMI’s exclusively male admission policy violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Id., at 1408.3 Trial of the action consumed six days and involved an array of expert witnesses on each side. Ibid.

In the two years preceding the lawsuit, the District Court noted, VMI had received inquiries from 347 women, but had responded to none of them. Id., at 1436. “[S]ome women, at least,” the court said, “would want to attend the school if they had the opportunity.” Id., at 1414. The court further recognized that, with recruitment, VMI could “achieve at least 10% female enrollment” — “a sufficient ‘critical mass’ to provide the female cadets with a positive educational experience.” Id., at 1437-1438. And it was also established that “some women are capable of all of the individual activities required of VMI cadets.” Id., at 1412. In addition, experts agreed that if VMI admitted women, “the VMI ROTC experience would become a better training program from the perspective of the armed forces, because it would provide training in dealing with a mixed-gender army.” Id., at 1441.

The District Court ruled in favor of VMI, however, and rejected the equal protection challenge pressed by the United States. That court correctly recognized that Mississippi Univ. for Women v. Hogan, 458 U. S. 718 (1982), was *524the closest guide. 766 F. Supp., at 1410. There, this Court underscored that a party seeking to uphold government action based on sex must establish an “exceedingly persuasive justification” for the classification. Mississippi Univ. for Women, 458 U. S., at 724 (internal quotation marks omitted). To succeed, the defender of the challenged action must show “at least that the classification serves important governmental objectives and that the discriminatory means employed are substantially related to the achievement of those objectives.” Ibid, (internal quotation marks omitted).

The District Court reasoned that education in “a single-gender environment, be it male or female,” yields substantial benefits. 766 F. Supp., at 1415. VMI’s school for men brought diversity to an otherwise coeducational Virginia system, and that diversity was “enhanced by VMI’s unique method of instruction.” Ibid. If single-gender education for males ranks as an important governmental objective, it becomes obvious, the District Court concluded, that the only means of achieving the objective “is to exclude women from the all-male institution — VMI.” Ibid.

“Women are [indeed] denied a unique educational opportunity that is available only at VMI,” the District Court acknowledged. Id., at 1432. But “[VMI’s] single-sex status would be lost, and some aspects, of the [school’s] distinctive method would be altered,” if women were admitted, id., at 1413: “Allowance for personal privacy would have to be made,” id., at 1412; “[pjhysical education requirements would have to be altered, at least for the women,” id., at 1413; the adversative environment could not survive unmodified, id., at 1412-1413. Thus, “sufficient constitutional justification” had been shown, the District Court held, “for continuing [VMI’s] single-sex policy.” Id., at 1413.

The Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit disagreed and vacated the District Court’s judgment. The appellate court held: “The Commonwealth of Virginia has not. .. advanced any state policy by which it can justify its determination, *525under an announced policy of diversity, to afford VMI’s unique type of program to men and not to women.” 976 F. 2d 890, 892 (1992).

The appeals court greeted with skepticism Virginia’s assertion that it offers single-sex education at VMI as a facet of the Commonwealth’s overarching and undisputed policy to advance “autonomy and diversity.” The court underscored Virginia’s nondiscrimination commitment: “ ‘[I]t is extremely important that [colleges and universities] deal with faculty, staff, and students without regard to sex, race, or ethnic origin.’” Id., at 899 (quoting 1990 Report of the Virginia Commission on the University of the 21st Century). “That statement,” the Court of Appeals said, “is the only explicit one that we have found in the record in which the Commonwealth has expressed itself with respect to gender distinctions.” 976 F. 2d, at 899. Furthermore, the appeals court observed, in urging “diversity” to justify an all-male VMI, the Commonwealth had supplied “no explanation for the movement away from [single-sex education] in Virginia by public colleges and universities.” Ibid. In short, the court concluded, “[a] policy of diversity which aims to provide an array of educational opportunities, including single-gender institutions, must do more than favor one gender.” Ibid.

The parties agreed that “some women can meet the physical standards now imposed on men,” id., at 896, and the court was satisfied that “neither the goal of producing citizen soldiers nor VMI’s implementing methodology is inherently unsuitable to women,” id., at 899. The Court of Appeals, however, accepted the District Court’s finding that “at least these three aspects of VMI’s program — physical training, the absence of privacy, and the adversative approach — would be materially affected by coeducation.” Id., at 896-897. Remanding the case, the appeals court assigned to Virginia, in the first instance, responsibility for selecting a remedial course. The court suggested these options for the Commonwealth: Admit women to VMI; establish parallel institutions *526or programs; or abandon state support, leaving VMI free to pursue its policies as a private institution. Id., at 900. In May 1993, this Court denied certiorari. See 508 U. S. 946; see also ibid, (opinion of Scalia, J., noting the interlocutory posture of the litigation).

C

In response to the Fourth Circuit’s ruling, Virginia proposed a parallel program for women: Virginia Women’s Institute for Leadership (VWIL). The 4-year, state-sponsored undergraduate program would be located at Mary Baldwin College, a private liberal arts school for women, and would be open, initially, to about 25 to 30 students. Although VWIL would share VMI’s mission — to produce “citizen-soldiers” — the VWIL program would differ, as does Mary Baldwin College, from VMI in academic offerings, methods of education, and financial resources. See 852 F. Supp. 471, 476-477 (WD Va. 1994).

The average combined SAT score of entrants at Mary Baldwin is about 100 points lower than the score for VMI freshmen. See id., at 501. Mary Baldwin’s faculty holds “significantly fewer Ph. D.’s than the faculty at VMI,” id., at 502, and receives significantly lower salaries, see Tr. 158 (testimony of James Lott, Dean of Mary Baldwin College), reprinted in 2 App. in Nos. 94-1667 and 94-1717 (CA4) (hereinafter Tr.). While VMI offers degrees in liberal arts, the sciences, and engineering, Mary Baldwin, at the time of trial, offered only bachelor of arts degrees. See 852 F. Supp., at 503. A VWIL student seeking to earn an engineering degree could gain one, without public support, by attending Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, for two years, paying the required private tuition. See ibid.

Experts in educating women at the college level composed the Task Force charged with designing the VWIL program; Task Force members were drawn from Mary Baldwin’s own faculty and staff. Id., at 476. Training its attention on methods of instruction appropriate for “most women,” the *527Task Force determined that a military model would be “wholly inappropriate” for VWIL. Ibid.; see 44 F. 3d 1229, 1233 (CA4 1995).

VWIL students would participate in ROTC programs and a newly established, “largely ceremonial” Virginia Corps of Cadets, id., at 1234, but the VWIL House would not have a military format, 852 F. Supp., at 477, and VWIL would not require its students to eat meals together or to wear uniforms during the schoolday, id., at 495. In lieu of VMI’s ad-versative method, the VWIL Task Force favored “a cooperative method which reinforces self-esteem.” Id., at 476. In addition to the standard bachelor of arts program offered at Mary Baldwin, VWIL students would take courses in leadership, complete an off-campus leadership externship, participate in community service projects, and assist in arranging a' speaker series. See 44 F. 3d, at 1234.

Virginia represented that it will provide equal financial support for in-state VWIL students and VMI cadets, 852 F. Supp., at 483, and the VMI Foundation agreed to supply a $5.4625 million endowment for the VWIL program, id., at 499. Mary Baldwin’s own endowment is about $19 million; VMI’s is $131 million. Id., at 503. Mary Baldwin will add $35 million to its endowment based on future commitments; VMI will add $220 million. Ibid. The VMI Alumni Association has developed a network of employers interested in hiring VMI graduates. The Association has agreed to open its network to VWIL graduates, id., at 499, but those graduates will not have the advantage afforded by a VMI degree.

D

Virginia returned to the District Court seeking approval of its proposed remedial plan, and the court decided the plan met the requirements of the Equal Protection Clause. Id., at 473. The District Court again acknowledged eviden-tiary support for these determinations: “[T]he VMI methodology could be used to educate women and, in fact, some *528women . . . may prefer the VMI methodology to the VWIL methodology.” Id., at 481. But the “controlling legal principles,” the District Court decided, “do not require the Commonwealth to provide a mirror image VMI for women.” Ibid. The court anticipated that the two schools would “achieve substantially similar outcomes.” Ibid. It concluded: “If VMI marches to the beat of a drum, then Mary Baldwin marches to the melody of a fife and when the march is over, both will have arrived at the same destination.” Id., at 484.

A divided Court of Appeals affirmed the District Court’s judgment. 44 F. 3d 1229 (CA4 1995). This time, the appellate court determined to give “greater scrutiny to the selection of means than to the [Commonwealth’s] proffered objective.” Id., at 1236. The official objective or purpose, the court said, should be reviewed deferentially. Ibid. Respect for the “legislative will,” the court reasoned, meant that the judiciary should take a “cautious approach,” inquiring into the “legitimacy]” of the governmental objective and refusing approval for any purpose revealed to be “pernicious.” Ibid.

“[Providing the option of a single-gender college education may be considered a legitimate and important aspect of a public system of higher education,” the appeals court observed, id., at 1238; that objective, the court added, is “not pernicious,” id., at 1239. Moreover, the court continued, the adversative method vital to a VMI education “has never been tolerated in a sexually heterogeneous environment.” Ibid. The method itself “was not designed to exclude women,” the court noted, but women could not be accommodated in the VMI program, the court believed, for female participation in VMI’s adversative training “would destroy ... any sense of decency that still permeates the relationship between the sexes.” Ibid.

Having determined, deferentially, the legitimacy of Virginia’s purpose, the court considered the question of means. *529Exclusion of “men at Mary Baldwin College and women at VMI,” the court said, was essential to Virginia’s purpose, for without such exclusion, the Commonwealth could not “accomplish [its] objective of providing single-gender education.” Ibid.

The court recognized that, as it analyzed the case, means merged into end, and the merger risked “bypass[ing] any equal protection scrutiny.” Id., at 1237. The court therefore added another inquiry, a decisive test it called “substantive comparability.” Ibid. The key question, the court said, was whether men at VMI and women at VWIL would obtain “substantively comparable benefits at their institution or through other means offered by the [S]tate.” Ibid. Although the appeals court recognized that the VWIL degree “lacks the historical benefit and prestige” of a VMI degree, it nevertheless found the educational opportunities at the two schools “sufficiently comparable.” Id., at 1241.

Senior Circuit Judge Phillips dissented. The court, in his judgment, had not held Virginia to the burden of showing an “‘exceedingly persuasive [justification]”’ for the Commonwealth’s action. Id., at 1247 (quoting Mississippi Univ. for Women, 458 U. S., at 724). In Judge Phillips’ view, the court had accepted “rationalizations compelled by the exigencies of this litigation,” and had not confronted the Commonwealth’s “actual overriding purpose.” 44 F. 3d, at 1247. That purpose, Judge Phillips said, was clear from the historical record; it was “not to create a new type of educational opportunity for women, . . . nor to further diversify the Commonwealth’s higher education system[,] . . . but [was] simply ... to allow VMI to continue to exclude women in order to preserve its historic character and mission.” Ibid.

Judge Phillips suggested that the Commonwealth would satisfy the Constitution’s equal protection requirement if it “simultaneously opened single-gender undergraduate institutions having substantially comparable curricular and extra-curricular programs, funding, physical plant, adminis*530tration and support services, and faculty and library resources.” Id., at 1260. But he thought it evident that the proposed VWIL program, in comparison to VMI, fell “far short . . . from providing substantially equal tangible and intangible educational benefits to men and women.” Ibid.

The Fourth Circuit denied rehearing en banc. 52 F. 3d 90 (1995). Circuit Judge Motz, joined by Circuit Judges Hall, Murnaghan, and Michael, filed a dissenting opinion.4 Judge Motz agreed with Judge Phillips that Virginia had not shown an “‘exceedingly persuasive justification’” for the disparate opportunities the Commonwealth supported. Id., at 92 (quoting Mississippi Univ. for Women, 458 U. S., at 724). She asked: “[H]ow can a degree from a yet to be implemented supplemental program at Mary Baldwin be held ‘substantively comparable’ to a degree from a venerable Virginia military institution that was established more than 150 years ago?” 52 F. 3d, at 93. “Women need not be guaranteed equal ‘results,’ ” Judge Motz said, “but the Equal Protection Clause does require equal opportunity... [and] that opportunity is being denied here.” Ibid.

III

The cross-petitions in this suit present two ultimate issues. First, does Virginia’s exclusion of women from the educational opportunities provided by VMI — extraordinary opportunities for military training and civilian leadership development — deny to women “capable of all of the individual activities required of VMI cadets,” 766 F. Supp., at 1412, the equal protection of the laws guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment? Second, if VMI’s “unique” situation, id., at 1413 — as Virginia’s sole single-sex public institution of *531higher education — offends the Constitution’s equal protection principle, what is the remedial requirement?

IV

We note, once again, the core instruction of this Court’s pathmarking decisions in J E. B. v. Alabama ex rel. T B., 511 U. S. 127, 136-137, and n. 6 (1994), and Mississippi Univ. for Women, 458 U. S., at 724 (internal quotation marks omitted): Parties who seek to defend gender-based government action must demonstrate an “exceedingly persuasive justification” for that action.

Today’s skeptical scrutiny of official action denying rights or opportunities based on sex responds to volumes of history. As a plurality of this Court acknowledged a generation ago, “our Nation has had a long and unfortunate history of sex discrimination.” Frontiero v. Richardson, 411 U. S. 677, 684 (1973). Through a century plus three decades and more of that history, women did not count among voters composing “We the People”;6 not until 1920 did women gain a constitutional right to the franchise. Id., at 685. And for a half century thereafter, it remained the prevailing doctrine that government, both federal and state, could withhold from women opportunities accorded men so long as any “basis in reason” could be conceived for the discrimination. See, e. g., Goesaert v. Cleary, 335 U. S. 464, 467 (1948) (rejecting challenge of female tavern owner and her daughter to Michigan law denying bartender licenses to females — except for wives and daughters of male tavern owners; Court would not “give ear” to the contention that “an unchivalrous desire of male *532bartenders to . . . monopolize the calling” prompted the legislation).

In 1971, for the first time in our Nation’s history, this Court ruled in favor of a woman who complained that her State had denied her the equal protection of its laws. Reed v. Reed, 404 U. S. 71, 73 (holding unconstitutional Idaho Code prescription that, among “‘several persons claiming and equally entitled to administer [a decedent’s estate], males must be preferred to females’ ”). Since Reed, the Court has repeatedly recognized that neither federal nor state government acts compatibly with the equal protection principle when a law or official policy denies to women, simply because they are women, full citizenship stature — equal opportunity to aspire, achieve, participate in and contribute to society based on their individual talents and capacities. See, e. g., Kirchberg v. Feenstra, 450 U. S. 455, 462-468 (1981) (affirming invalidity of Louisiana law that made husband “head and master” of property jointly owned with his wife, giving him unilateral right to dispose of such property without his wife’s consent); Stanton v. Stanton, 421 U. S. 7 (1975) (invalidating Utah requirement that parents support boys until age 21, girls only until age 18).

Without equating gender classifications, for all purposes, to classifications based on race or national origin,6 the Court, in post-Reed decisions, has carefully inspected official action that closes a door or denies opportunity to women (or to men). See J. E. B., 511 U. S., at 152 (Kennedy, J., concurring in judgment) (case law evolving since 1971 “revealfs] a strong presumption that gender classifications are invalid”). To summarize the Court’s current directions for cases of official classification based on gender: Focusing on the differen*533tial treatment or denial of opportunity for which relief is sought, the reviewing court must determine whether the proffered justification is “exceedingly persuasive.” The burden of justification is demanding and it rests entirely on the State. See Mississippi Univ. for Women, 458 U. S., at 724. The State must show “at least that the [challenged] classification serves ‘important governmental objectives and that the discriminatory means employed’ are ‘substantially related to the achievement of those objectives.’” Ibid, (quoting Wengler v. Druggists Mut. Ins. Co., 446 U. S. 142, 150 (1980)). The justification must be genuine, not hypothesized or invented post hoc in response to litigation. And it must not rely on overbroad generalizations about the different talents, capacities, or preferences of males and females. See Weinberger v. Wiesenfeld, 420 U. S. 636, 643, 648 (1975); Califano v. Goldfarb, 430 U. S. 199, 223-224 (1977) (Stevens, J., concurring in judgment).

The heightened review standard our precedent establishes does not make sex a proscribed classification. Supposed “inherent differences” are no longer accepted as a ground for race or national origin classifications. See Loving v. Virginia, 388 U. S. 1 (1967). Physical differences between men and women, however, are enduring: “[T]he two sexes are not fungible; a community made up exclusively of one [sex] is different from a community composed of both.” Ballard v. United States, 329 U. S. 187, 193 (1946).

“Inherent differences” between men and women, we have come to appreciate, remain cause for celebration, but not for denigration of the members of either sex or for artificial constraints on an individual’s opportunity. Sex classifications may be used to compensate women “for particular economic disabilities [they have] suffered,” Califano v. Webster, 430 U. S. 313, 320 (1977) (per curiam), to “promot[e] equal employment opportunity,” see California Fed. Sav. & Loan Assn. v. Guerra, 479 U. S. 272, 289 (1987), to advance full development of the talent and capacities of our Nation’s peo-*534pie.7 But such classifications may not be used, as they once were, see Goesaert, 335 U. S., at 467, to create or perpetuate the legal, social, and economic inferiority of women.

Measuring the record in this case against the review standard just described, we conclude that Virginia has shown no “exceedingly persuasive justification” for excluding all women from the citizen-soldier training afforded by VMI. We therefore affirm the Fourth Circuit’s initial judgment, which held that Virginia had violated the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause. Because the remedy proffered by Virginia — the Mary Baldwin VWIL program — does not cure the constitutional violation, i.e., it does not provide equal opportunity, we reverse the Fourth Circuit’s final judgment in this case.

V

The Fourth Circuit initially held that Virginia had advanced no state policy by which it could justify, under equal protection principles, its determination “to afford VMI’s unique type of program to men and not to women.” 976 F. 2d, at 892. Virginia challenges that “liability” ruling and asserts two justifications in defense of VMI’s exclusion of *535women. First, the Commonwealth contends, “single-sex education provides important educational benefits,” Brief for Cross-Petitioners 20, and the option of single-sex education contributes to “diversity in educational approaches,” id., at 25. Second, the Commonwealth argues, “the unique VMI method of character development and leadership training,” the school’s adversative approach, would have to be modified were VMI to admit women. Id., at 33-36 (internal quotation marks omitted). We consider these two justifications in turn.

A

Single-sex education affords pedagogical benefits to at least some students, Virginia emphasizes, and that reality is uncontested in this litigation.8 Similarly, it is not disputed that diversity among public educational institutions can serve the public good. But Virginia has not shown that VMI was established, or has been maintained, with a view to diversifying, by its categorical exclusion of women, educational opportunities within the Commonwealth. In cases of this genre, our precedent instructs that “benign” justifications proffered in defense of categorical exclusions will not be accepted automatically; a tenable justification must describe actual state purposes, not rationalizations for ac*536tions in fact differently grounded. See Wiesenfeld, 420 U. S., at 648, and n. 16 (“mere recitation of a benign [or] compensatory purpose” does not block “inquiry into the actual purposes” of government-maintained gender-based classifications); Goldfarb, 430 U. S., at 212-213 (rejecting government-proffered purposes after “inquiry into the actual purposes” (internal quotation marks omitted)).

Mississippi Univ. for Women is immediately in point. There the State asserted, in justification of its exclusion of men from a nursing school, that it was engaging in “educational affirmative action” by “compensat[ing] for discrimination against women.” 458 U. S., at 727. Undertaking a “searching analysis,” id., at 728, the Court found no close resemblance between “the alleged objective” and “the actual purpose underlying the discriminatory classification,” id., at 730. Pursuing a similar inquiry here, we reach the same conclusion.

Neither recent nor distant history bears out Virginia’s alleged pursuit of diversity through single-sex educational options. In 1839, when the Commonwealth established VMI, a range of educational opportunities for men and women was scarcely contemplated. Higher education at the time was considered dangerous for women;9 reflecting *537widely held views about women’s proper place, the Nation’s first universities and colleges — for example, Harvard in Massachusetts, William and Mary in Virginia — admitted only men. See E. Farello, A History of the Education of Women in the United States 163 (1970). VMI was not at all novel in this respect: In admitting no women, VMI followed the lead of the Commonwealth’s flagship school, the University of Virginia, founded in 1819.

“[N]o struggle for the admission of women to a state university,” a historian has recounted, “was longer drawn out, or developed more bitterness, than that at the University of Virginia.” 2 T. Woody, A History of Women’s Education in the United States 254 (1929) (History of Women’s Education). In 1879, the State Senate resolved to look into the possibility of higher education for women, recognizing that Virginia “‘has never, at any period of her history,”’ provided for the higher education of her daughters, though she “ ‘has liberally provided for the higher education of her sons.’ ” Ibid, (quoting 10 Educ. J. Va. 212 (1879)). Despite this recognition, no new opportunities were instantly open to women.10

Virginia eventually provided for several women’s seminaries and colleges. Farmville Female Seminary became a public institution in 1884. See supra, at 521, n. 2. Two women’s schools, Mary Washington College and James Madison University, were founded in 1908; another, Radford University, was founded in 1910. 766 F. Supp., at 1418-1419. By the mid-1970’s, all four schools had become coeducational. Ibid.

Debate concerning women’s admission as undergraduates at the main university continued well past the century’s midpoint. Familiar arguments were rehearsed. If women *538were admitted, it was feared, they “would encroach on the rights of men; there would be new problems of government, perhaps scandals; the old honor system would have to be changed; standards would be lowered to those of other coeducational schools; and the glorious reputation of the university, as a school for men, would be trailed in the dust.” 2 History of Women’s Education 255.

Ultimately, in 1970, “the most prestigious institution of higher education in Virginia,” the University of Virginia, introduced coeducation and, in 1972, began to admit women on an equal basis with men. See Kirstein v. Rector and Visitors of Univ. of Virginia, 309 F. Supp. 184, 186 (ED Va. 1970). A three-judge Federal District Court confirmed: “Virginia may not now deny to women, on the basis of sex, educational opportunities at the Charlottesville campus that are not afforded in other institutions operated by the [S]tate.” Id., at 187.

Virginia describes the current absence of public single-sex higher education for women as “an historical anomaly.” Brief for Cross-Petitioners 30. But the historical record indicates action more deliberate than anomalous: First, protection of women against higher education; next, schools for women far from equal in resources and stature to schools for men; finally, conversion of the separate schools to coeducation. The state legislature, prior to the advent of this controversy, had repealed “[a]ll Virginia statutes requiring individual institutions to admit only men or women.” 766 F. Supp., at 1419. And in 1990, an official commission, “legislatively established to chart the future goals of higher education in Virginia,” reaffirmed the policy “ 'of affording broad access” while maintaining “autonomy and diversity.’ ” 976 F. 2d, at 898-899 (quoting Report of the Virginia Commission on the University of the 21st Century). Significantly, the commission reported:

“‘Because colleges and universities provide opportunities for students to develop values and learn from role *539models, it is extremely important that they deal with faculty, staff, and students without regard to sex, race, or ethnic origin.”’ Id., at 899 (emphasis supplied by Court of Appeals deleted).

This statement, the Court of Appeals observed, “is the only' explicit one that we have found in the record in which the Commonwealth has expressed itself with respect to gender distinctions.” Ibid.

Our 1982 decision in Mississippi Univ. for Women prompted VMI to reexamine its male-only admission policy. See 766 F. Supp., at 1427-1428. Virginia relies on that reexamination as a legitimate basis for maintaining VMI’s single-sex character. See Reply Brief for Cross-Petitioners 6. A Mission Study Committee, appointed by the VMI Board of Visitors, studied the problem from October 1983 until May 1986, and in that month counseled against “change of VMI status as a single-sex college.” See 766 F. Supp., at 1429 (internal quotation marks omitted). Whatever internal purpose the Mission Study Committee served — and however well meaning the framers of the report — we can hardly extract from that effort any commonwealth policy evenhandedly to advance diverse educational options. As the District Court observed, the Committee’s analysis “primarily focuse[d] on anticipated difficulties in attracting females to VMI,” and the report, overall, supplied “very little indication of how th[e] conclusion was reached.” Ibid.

In sum, we find no persuasive evidence in this record that VMI’s male-only admission policy “is in furtherance of a state policy of ‘diversity.’” See 976 F. 2d, at 899. No such policy, the Fourth Circuit observed, can be discerned from the movement of all other public colleges and universities in Virginia away from single-sex education. See ibid. That court also questioned “how one institution with autonomy, but with no authority over any other state institution, can give effect to a state policy of diversity among institutions.” Ibid. A purpose genuinely to advance an array of educa*540tional options, as the Court of Appeals recognized, is not served by VMI’s historic and constant plan — a plan to “af-for[d] a unique educational benefit only to males.” Ibid. However “liberally” this plan serves the Commonwealth’s sons, it makes no provision whatever for her daughters. That is not equal protection.

B

Virginia next argues that VMI’s adversative method of training provides educational benefits that cannot be made available, unmodified, to women. Alterations to accommodate women would necessarily be “radical,” so “drastic,” Virginia asserts, as to transform, indeed “destroy,” VMI’s program. See Brief for Cross-Petitioners 34-36. Neither sex would be favored by the transformation, Virginia maintains: Men would be deprived of the unique opportunity currently available to them; women would not gain that opportunity because their participation would “eliminat[e] the very ás-pects of [the] program that distinguish [VMI] from ... other institutions of higher education in Virginia.” Id., at 34.

The District Court forecast from expert witness testimony, and the Court of Appeals accepted, that coeducation would materially affect “at least these three aspects of VMI’s program — physical training, the absence of privacy, and the adversative approach.” 976 F. 2d, at 896-897. And it is uncontested that women’s admission would require accommodations, primarily in arranging housing assignments and physical training programs for female cadets. See Brief for Cross-Respondent 11, 29-30. It is also undisputed, however, that “the VMI methodology could be used to educate women.” 852 F. Supp., at 481. The District Court even allowed that some women may prefer it to the methodology a women’s college might pursue. See ibid. “[S]ome women, at least, would want to attend [VMI] if they had the opportunity,” the District Court recognized, 766 F. Supp., at 1414, and “some women,” the expert testimony established, “are *541capable of all of the individual activities required of VMI cadets,” id., at 1412. The parties, furthermore, agree that “some women can meet the physical standards [VMI] now impose[s] on men.” 976 F. 2d, at 896. In sum, as the Court of Appeals stated, “neither the goal of producing citizen soldiers,” VMI’s raison d’etre, “nor VMI’s implementing methodology is inherently unsuitable to women.” Id., at 899.

In support of its initial judgment for Virginia, a judgment rejecting all equal protection objections presented by the United States, the District Court made “findings” on “gender-based developmental differences.” 766 F. Supp., at 1434-1435. These “findings” restate the opinions of Virginia’s expert witnesses, opinions about typically male or typically female “tendencies.” Id., at 1434. For example, “[m]ales tend to need an atmosphere of adversativeness,” while “[fjemales tend to thrive in a cooperative atmosphere.” Ibid. “I’m not saying that some women don’t do well under [the] adversative model,” VMI’s expert on educational institutions testified, “undoubtedly there are some [women] who do”; but educational experiences must be designed “around the rule,” this expert maintained, and not “around the exception.” Ibid, (internal quotation marks omitted).

The United States does not challenge any expert witness estimation on average capacities or preferences of men and women. Instead, the United States emphasizes that time and again since this Court’s turning point decision in Reed v. Reed, 404 U. S. 71 (1971), we have cautioned reviewing courts to take a “hard look” at generalizations or “tendencies” of the kind pressed by Virginia, and relied upon by the District Court. See O’Connor, Portia’s Progress, 66 N. Y. U. L. Rev. 1546, 1551 (1991). State actors controlling gates to opportunity, we have instructed, may not exclude qualified individuals based on “fixed notions concerning the roles and abilities of males and females.” Mississippi Univ. for Women, 458 U. S., at 725; see J. E. B., 511 U. S., at 139, n. 11 (equal protection principles, as applied to gender classifications, mean *542state actors may not rely on “overbroad” generalizations to make “judgments about people that are likely to ... perpetuate historical patterns of discrimination”).

It may be assumed, for purposes of this decision, that most women would not choose VMI’s adversative method. As Fourth Circuit Judge Motz observed, however, in her dissent from the Court of Appeals’ denial of rehearing en banc, it is also probable that “many men would not want to be educated in such an environment.” 52 F. 3d, at 93. (On that point, even our dissenting colleague might agree.) Education, to be sure, is not a “one size fits all” business. The issue, however, is not whether “women — or men — should be forced to attend VMI”; rather, the question is whether the Commonwealth can constitutionally deny to women who have the will and capacity, the training and attendant opportunities that VMI uniquely affords. Ibid.

The notion that admission of women would downgrade VMI’s stature, destroy the adversative system and, with it, even the school,11 is a judgment hardly proved,12 a prediction *543hardly different from other “self-fulfilling prophecies],” see Mississippi Univ. for Women, 458 U. S., at 730, once routinely used to deny rights or opportunities. When women first sought admission to the bar and access to legal education, concerns of the same order were expressed. For example, in 1876, the Court of Common Pleas of Hennepin County, Minnesota, explained why women were thought ineligible for the practice of law. Women train and educate the young, the court said, which

“forbids that they shall bestow that time (early and late) and labor, so essential in attaining to the eminence to which the true lawyer should ever aspire. It cannot therefore be said that the opposition of courts to the admission of females to practice ... is to any extent the outgrowth of . . . ‘old fogyism[.]’ . . . [I]t arises rather from a comprehension of the magnitude of the responsibilities connected with the successful practice of law, and a desire to grade up the profession.” In re Application of Martha Angle Dorsett to Be Admitted to Practice as Attorney and Counselor at Law (Minn. C. P. Hennepin Cty., 1876), in The Syllabi, Oct. 21, 1876, pp. 5, 6 (emphasis added).

A like fear, according to a 1925 report, accounted for Columbia Law School’s resistance to women’s admission, although

“[t]he faculty . . . never maintained that women could not master legal learning .... No, its argument has been . . . more practical. If women were admitted to *544the Columbia Law School, [the faculty] said, then the choicer, more manly and red-blooded graduates of our great universities would go to the Harvard Law School!” The Nation, Feb. 18, 1925, p. 178.

Medical faculties similarly resisted men and women as partners in the study of medicine. See R. Morantz-Sanchez, Sympathy and Science: Women Physicians in American Medicine 51-54, 250 (1985); see also M. Walsh, “Doctors Wanted: No Women Need Apply” 121-122 (1977) (quoting E. Clarke, Medical Education of Women, 4 Boston Med. & Surg. J. 345, 346 (1869) (“‘God forbid that I should ever see men and women aiding each other to display with the scalpel the secrets of the reproductive system . . . .’ ”)); cf. supra, at 536-537, n. 9. More recently, women seeking careers in policing encountered resistance based on fears that their presence would “undermine male solidarity,” see F. Heidensohn, Women in Control? 201 (1992); deprive male partners of adequate assistance, see id., at 184-185; and lead to sexual misconduct, see C. Milton et al., Women in Policing 32-33 (1974). Field studies did not confirm these fears. See Heidensohn, supra, at 92-93; P. Bloch & D. Anderson, Policewomen on Patrol: Final Report (1974).

Women’s successful entry into the federal military academies,13 and their participation in the Nation’s military forces,14 indicate that Virginia’s fears for the future of VMI *545may not be solidly grounded.15 The Commonwealth’s justification for excluding all women from “citizen-soldier” training for which some are qualified, in any event, cannot rank as “exceedingly persuasive,” as we have explained and applied that standard.

Virginia and VMI trained their argument on “means” rather than “end,” and thus misperceived our precedent. Single-sex education at VMI serves an “important governmental objective,” they maintained, and exclusion of women is not only “substantially related,” it is essential to that objective. By this notably circular argument, the “straightforward” test Mississippi Univ. for Women described, see 458 U. S., at 724-725, was bent and bowed.

The Commonwealth’s misunderstanding and, in turn, the District Court’s, is apparent from VMI’s mission: to produce “citizen-soldiers,” individuals

“ ‘imbued with love of learning, confident in the functions and attitudes of leadership, possessing a high sense of public service, advocates of the American democracy and free enterprise system, and ready ... to defend their country in time of national peril.’” 766 F. Supp., at 1425 (quoting Mission Study Committee of the VMI Board of Visitors, Report, May 16, 1986).

Surely that goal is great enough to accommodate women, who today count as citizens in our American democracy equal in stature to men. Just as surely, the Commonwealth’s *546great goal is not substantially advanced by women’s categorical exclusion, in total disregard of their individual merit, from the Commonwealth’s premier “citizen-soldier” corps.16 Virginia, in sum, “has fallen far short of establishing the ‘exceedingly persuasive justification,’ ” Mississippi Univ. for Women, 458 U. S., at 731, that must be the solid base for any gender-defined classification.

<4 t-H

In the second phase of the litigation, Virginia presented its remedial plan — maintain VMI as a male-only college and create VWIL as a separate program for women. The plan met District Court approval. The Fourth Circuit, in turn, deferentially reviewed the Commonwealth’s proposal and decided that the two single-sex programs directly served Virginia’s reasserted purposes: single-gender education, and “achieving the results of an adversative method in a military environment.” See 44 F. 3d, at 1236, 1239. Inspecting the VMI and VWIL educational programs to determine whether they “afford [ed] to both genders benefits comparable in substance, [if] not in form and detail,” id., at 1240, the Court of Appeals concluded that Virginia had arranged for men and women opportunities “sufficiently comparable” to survive equal protection evaluation, id., at 1240-1241. The United States challenges this “remedial” ruling as pervasively misguided.

*547A

A remedial decree, this Court has said, must closely fit the constitutional violation; it must be shaped to place persons unconstitutionally denied an opportunity or advantage in “the position they would have occupied in the absence of [discrimination].” See Milliken v. Bradley, 433 U. S. 267, 280 (1977) (internal quotation marks omitted). The constitutional violation in this suit is the categorical exclusion of women from an extraordinary educational opportunity afforded men. A proper remedy for an unconstitutional exclusion, we have explained, aims to “eliminate [so far as possible] the discriminatory effects of the past” and to “bar like discrimination in the future.” Louisiana v. United States, 380 U. S. 145, 154 (1965).

Virginia chose not to eliminate, but to leave untouched, VMFs exclusionary policy. For women only, however, Virginia proposed a separate program, different in kind from VMI and unequal in tangible and intangible facilities.17 Having violated the Constitution’s equal protection requirement, Virginia was obliged to show that its remedial proposal “directly addressed] and relate[d] to” the violation, see Milliken, 433 U. S., at 282, i. e., the equal protection denied to women ready, willing, and able to benefit from educational *548opportunities of the kind VMI offers. Virginia described VWIL as a “parallel program,” and asserted that VWIL shares VMI’s mission of producing “citizen-soldiers” and VMI’s goals of providing “education, military training, mental and physical discipline, character . . . and leadership development.” Brief for Respondents 24 (internal quotation marks omitted). If the VWIL program could not “eliminate the discriminatory effects of the past,” could it at least “bar like discrimination in the future”? See Louisiana, 380 U. S., at 154. A comparison of the programs said to be “parallel” informs our answer. In exposing the character of, and differences in, the VMI and VWIL programs, we recapitulate facts earlier presented. See supra, at 520-523, 526-527.

VWIL affords women no opportunity to experience the rigorous military training for which VMI is famed. See 766 F. Supp., at 1413-1414 (“No other school in Virginia or in the United States, public or private, offers the same kind of rigorous military training as is available at VMI.”); id., at 1421 (VMI “is known to be the most challenging military school in the United States”). Instead, the VWIL program “deemphasize[s]” military education, 44 F. 3d, at 1234, and uses a “cooperative method” of education “which reinforces self-esteem,” 852 F. Supp., at 476.

VWIL students participate in ROTC and a “largely ceremonial” Virginia Corps of Cadets, see 44 F. 3d, at 1234, but Virginia deliberately did not make VWIL a military institute. The VWIL House is not a military-style residence and VWIL students need not live together throughout the 4-year program, eat meals together, or wear uniforms during the schoolday. See 852 F. Supp., at 477, 495. VWIL students thus do not experience the “barracks” life “crucial to the VMI experience,” the spartan living arrangements designed to foster an “egalitarian ethic.” See 766 F. Supp., at 1423-1424. “[T]he most important aspects of the VMI educational experience occur in the barracks,” the District Court *549found, id., at 1423, yet Virginia deemed that core experience nonessential, indeed inappropriate, for training its female citizen-soldiers.

VWIL students receive their “leadership training” in seminars, externships, and speaker series, see 852 F. Supp., at 477, episodes and encounters lacking the “[p]hysical rigor, mental stress, . . . minute regulation of behavior, and indoctrination in desirable values” made hallmarks of VMI’s citizen-soldier training, see 766 F. Supp., at 1421.18 Kept away from the pressures, hazards, and psychological bonding characteristic of VMI’s adversative training, see id., at 1422, VWIL students will not know the “feeling of tremendous accomplishment” commonly experienced by VMI’s successful cadets, id., at 1426.

Virginia maintains that these methodological differences are “justified pedagogically,” based on “important differences between men and women in learning and developmental needs,” “psychological and sociological differences” Virginia describes as “real” and “not stereotypes.” Brief for Respondents 28 (internal quotation marks omitted). The Task Force charged with developing the leadership program for women, drawn from the staff and faculty at Mary Baldwin College, “determined that a military model and, especially VMI’s adversative method, would be wholly inappropriate for educating and training most women.” 852 F. Supp., at 476 (emphasis added). See also 44 F. 3d, at 1233-1234 (noting Task Force conclusion that, while “some women would be suited to and interested in [a VMI-style experience],” VMI’s adversative method “would not be effective for women as a group” (emphasis added)). The Com*550monwealth embraced the Task Force view, as did expert witnesses who testified for Virginia. See 852 F. Supp., at 480-481.

As earlier stated, see supra, at 541-542, generalizations about “the way women are,” estimates of what is appropriate for most women, no longer justify denying opportunity to women whose talent and capacity place them outside the average description. Notably, Virginia never asserted that VMI’s method of education suits most men. It is also . revealing that Virginia accounted for its failure to make the VWIL experience “the entirely militaristic experience of VMI” on the ground that VWIL “is planned for women who do not necessarily expect to pursue military careers.” 852 F. Supp., at 478. By that reasoning, VMI’s “entirely militaristic” program would be inappropriate for men in general or as a group, for “[o]nly about 15% of VMI cadets enter career military service.” See 766 F. Supp., at 1432.

In contrast to the generalizations about women on which Virginia rests, we note again these dispositive realities: VMI’s “implementing methodology” is not “inherently unsuitable to women,” 976 F. 2d, at 899; “some women ... do well under [the] adversative model,” 766 F. Supp., at 1434 (internal quotation marks omitted); “some women, at least, would want to attend [VMI] if they had the opportunity,” id., at 1414; “some women are capable of all of the individual activities required of VMI cadets,” id., at 1412, and “can meet the physical standards [VMI] now impose[s] on men,” 976 F. 2d, at 896. It is on behalf of these women that the United States has instituted this suit, and it is for them that a remedy must be crafted,19 a remedy that will end their *551exclusion from a state-supplied educational opportunity for which they are fit, a decree that will “bar like discrimination in the future.” Louisiana, 380 U. S., at 154.

B

In myriad respects other than military training, VWIL does not quálify as VMTs equal. VWIL’s student body, faculty, course offerings, and facilities hardly match VMTs. Nor can the VWIL graduate anticipate the benefits associated with VMI’s 157-year history, the school’s prestige, and its influential alumni network.

Mary Baldwin College, whose degree VWIL students will gain, enrolls first-year women with an average combined SAT score about 100 points lower than the average score for VMI freshmen. 852 F. Supp., at 501. The Mary Baldwin faculty holds “significantly fewer Ph. D.’s,” id., at 502, and receives substantially lower salaries, see Tr. 158 (testimony of James Lott, Dean of Mary Baldwin College), than the faculty at VMI.

Mary Baldwin does not offer a VWIL student the range of curricular choices available to a VMI cadet. VMI awards baccalaureate degrees in liberal arts, biology, chemistry, civil engineering, electrical and computer engineering, and mechanical engineering. See 852 F. Supp., at 503; Virginia Military Institute: More than an Education 11 (Govt. exh. 75, *552lodged with Clerk of this Court). VWIL students attend a school that “does not have a math and science focus,” 852 F. Supp., at 503; they cannot take at Mary Baldwin any courses in engineering or the advanced math and physics courses VMI offers, see id., at 477.

For physical training, Mary Baldwin has “two multipurpose fields” and “[o]ne gymnasium.” Id., at 503. VMI has “an NCAA competition level indoor track and field facility; a number of multi-purpose fields; baseball, soccer and lacrosse fields; an obstacle course; large boxing, wrestling and martial arts facilities; an 11-laps-to-the-mile indoor running course; an indoor pool; indoor and outdoor rifle ranges; and a football stadium that also contains a practice field and outdoor track.” Ibid.

Although Virginia has represented that it will provide equal financial support for in-state VWIL students and VMI cadets, id., at 483, and the VMI Foundation has agreed to endow VWIL with $5.4625 million, id., at 499, the difference between the two schools’ financial reserves is pronounced. Mary Baldwin’s endowment, currently about $19 million, will gain an additional $35 million based on future commitments; VMI’s current endowment, $131 million — the largest public college per-student endowment in the Nation — will gain $220 million. Id., at 503.

The VWIL student does not graduate with the advantage of a VMI degree. Her diploma does not unite her with the legions of VMI “graduates [who] have distinguished themselves” in military and civilian life. See 976 F. 2d, at 892-893. “[VMI] alumni are exceptionally close to the school,” and that closeness accounts, in part, for VMI’s success in attracting applicants. See 766 F. Supp., at 1421. A VWIL graduate cannot assume that the “network of business owners, corporations, VMI graduates and non-graduate employers ... interested in hiring VMI graduates,” 852 F. Supp., at 499, will be equally responsive to her search for employment, *553see 44 F. 3d, at 1250 (Phillips, J., dissenting) (“the powerful political and economic ties of the VMI alumni network cannot be expected to open” for graduates of the fledgling VWIL program).

Virginia, in sum, while maintaining VMI for men only, has failed to provide any “comparable single-gender women’s institution.” Id., at 1241. Instead, the Commonwealth has created a VWIL program fairly appraised as a “pale shadow” of VMI in terms of the range of curricular choices and faculty stature, funding, prestige, alumni support and influence. See id., at 1250 (Phillips, J., dissenting).

Virginia’s VWIL solution is reminiscent of the remedy Texas proposed 50 years ago, in response to a state trial court’s 1946 ruling that, given the equal protection guarantee, African-Americans could not be denied a legal education at a state facility. See Sweatt v. Painter, 339 U. S. 629 (1950). Reluctant to admit African-Americans to its flagship University of Texas Law School, the State set up a separate school for Heman Sweatt and other black law students. Id., at 632. As originally opened, the new school had no independent faculty or library, and it lacked accreditation. Id., at 633. Nevertheless, the state trial and appellate courts were satisfied that the new school offered Sweatt opportunities for the study of law “substantially equivalent to those offered by the State to white students at the University of Texas.” Id., at 632 (internal quotation marks omitted).

Before this Court considered the case, the new school had gained “a faculty of five full-time professors; a student body of 23; a library of some 16,500 volumes serviced by a full-time staff; a practice court and legal aid association; and one alumnus who ha[d] become a member of the Texas Bar.” Id., at 633. This Court contrasted resources at the new school with those at the school from which Sweatt had been excluded. The University of Texas Law School had a full-time faculty of 16, a student body of 850, a library containing over *55465,000 volumes, scholarship funds, a law review, and moot court facilities. Id., at 632-633.

More important than the tangible features, the Court emphasized, are “those qualities which are incapable of objective measurement but which make for greatness” in a school, including “reputation of the faculty, experience of the administration, position and influence of the alumni, standing in the community, traditions and prestige.” Id., at 634. Facing the marked differences reported in the Sweatt opinion, the Court unanimously ruled that Texas had not shown “substantial equality in the [separate] educational opportunities” the State offered. Id., at 633. Accordingly, the Court held, the Equal Protection Clause required Texas to admit African-Americans to the University of Texas Law School. Id., at 636. In line with Sweatt, we rule here that Virginia has not shown substantial equality in the separate educational opportunities the Commonwealth supports at VWIL and VMI.

C

When Virginia tendered its VWIL plan, the Fourth Circuit did not inquire whether the proposed remedy, approved by the District Court, placed women denied the VMI advantage in “the position they would have occupied in the absence of [discrimination].” Milliken, 433 U. S., at 280 (internal quotation marks omitted). Instead, the Court of Appeals considered whether the Commonwealth could provide, with fidelity to the equal protection principle, separate and unequal educational programs for men and women.

The Fourth Circuit acknowledged that “the VWIL degree from Mary Baldwin College lacks the historical benefit and prestige of a degree from VMI.” 44 F. 3d, at 1241. The Court of Appeals further observed that VMI is “an ongoing and successful institution with a long history,” and there remains no “comparable single-gender women’s institution.” Ibid. Nevertheless, the appeals court declared the substantially different and significantly unequal VWIL program sat*555isfactory. The court reached that result by revising the applicable standard of review. The Fourth Circuit displaced the standard developed in our precedent, see supra, at 532-534, and substituted a standard of its own invention.

We have earlier described the deferential review in which the Court of Appeals engaged, see supra, at 528-529, a brand of review inconsistent with the more exacting standard our precedent requires, see supra, at 532-534. Quoting in part from Mississippi Univ. for Women, the Court of Appeals candidly described its own analysis as one capable of checking a legislative purpose ranked as “pernicious,” but generally according “deference to [the] legislative will.” 44 F. 3d, at 1235, 1236. Recognizing that it had extracted from our decisions a test yielding “little or no scrutiny of the effect of a classification directed at [single-gender education],” the Court of Appeals devised another test, a “substantive comparability” inquiry, id,., at 1237, and proceeded to find that new test satisfied, id., at 1241.

The Fourth Circuit plainly erred in exposing Virginia’s VWIL plan to a deferential analysis, for “all gender-based classifications today” warrant “heightened scrutiny.” See J. E. B., 511 U. S., at 136. Valuable as VWIL may prove for students who seek the program offered, Virginia’s remedy affords no cure at all for the opportunities and advantages withheld from women who want a VMI education and can make the grade. See supra, at 549-554.20 In sum, Virginia’s *556remedy does not match the constitutional violation; the Commonwealth has shown no “exceedingly persuasive justification” for withholding from women qualified for the experience premier training of the kind VMI affords.

VII

A generation ago, “the authorities controlling Virginia higher education,” despite long established tradition, agreed “to innovate and favorably entertained] the [then] relatively new idea that there must be no discrimination by sex in offering educational opportunity.” Kirstein, 309 F. Supp., at 186. Commencing in 1970, Virginia opened to women “educational opportunities at the Charlottesville campus that [were] not afforded in other [state-operated] institutions.” Id., at 187; see supra, at 538. A federal court approved the Commonwealth’s innovation, emphasizing that the University of Virginia “offer[ed] courses of instruction ... not available elsewhere.” 309 F. Supp., at 187. The court further noted: “[T]here exists at Charlottesville a ‘prestige’ factor *557[not paralleled in] other Virginia educational institutions.” Ibid.

VMI, too, offers an educational opportunity no other Virginia institution provides, and the school’s “prestige” — associated with its success in developing “citizen-soldiers” — is unequaled. Virginia has closed this facility to its daughters and, instead, has devised for them a “parallel program,” with a faculty less impressively credentialed and less well paid, more limited course offerings, fewer opportunities for military training and for scientific specialization. Cf. Sweatt, 339 U. S., at 633. VMI, beyond question, “possesses to a far greater degree” than the VWIL program “those qualities which are incapable of objective measurement but which make for greatness in a . . . school,” including “position and influence of the alumni, standing in the community, traditions and prestige.” Id., at 634. Women seeking and fit for a VMI-quality education cannot be offered anything less, under the Commonwealth’s obligation to afford them genuinely equal protection.

A prime part of the history of our Constitution, historian Richard Morris recounted, is the story of the extension of constitutional rights and protections to people once ignored or excluded.21 VMI’s story continued as our comprehension of “We the People” expanded. See supra, at 532, n. 6. *558There is no reason to believe that the admission of women capable of all the activities required of VMI cadets would destroy the Institute rather than enhance its capacity to serve the “more perfect Union.”

* * *

For the reasons stated, the initial judgment of the Court of Appeals, 976 F. 2d 890 (CA4 1992), is affirmed, the final judgment of the Court of Appeals, 44 F. 3d 1229 (CA4 1995), is reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

It is so ordered.

Justice Thomas took no part in the consideration or decision of these cases.

Chief Justice Rehnquist,

concurring in the judgment.

The Court holds first that Virginia violates the Equal Protection Clause by maintaining the Virginia Military Institute’s (VMI’s) all-male admissions policy, and second that establishing the Virginia Women’s Institute for Leadership (VWIL) program does not remedy that violation. While I agree with these conclusions, I disagree with the Court’s analysis and so I write separately.

I

Two decades ago in Craig v. Boren, 429 U. S. 190, 197 (1976), we announced that “[t]o withstand constitutional challenge, . . . classifications by gender must serve important governmental objectives and must be substantially related to achievement of those objectives.” We have adhered to that standard of scrutiny ever since. See Califano v. Goldfarb, 430 U. S. 199, 210-211 (1977); Califano v. Webster, 430 U. S. 313, 316-317 (1977); Orr v. Orr, 440 U. S. 268, 279 (1979); Caban v. Mohammed, 441 U. S. 380, 388 (1979); Davis v. Passman, 442 U. S. 228, 234-235, 235, n. 9 (1979); Personnel Administrator of Mass. v. Feeney, 442 U. S. 256, 273 (1979); *559Califano v. Westcott, 443 U. S. 76, 85 (1979); Wengler v. Druggists Mut. Ins. Co., 446 U. S. 142, 150 (1980); Kirchberg v. Feenstra, 450 U. S. 455, 459-460 (1981); Michael M. v. Superior Court, Sonoma Cty., 450 U. S. 464, 469 (1981); Mississippi Univ. for Women v. Hogan, 458 U. S. 718, 724 (1982); Heckler v. Mathews, 465 U. S. 728, 744 (1984); J. E. B. v. Alabama ex rel. T. B., 511 U. S. 127, 137, n. 6 (1994). While the majority adheres to this test today, ante, at 524, 533, it also says that the Commonwealth must demonstrate an “ ‘exceedingly persuasive justification’” to support a gender-based classification. See ante, at 524, 529, 530, 531, 533, 534, 545, 546, 556. It is unfortunate that the Court thereby introduces an element of uncertainty respecting the appropriate test.

While terms like “important governmental objective” and “substantially related” are hardly models of precision, they have more content and specificity than does the phrase “exceedingly persuasive justification.” That phrase is best confined, as it was first used, as an observation on the difficulty of meeting the applicable test, not as a formulation of the test itself. See, e. g., Feeney, supra, at 273 (“[Tjhese precedents dictate that any state law overtly or covertly designed to prefer males over females in public employment require an exceedingly persuasive justification”). To avoid introducing potential confusion, I would have adhered more closely to our traditional, “firmly established,” Hogan, supra, at 723; Heckler, supra, at 744, standard that a gender-based classification “must bear a close and substantial relationship to important governmental objectives.” Feeney, supra, at 273.

Our cases dealing with gender discrimination also require that the proffered purpose for the challenged law be the actual purpose. See ante, at 533, 535-536. It is on this ground that the Court rejects the first of two justifications Virginia offers for VMI’s single-sex admissions policy, namely, the goal of diversity among its public educational institutions. While I ultimately agree that the Common*560wealth has not carried the day with this justification, I disagree with the Court’s method of analyzing the issue.

VMI was founded in 1839, and, as the Court notes, ante, at 536-537, admission was limited to men because under the then-prevailing view men, not women, were destined for higher education. However misguided this point of view may be by present-day standards, it surely was not unconstitutional in 1839. The adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment, with its Equal Protection Clause, was nearly 30 years in the future. The interpretation of the Equal Protection Clause to require heightened scrutiny for gender discrimination was yet another century away.

Long after the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment, and well into this century, legal distinctions between men and women were thought to raise no question under the Equal Protection Clause. The Court refers to our decision in Goesaert v. Cleary, 335 U. S. 464 (1948). Likewise representing that now abandoned view was Hoyt v. Florida, 368 U. S. 57 (1961), where the Court upheld a Florida system of jury selection in which men were automatically placed on jury lists, but women were placed there only if they expressed an affirmative desire to serve. The Court noted that despite advances in women’s opportunities, the “woman is still regarded as the center of home and family life.” Id., at 62.

Then, in 1971, we decided Reed v. Reed, 404 U. S. 71, which the Court correctly refers to as a seminal case. But its facts have nothing to do with admissions to any sort of educational institution. An Idaho statute governing the administration of estates and probate preferred men to women if the other statutory qualifications were equal. The statute’s purpose, according to the Idaho Supreme Court, was to avoid hearings to determine who was better qualified as between a man and a woman both applying for letters of administration. This Court held that such a rule violated the Fourteenth Amendment because “a mandatory preference to members of either *561sex over members of the other, merely to accomplish the elimination of hearings,” was an “arbitrary legislative choice forbidden by the Equal Protection Clause.” Id., at 76. The brief opinion in Reed made no mention of either Goesaert or Hoyt.

Even at the time of our decision in Reed v. Reed, therefore, Virginia and VMI were scarcely on notice that its holding would be extended across the constitutional board. They were entitled to believe that “one swallow doesn’t make a summer” and await further developments. Those developments were 11 years in coming. In Mississippi Univ. for Women v. Hogan, supra, a case actually involving a single-sex admissions policy in higher education, the Court held that the exclusion of men from a nursing program violated the Equal Protection Clause. This holding did place Virginia on notice that VMI’s men-only admissions policy was open to serious question.

The VMI Board of Visitors, in response, appointed a Mission Study Committee to examine “the legality and wisdom of VMI’s single-sex policy in light of” Hogan. 766 F. Supp. 1407, 1427 (WD Va. 1991). But the committee ended up cryptically recommending against changing VMI’s status as a single-sex college. After three years of study, the committee found “ ‘no information’ ” that would warrant a change in VMI’s status. Id., at 1429. Even the District Court, ultimately sympathetic to VMI’s position, found that “[t]he Report provided very little indication of how [its] conclusion was reached” and that “[t]he one and one-half pages in the committee’s final report devoted to analyzing the information it obtained primarily focuses on anticipated difficulties in attracting females to VMI.” Ibid. The reasons given in the report for not changing the policy were the changes that admission of women to VMI would require, and the likely effect of those changes on the institution. That VMI would have to change is simply not helpful in addressing the constitutionality of the status after Hogan.

*562Before this Court, Virginia has sought to justify VMI’s single-sex admissions policy primarily on the basis that diversity in education is desirable, and that while most of the public institutions of higher learning in the Commonwealth are coeducational, there should also be room for single-sex institutions. I agree with the Court that there, is scant evidence in the record that this was the real reason that Virginia decided to maintain VMI as men only.* But, hnlike the majority, I would consider only evidence that postdates our decision in Hogan, and would draw no negative inferences from the Commonwealth’s actions before that time. I think that after Hogan, the Commonwealth was entitled to reconsider its policy with respect to VMI, and not to have earlier justifications, or lack thereof, held against it.

Even if diversity in educational opportunity were the Commonwealth’s actual objective, the Commonwealth’s position would still be problematic. The difficulty with its position is that the diversity benefited only one sex; there was single-sex public education available for men at VMI, but no corresponding single-sex public education available for women. When Hogan placed Virginia on notice that *563VMI’s admissions policy possibly was unconstitutional, VMI could have dealt with the problem by admitting women; but its governing body felt strongly that the admission of women would have seriously harmed the institution’s educational approach. Was there something else the Commonwealth could have done to avoid an equal protection violation? Since the Commonwealth did nothing, we do not have to definitively answer that question.

I do not think, however, that the Commonwealth’s options were as limited as the majority may imply. The Court cites, without expressly approving it, a statement from the opinion of the dissenting judge in the Court of Appeals, to the effect that the Commonwealth could have “simultaneously opened single-gender undergraduate institutions having substantially comparable curricular and extra-curricular programs, funding, physical plant, administration and support services, and faculty and library resources.” Ante, at 529-530 (internal quotation marks omitted). If this statement is thought to exclude other possibilities, it is too stringent a requirement. VMI had been in operation for over a century and a half, and had an established, successful, and devoted group of alumni. No legislative wand could instantly call into existence a similar institution for women; and it would be a tremendous loss to scrap VMI’s history and tradition. In the words of Grover Cleveland’s second inaugural address, the Commonwealth faced a condition, not a theory. And it was a condition that had been brought about, not through defiance of decisions construing gender bias under the Equal Protection Clause, but, until the decision in Hogan, a condition that had not appeared to offend the Constitution. Had Virginia made a genuine effort to devote comparable public resources to a facility for women, and followed through on such a plan, it might well have avoided an equal protection violation. I do not believe the Commonwealth was faced with the stark choice of either admitting women to VMI, on the *564one hand, or abandoning VMI and starting from scratch for both men and women, on the other.

But, as I have noted, neither the governing board of VMI nor the Commonwealth took any action after 1982. If diversity in the form of single-sex, as well as coeducational, institutions of higher learning were to be available to Virginians, that diversity had to be available to women as well as to men.

The dissent criticizes me for “disregarding the four all-women’s private colleges in Virginia (generously assisted by public funds).” Post, at 595. The private women’s colleges are treated by the Commonwealth exactly as all other private schools are treated, which includes the provision of tuition-assistance grants to Virginia residents. Virginia gives no special support to the women’s single-sex education. But obviously, the same is not true for men’s education. Had the Commonwealth provided the kind of support for the private women’s schools that it provides for VMI, this may have been a very different case. For in so doing, the Commonwealth would have demonstrated that its interest in providing a single-sex education for men was to some measure matched by an interest in providing the same opportunity for women.

Virginia offers a second justification for the single-sex admissions policy: maintenance of the adversative method. I agree with the Court that this justification does not serve an important governmental objective. A State does not have substantial interest in the adversative methodology unless it is pedagogically beneficial. While considerable evidence shows that a single-sex education is pedagogically beneficial for some students, see 766 F. Supp., at 1414, and hence a State may have a valid interest in promoting that methodology, there is no similar evidence in the record that an adver-sative method is pedagogically beneficial or is any more likely to produce character traits than other methodologies.

*565II

The Court defines the constitutional violation in these cases as “the categorical exclusion of women from an extraordinary educational opportunity afforded to men.” Ante, at 547. By defining the violation in this way, and by emphasizing that a remedy for a constitutional violation must place the victims of discrimination in “‘the position they would have occupied in the absence of [discrimination],’ ” ibid., the Court necessarily implies that the only adequate remedy would be the admission of women to the all-male institution. As the foregoing discussion suggests, I would not define the violation in this way; it is not the “exclusion of women” that violates the Equal Protection Clause, but the maintenance of an all-men school without providing any — much less a comparable — institution for women.

Accordingly, the remedy should not necessarily require either the admission of women to VMI or the creation of a VMI clone for women. An adequate remedy in my opinion might be a demonstration by Virginia that its interest in educating men in a single-sex environment is matched by its interest in educating women in a single-sex institution. To demonstrate such, the Commonwealth does not need to create two institutions with the same number of faculty Ph. D.’s, similar SAT scores, or comparable athletic fields. See ante, at 551-552. Nor would it necessarily require that the women’s institution offer the same curriculum as the men’s; one could be strong in computer science, the other could be strong in liberal arts. It would be a sufficient remedy, I think, if the two institutions offered the same quality of education and were of the same overall caliber.

If a State decides to create single-sex programs, the State would, I expect, consider the public’s interest and demand in designing curricula. And rightfully so. But the State should avoid assuming demand based on stereotypes; it must not assume a priori, without evidence, that there would be *566no interest in a women’s school of civil engineering, or in a men’s school of nursing.

In the end, the women’s institution Virginia proposes, VWIL, fails as a remedy, because it is distinctly inferior to the existing men’s institution and will continue to be for the foreseeable future. VWIL simply is not, in any sense, the institution that VMI is. In particular, VWIL is a program appended to a private college, not a self-standing institution; and VWIL is substantially underfunded as compared to VMI. I therefore ultimately agree with the Court that Virginia has not provided an adequate remedy.

Justice Scalia,

dissenting.

Today the Court shuts down an institution that has served the people of the Commonwealth of Virginia with pride and distinction for over a century and a half. To achieve that desired result, it rejects (contrary to our established practice) the factual findings of two courts below, sweeps aside the precedents of this Court, and ignores the history of our people. As to facts: It explicitly rejects the finding that there exist “gender-based developmental differences” supporting Virginia’s restriction of the “adversative” method to only a men’s institution, and the finding that the all-male composition of the Virginia Military Institute (VMI) is essential to that institution’s character. As to precedent: It drastically revises our established standards for reviewing sex-based classifications. And as to history: It counts for nothing the long tradition, enduring down to. the present, of men’s military colleges supported by both States and the Federal Government. •

Much of the Court’s opinion is devoted to deprecating the closed-mindedness of our forebears with regard to women’s education, and even with regard to the treatment of women in areas that have nothing to do with education. Closed-minded they were — as every age is, including our own, with regard to matters it cannot guess, because it simply does not *567consider them debatable. The virtue of a democratic system with a First Amendment is that it readily enables the people, over time, to be persuaded that what they took for granted is not so, and to change their laws accordingly. That system is destroyed if the smug assurances of each age are removed from the democratic process and written into the Constitution. So to counterbalance the Court’s criticism of our ancestors, let me say a word in their praise: They left us free to change. The same cannot be said of this most illiberal Court, which has embarked on a course of inscribing one after another of the current preferences of the society (and in some cases only the countermajoritarian preferences of the society’s law-trained elite) into our Basic Law. Today it enshrines the notion that no substantial educational value is to be served by an all-men’s military academy — so that the .decision by the people of Virginia to maintain such an institution denies equal protection to women who cannot attend that institution but can attend others. Since it is entirely clear that the Constitution of the United States — the old one — takes no sides in this educational debate, I dissent.

I

I shall devote most of my analysis to evaluating the Court’s opinion on the basis of our current equal protection jurisprudence, which regards this Court as free to evaluate everything under the sun by applying one of three tests: “rational basis” scrutiny, intermediate scrutiny, or strict scrutiny. These tests are no more scientific than their names suggest, and a further element of randomness is added by the fact that it is largely up to us which test will be applied in each case. Strict scrutiny, we have said, is reserved for state “classifications based on race or national origin and classifications affecting fundamental rights,” Clark v. Jeter, 486 U. S. 456, 461 (1988) (citation omitted). It is my position that the term “fundamental rights” should be limited to “interest[s] traditionally protected by our society,” Michael H. *568v. Gerald D., 491 U. S. 110, 122 (1989) (plurality opinion of Scalia, J.); but the Court has not accepted that view, so that strict scrutiny will be applied to the deprivation of whatever sort of right we consider “fundamental.” We have no established criterion for “intermediate scrutiny” either, but essentially apply it when it seems like a good idea to load the dice. So far it has been applied to content-neutral restrictions that place an incidental burden on speech, to disabilities attendant to illegitimacy, and to discrimination on the basis of sex. See, e.g., Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. v. FCC, 512 U. S. 622, 662 (1994); Mills v. Habluetzel, 456 U. S. 91, 98-99 (1982); Craig v. Boren, 429 U. S. 190, 197 (1976).

I have no problem with a system of abstract tests such as rational basis, intermediate, and strict scrutiny (though I think we can do better than applying strict scrutiny and intermediate scrutiny whenever we feel like it). Such formulas are essential to evaluating whether the new restrictions that a changing society constantly imposes upon private conduct comport with that “equal protection” our society has always accorded in the past. But in my view the function of this Court is to preserve our society’s values regarding (among other things) equal protection, not to revise them; to prevent backsliding from the degree of restriction the Constitution imposed upon democratic government, not to prescribe, on our own authority, progressively higher degrees. For that reason it is my view that, whatever abstract tests we may choose to devise, they cannot supersede — and indeed ought to be crafted so as to reflect — those constant and unbroken national traditions that embody the people’s understanding of ambiguous constitutional texts. More specifically, it is my view that “when a practice not expressly prohibited by the text of the Bill of Rights bears the endorsement of a long tradition of open, widespread, and unchallenged use that dates back to the beginning of the Republic, we have no proper basis for striking it down.” Rutan v. Republican Party of Ill., 497 U. S. 62, 95 (1990) (Scalia, J., *569dissenting). The same applies, mutatis mutandis, to a practice asserted to be in violation of the post-Civil War Fourteenth Amendment. See, e. g., Burnham v. Superior Court of Cal., County of Marin, 495 U. S. 604 (1990) (plurality opinion of Scalia, J.) (Due Process Clause); J. E. B. v. Alabama ex rel. T. B., 511 U. S. 127, 156-163 (1994) (Scalia, J., dissenting) (Equal Protection Clause); Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pa. v. Casey, 505 U. S. 833, 979-984, 1000-1001 (1992) (Scalia, J., dissenting) (various alleged “penumbras”).

The all-male constitution of VMI comes squarely within such a governing tradition. Founded by the Commonwealth of Virginia in 1839 and continuously maintained by it since, VMI has always admitted only men. And in that regard it has not been unusual. For almost all of VMI’s more than a century and a half of existence, its single-sex status reflected the uniform practice for government-supported military colleges. Another famous Southern institution, The Citadel, has existed as a state-funded school of South Carolina since 1842. And all the federal military colleges — West Point, the Naval Academy at Annapolis, and even the Air Force Academy, which was not established until 1954 — admitted only males for most of their history. Their admission of women in 1976 (upon which the Court today relies, see ante, at 544-545, nn. 13, 15) came not by court decree, but because the people, through their elected representatives, decreed a change. See, e.g., § 803(a), 89 Stat. 537, note following 10 U. S. C. §4342. In other words, the tradition of having government-funded military schools for men is as well rooted in the traditions of this country as the tradition of sending only men into military combat. The people may decide to change the one tradition, like the other, through democratic processes; but the assertion that either tradition has been unconstitutional through the centuries is not law, but politics-smuggled-into-law.

And the same applies, more broadly, to single-sex education in general, which, as I shall discuss, is threatened by *570today’s decision with the cutoff of all state and federal support. Government-run woranilitary educational institutions for the two sexes have until very recently also been part of our national tradition. “[It is] [c]oeducation, historically, [that] is a novel educational theory. From grade school through high school, college, and graduate and professional training, much of the Nation’s population during much of our history has been educated in sexually segregated classrooms.” Mississippi Univ. for Women v. Hogan, 458 U. S. 718, 736 (1982) (Powell, J., dissenting); see id., at 736-739. These traditions may of course be changed by the democratic decisions of the people, as they largely have been.

Today, however, change is forced upon Virginia, and reversion to single-sex education is prohibited nationwide, not by democratic processes but by order of this Court. Even while bemoaning the sorry, bygone days of “fixed notions” concerning women’s education, see ante, at 536-537, and n. 10, 537-539, 542-544, the Court favors current notions so fixedly that it is willing to write them into the Constitution of the United States by application of custom-built “tests.” This is not the interpretation of a Constitution, but the creation of one.

II

To reject the Court’s disposition today, however, it is not necessary to accept my view that the Court’s made-up tests cannot displace longstanding national traditions as the primary determinant of what the Constitution means. It is only necessary to apply honestly the test the Court has been applying to sex-based classifications for the past two decades. It is well settled, as Justice O’Connor stated some time ago for a unanimous Court, that we evaluate a statutory classification based on sex under a standard that lies “[between th[e] extremes of rational basis review and strict scrutiny.” Clark v. Jeter, 486 U. S., at 461. We have denominated this standard “intermediate scrutiny” and under it have inquired whether the statutory classification is “sub*571stantially related to an important governmental objective.” Ibid. See, e. g., Heckler v. Mathews, 465 U. S. 728, 744 (1984); Wengler v. Druggists Mut. Ins. Co., 446 U. S. 142, 150 (1980); Craig v. Boren, 429 U. S., at 197.

• Before I proceed to apply this standard to VMI, I must comment upon the manner in which the Court avoids doing so. Notwithstanding our above-described precedents and their “ ‘firmly established principles,’ ” Heckler, supra, at 744 (quoting Hogan, supra, at 723), the United States urged us to hold in this litigation “that strict scrutiny is the correct constitutional standard for evaluating classifications. that deny opportunities to individuals based on their sex.” Brief for United States in No. 94-2107, p. 16. (This was in flat contradiction of the Government’s position below, which was, in its own words, to “stat[e] unequivocally that the appropriate standard in this case is ‘intermediate scrutiny.’” 2 Record, Doc. No. 88, p. 3 (emphasis added).) The Court, while making no reference to the Government’s argument, effectively accepts it.

Although the Court in two places recites the test as stated in Hogan, see ante, at 524, 532-533, which asks whether the State has demonstrated “that the classification serves important governmental objectives and that the discriminatory means employed are substantially related to the achievement of those objectives,” 458 U. S., at 724 (internal quotation marks omitted), the Court never answers the question presented in anything resembling that form. When it engages in analysis, the Court instead prefers the phrase “exceedingly persuasive justification” from Hogan. The Court’s nine invocations of that phrase, see ante, at 524, 529, 530, 531, 533, 534, 545, 546, 556, and even its fanciful description of that imponderable as “the core instruction” of the Court’s decisions in J. E. B. v. Alabama ex rel. T. B., supra, and Hogan, supra, see ante, at 531, would be unobjectionable if the Court acknowledged that ivhether a “justification” is “exceedingly persuasive” must be assessed by asking *572“[whether] the classification serves important governmental objectives and [whether] the discriminatory means employed are substantially related to the achievement of those objectives.” Instead, however, the Court proceeds to interpret “exceedingly persuasive justification” in a fashion that contradicts the reasoning of Hogan and our other precedents.

That is essential to the Court’s result, which can only be achieved by establishing that intermediate scrutiny is not survived if there are some women interested in attending VMI, capable of undertaking its activities, and able to meet its physical demands. Thus, the Court summarizes its holding as follows:

“In contrast to the generalizations about women on which Virginia rests, we note again these dispositive realities: VMI’s implementing methodology is not inherently unsuitable to women; some women do well under the adversative model; some women, at least, would want to attend VMI if they had the opportunity; some women are capable of all of the individual activities required of VMI cadets and can meet the physical standards VMI now imposes on men.” Ante, at 550 (internal quotation marks, citations, and punctuation omitted; emphasis added).

Similarly, the Court states that “[t]he Commonwealth’s justification for excluding all women from ‘citizen-soldier’ training for which some are qualified ... cannot rank as ‘exceedingly persuasive’. .. .” Ante, at 545.1

*573Only the amorphous “exceedingly persuasive justification” phrase, and not the standard elaboration of intermediate scrutiny, can be made to yield this conclusion that VMI’s single-sex composition is unconstitutional because there exist several women (or, one would have to conclude under the Court’s reasoning, a single woman) willing and able to undertake VMI’s program. Intermediate scrutiny has never required a least-restrictive-means analysis, but only a “substantial relation” between the classification and the state interests that it serves. Thus, in Califano v. Webster, 430 U. S. 313 (1977) (per curiam), we upheld a congressional statute that provided higher Social Security benefits for women than for men. We reasoned that “women ... as such have been unfairly hindered from earning as much as men,” but we did not require proof that each woman so benefited had suffered discrimination or that each disadvantaged man had not; it was sufficient that even under the former congressional scheme “women on the average received lower retirement benefits than men.” Id., at 318, and n. 5 (emphasis added). The reasoning in our other intermediate-scrutiny cases has similarly required only a substantial relation between end and means, not a perfect fit. In Rostker v. Goldberg, 453 U. S. 57 (1981), we held that selective-service registration could constitutionally exclude women, because even “assuming that a small number of women could be drafted for noncombat roles, Congress simply did not consider it worth the added burdens of including women in draft and registration plans.” Id., at 81. In Metro Broadcasting, Inc. v. FCC, 497 U. S. 547, 579, 582-583 (1990), overruled on other grounds, Adarand Constructors, Inc. v. Peña, 515 U. S. 200, 227 (1995), we held that a classification need not be accurate “in every case” to survive intermediate scrutiny so long as, “in the aggregate,” it advances the underlying *574objective. There is simply no support in our cases for the notion that a sex-based classification is invalid unless it relates to characteristics that hold true in every instance.

Not content to execute a de facto abandonment of the intermediate scrutiny that has been our standard for sex-based classifications for some two decades, the Court purports to reserve the question whether, even in principle, a higher standard (i. e., strict scrutiny) should apply. “The Court has,” it says, “thus far reserved most stringent judicial scrutiny for classifications based on race or national origin .. .,” ante, at 532, n. 6 (emphasis added); and it describes our earlier cases as having done no more than decline to “equat[e] gender classifications, for all purposes, to classifications based on race or national origin,” ante, at 532 (emphasis added). The wonderful thing about these statements is that they are not actually false — just as it would not be actually false to say that “our cases have thus far reserved the ‘beyond a reasonable doubt’ standard of proof for criminal cases,” or that “we have not equated tort actions, for all purposes, to criminal prosecutions.” But the statements are misleading, insofar as they suggest that we have not already categorically held strict scrutiny to be inapplicable to sex-based classifications. See, e. g., Heckler v. Mathews, 465 U. S. 728 (1984) (upholding state action after applying only intermediate scrutiny); Michael M. v. Superior Court, Somoma Cty,, 450 U. S. 464 (1981) (plurality and both concurring opinions) (same); Califano v. Webster, supra (per curiam) (same). And the statements are irresponsible, insofar as they are calculated to destabilize current law. Our task is to clarify the law — not to muddy the waters, and not to exact overcompliance by intimidation. The States and the Federal Government are entitled to know before they act the standard to which they will be held, rather than be compelled to guess about the outcome of Supreme Court peek-a-boo.

The Court’s intimations are particularly out of place because it is perfectly clear that, if the question of the applica*575ble standard of review for sex-based classifications were to be regarded as an appropriate subject for reconsideration, the stronger argument would be not for elevating the standard to strict scrutiny, but for reducing it to rational-basis review. The latter certainly has a firmer foundation in our past jurisprudence: Whereas no majority of the Court has ever applied strict scrutiny in a case involving sex-based classifications, we routinely applied rational-basis review until the 1970’s, see, e. g., Hoyt v. Florida, 368 U. S. 57 (1961); Goesaert v. Cleary, 335 U. S. 464 (1948). And of course normal, rational-basis review of sex-based classifications would be much more in accord with the genesis of heightened standards of judicial review, the famous footnote in United States v. Carolene Products Co., 304 U. S. 144 (1938), which said (intimatingly) that we did not have to inquire in the case at hand

“whether prejudice against discrete and insular minorities may be a special condition, which tends seriously to curtail the operation of those political processes ordinarily to be relied upon to protect minorities, and which may call for a correspondingly more searching judicial inquiry.” Id., at 152-153, n. 4.

It is hard to consider women a “discrete and insular minor-it[y]” unable to employ the “political processes ordinarily to be relied upon,” when they constitute a majority of the electorate. And the suggestion that they are incapable of exerting that political power smacks of the same paternalism that the Court so roundly condemns. See, e. g., ante, at 536-537, 542-546 (and accompanying notes). Moreover, a long list of legislation proves the proposition false. See, e. g., Equal Pay Act of 1963, 29 U. S. C. § 206(d); Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U. S. C. §2000e-2; Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, 20 U. S. C. § 1681; Women’s Business Ownership Act of 1988, Pub. L. 100-533, 102 Stat. 2689; *576Violence Against Women Act of 1994, Pub. L. 103-322, Title IV, 108 Stat. 1902.

III

With this explanation of how the Court has succeeded in making its analysis seem orthodox — and indeed, if intimations are to be believed, even overly generous to VMI — I now proceed to describe how the analysis should have been conducted. The question to be answered, I repeat, is whether the exclusion of women from VMI is “substantially related to an important governmental objective.”

A

It is beyond question that Virginia has an important state interest in providing effective college education for its citizens. That single-sex instruction is an approach substantially related to that interest should be evident enough from the long and continuing history in this country of men’s and women’s colleges. But beyond that, as the Court of Appeals here stated: “That single-gender education at the college level is beneficial to both sexes is a fact established in this case.” 44 F. 3d 1229, 1238 (CA4 1995) (emphasis added).

The evidence establishing that fact was overwhelming— indeed, “virtually uncontradicted” in the words of the court that received the evidence, 766 F. Supp. 1407, 1415 (WD Va. 1991). As an initial matter, Virginia demonstrated at trial that “[a] substantial body of contemporary scholarship and research supports the proposition that, although males and females have significant areas of developmental overlap, they also have differing developmental needs that are deep-seated.” Id., at 1434. While no one questioned that for many students a coeducational environment was nonetheless not inappropriate, that could not obscure the demonstrated benefits of single-sex colleges. For example, the District Court stated as follows:

“One empirical study in evidence, not questioned by any expert, demonstrates that single-sex colleges pro*577vide better educational experiences than coeducational institutions. Students of both sexes become more academically involved, interact with faculty frequently, show larger increases in intellectual self-esteem and are more satisfied with practically all aspects of college experience (the sole exception is social life) compared with their counterparts in coeducational institutions. Attendance at an all-male college substantially increases the likelihood that a student will carry out career plans in law, business and college teaching, and also has a substantial positive effect on starting salaries in business. Women’s colleges increase the chances that those who attend will obtain positions of leadership, complete the baccalaureate degree, and aspire to higher degrees.” Id., at 1412.

See also id., at 1434-1435 (factual findings). “[I]n the light of this very substantial authority favoring single-sex education,” the District Court concluded that “the YMI Board’s decision to maintain an all-male institution is fully justified even without taking into consideration the other unique features of VMI’s teaching and training.” Id., at 1412. This finding alone, which even this Court cannot dispute, see ante, at 535, should be sufficient to demonstrate the constitutionality of VMI’s all-male composition.

But besides its single-sex constitution, VMI is different from other colleges in another way. It employs a “distinctive educational method,” sometimes referred to as the “ad-versative, or doubting, model of education.” 766 F. Supp., at 1413, 1421. “Physical rigor, mental stress, absolute equality of treatment, absence of privacy, minute regulation of behavior, and indoctrination in desirable values are the salient attributes of the VMI educational experience.” Id., at 1421. No one contends that this method is appropriate for all individuals; education is not a “one size fits all” business. Just as a State may wish to support junior colleges, vocational institutes, or a law school that emphasizes case *578practice instead of classroom study, so too a State’s decision to maintain within its system one school that provides the adversative method is “substantially related” to its goal of good education. Moreover, it was uncontested that “if the state were to establish a women’s VMI-type [i. e., adversa-tive] program, the program would attract an insufficient number of participants to make the program work,” 44 F. 3d, at 1241; and it was found by the District Court that if Virginia were to include women in VMI, the school “would eventually find it necessary to drop the adversative system altogether,” 766 F. Supp., at 1413. Thus, Virginia’s options were an adversative method that excludes women or no adversa-tive method at all.

There can be no serious dispute that, as the District Court found, single-sex education and a distinctive educational method “represent legitimate contributions to diversity in the Virginia higher education system.” Ibid. As a theoretical matter, Virginia’s educational interest would have been best served (insofar as the two factors we have mentioned are concerned) by six different types of public colleges — an all-men’s, an all-women’s, and a coeducational college run in the “adversative method,” and an all-men’s, an all-women’s, and a coeducational college run in the “traditional method.” But as a practical matter, of course, Virginia’s financial resources, like any State’s, are not limitless, and the Commonwealth must select among the available options. Virginia thus has decided to fund, in addition to some 14 coeducational 4-year colleges, one college that is run as an all-male school on the adversative model: the Virginia Military Institute.

Virginia did not make this determination regarding the make-up of its public college system on the unrealistic assumption that no other colleges exist. Substantial evidence in the District Court demonstrated that the Commonwealth has long proceeded on the principle that “ ‘[hjigher education resources should be viewed as a whole — public and pri*579vate’” — because such an approach enhances diversity and because “‘it is academic and economic waste to permit unwarranted duplication.’ ” Id., at 1420-1421 (quoting 1974 Report of the General Assembly Commission on Higher Education to the General Assembly of Virginia). It is thus significant that, whereas there are “four all-female private [colleges] in Virginia,” there is only “one private all-male college,” which “indicates that the private sector is providing for th[e] [former] form of education to a much greater extent that it provides for all-male education.” 766 F. Supp., at 1420-1421. In these circumstances, Virginia’s election to fund one public all-male institution and one on the adversa-tive model — and to concentrate its resources in a single entity that serves both these interests in diversity — is substantially related to the Commonwealth’s important educational interests.

B

The Court today has no adequate response to this clear demonstration of the conclusion produced by application of intermediate scrutiny. Rather, it relies on a series of contentions that are irrelevant or erroneous as a matter of law, foreclosed by the record in this litigation, or both.

1. I have already pointed out the Court’s most fundamental error, which is its reasoning that VMI’s all-male composition is unconstitutional because “some women are capable of all of the individual activities required of VMI cadets,” 766 F. Supp., at 1412, and would prefer military training on the adversative model. See supra, at 571-574. This unacknowledged adoption of what amounts to (at least) strict scrutiny is without antecedent in our sex-discrimination cases and by itself discredits the Court’s decision.

2. The Court suggests that Virginia’s claimed purpose in maintaining VMI as an all-male institution — its asserted interest in promoting diversity of educational options — is not “genuin[e],” but is a pretext for discriminating against women. Ante, at 539; see ante, at 535-540. To support this *580charge, the Court would have to impute that base motive to VMI’s Mission Study Committee, which conducted a 3-year study from 1983 to 1986 and recommended to VMI’s Board of Visitors that the school remain all male. The committee, a majority of whose members consisted of non-VMI graduates, “read materials on education and on women in the military,” “made site visits to single-sex and newly coeducational institutions” including West Point and the Naval Academy, and “considered the reasons that other institutions had changed from single-sex to coeducational status”; its work was praised as “thorough” in the accreditation review of VMI conducted by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools. See 766 F. Supp., at 1413, 1428; see also id., at 1427-1430 (detailed findings of fact concerning the Mission Study Committee). The Court states that “[w]hatever internal purpose the Mission Study Committee served— and however well meaning the framers of the report — we can hardly extract from that effort any commonwealth policy evenhandedly to advance diverse educational options.” Ante, at 539. But whether it is part of the evidence to prove that diversity was the Commonwealth’s objective (its short report said nothing on that particular subject) is quite separate from whether it is part of the evidence to prove that antifeminism was not. The relevance of the Mission Study Committee is that its very creation, its sober 3-year study, and the analysis it produced utterly refute the claim that VMI has elected to maintain its all-male student-body composition for some misogynistic reason.

The Court also supports its analysis of Virginia’s “actual state purposes” in maintaining VMI’s student body as all •male by stating that there is no explicit statement in the record “ ‘in which the Commonwealth has expressed itself’ ” concerning those purposes. Ante, at 535, 539 (quoting 976 F. 2d 890, 899 (CA4 1992)); see also ante, at 525. That is wrong on numerous grounds. First and foremost, in its implication that such an explicit statement of “actual purposes” *581is needed. The Court adopts, in effect, the argument of the United States that since the exclusion of women from VMI in 1839 was based on the “assumptions” of the time “that men alone were fit for military and leadership roles,” and since “[bjefore this litigation was initiated, Virginia never sought to supply a valid, contemporary rationale for VMI’s exclusionary policy,” “[t]hat failure itself renders the VMI policy invalid.” Brief for United States in No. 94-2107, at 10. This is an unheard-of doctrine. Each state decision to adopt or maintain a governmental policy need not be accompanied — in anticipation of litigation and on pain of being found to lack a relevant state interest — by a lawyer’s contemporaneous recitation of the State’s purposes. The Constitution is not some giant Administrative Procedure Act, which imposes upon the States the obligation to set forth a “statement of basis and purpose” for their sovereign Acts, see 5 U. S. C. § 553(c). The situation would be different if what the Court assumes to have been the 1839 policy had been enshrined and remained enshrined in legislation — a VMI charter, perhaps, pronouncing that the institution’s purpose is to keep women in their place. But since the 1839 policy was no more explicitly recorded than the Court contends the present one is, the mere fact that today's Commonwealth continues to fund VMI “is enough to answer [the United States’] contention that the [classification] was the ‘accidental by-product of a traditional way of thinking about females.’ ” Michael M., 450 U. S., at 471, n. 6 (plurality opinion) (quoting Califano v. Webster, 430 U. S., at 320) (internal quotation marks omitted).

It is, moreover, not true that Virginia’s contemporary reasons for maintaining VMI are not explicitly recorded. It is hard to imagine a more authoritative source on this subject than the 1990 Report of the Virginia Commission on the University of the 21st Century (1990 Report). As the parties stipulated, that report “notes that the hallmarks of Virginia’s educational policy are ‘diversity and autonomy.’” Stipula*582tions of Fact 37, reprinted in Lodged Materials from the Record 64 (Lodged Materials). It said: “The formal system of higher education in Virginia includes a great array of institutions: state-supported and independent, two-year and senior, research and highly specialized, traditionally black and single-sex.” 1990 Report, quoted in relevant part at Lodged Materials 64-65 (emphasis added).2 The Court’s only response to this is repeated reliance on the Court of Appeals’ assertion that “‘the only explicit [statement] that we have found in the record in which the Commonwealth has expressed itself with respect to gender distinctions’” (namely, the statement in the 1990 Report that the Commonwealth’s institutions must “deal with faculty, staff, and students without regard to sex”) had nothing to do with the purpose of diversity. Ante, at 525, 539 (quoting 976 F. 2d, at 899). This proves, I suppose, that the Court of Appeals did not find a statement dealing with sex and diversity in the record; but the pertinent question (accepting the need for such a statement) is whether it was there. And the plain fact, which the Court does not deny, is that it was.

*583The Court contends that “[a] purpose genuinely to advance an array of educational options ... is not served” by VMI. Ante, at 539-540. It relies on the fact that all of Virginia’s other public colleges have become coeducational. Ibid,.; see also ante, at 521, n. 2. The apparent theory of this argument is that unless Virginia pursues a great deal of diversity, its pursuit of some diversity must be a sham. This fails to take account of the fact that Virginia’s resources cannot support all possible permutations of schools, see supra, at 578, and of the fact that Virginia coordinates its public educational offerings with the offerings of in-state private educational institutions that the Commonwealth provides money for its residents to attend and otherwise assists — which include four women’s colleges.3

Finally, the Court unreasonably suggests that there is some pretext in Virginia’s reliance upon decentralized deci-*584sionmaking to achieve diversity — its granting of substantial autonomy to each institution with regard to student-body composition and other matters, see 766 F. Supp., at 1419. The Court adopts the suggestion of the Court of Appeals that it is not possible for “one institution with autonomy, but with no authority over any other state institution, [to] give effect to a state policy of diversity among institutions.” Ante, at 539 (internal quotation marks omitted). If it were impossible for individual human beings (or groups of human beings) to act autonomously in effective pursuit of a common goal, the game of soccer would not exist. And where the goal is diversity in a free market for services, that tends to be achieved even by autonomous actors who act out of entirely selfish interests and make no effort to cooperate. Each Virginia institution, that is to say, has a natural incentive to make itself distinctive in order to attract a particular segment of student applicants. And of course none of the institutions is entirely autonomous; if and when the legislature decides that a particular school is not well serving the interest of diversity — if it decides, for example, that a men’s school is not much needed — funding will cease.4

*5853. In addition to disparaging Virginia’s claim that VMI’s single-sex status serves a state interest in diversity, the Court finds fault with Virginia’s failure to offer education based on the adversative training method to women. It dismisses the District Court’s “ ‘findings’ on ‘gender-based developmental differences’” on the ground that “[t]hese ‘findings’ restate the opinions of Virginia’s expert witnesses, opinions about typically male or typically female ‘tendencies.’ ” Ante, at 541 (quoting 766 F. Supp., at 1434-1435). How remarkable to criticize the District Court on the ground that its findings rest on the evidence (i. e., the testimony of Virginia’s witnesses)! That is what findings are supposed to do. It is indefensible to tell the Commonwealth that “[t]he burden of justification is demanding and it rests entirely on [you],” ante, at 533, and then to ignore the District Court’s findings because they rest on the evidence put forward by the Commonwealth — particularly when, as the District Court said, “[t]he evidence in the ease ... is virtually uncon-tradicted,” 766 F. Supp., at 1415 (emphasis added).

Ultimately, in fact, the Court does not deny the evidence supporting these findings. See ante, at 541-546. It instead makes evident that the parties to this litigation could have saved themselves a great deal of time, trouble, and expense by omitting a trial. The Court simply dispenses with the evidence submitted at trial — it never says that a single finding of the District Court is clearly erroneous — in favor of the Justices’ own view of the world, which the Court proceeds to support with (1) references to observations of someone *586who is not a witness, nor even an educational expert, nor even a judge who reviewed the record or participated in the judgment below, but rather a judge who merely dissented from the Court of Appeals’ decision not to rehear this litigation en banc, see ante, at 542, (2) citations of nonevidentiary materials such as amicus curiae briefs filed in this Court, see ante, at 544-545, nn. 13, 14, and (3) various historical anecdotes designed to demonstrate that Virginia’s support for VMI as currently constituted reminds the Justices of the “bad old days,” see ante, at 542-544.

It is not too much to say that this approach to the litigation has rendered the trial a sham. But treating the evidence as irrelevant is absolutely necessary for the Court to reach its conclusion. Not a single witness contested, for example, Virginia’s “substantial body of ‘exceedingly persuasive’ evidence . . . that some students, both male and female, benefit from attending a single-sex college” and “[that] [f]or those students, the opportunity to attend a single-sex college is a valuable one, likely to lead to better academic and professional achievement.” 766 F. Supp., at 1411-1412. Even the United States’ expert witness “called himself a ‘believer in single-sex education,’ ” although it was his “personal, philosophical preference,” not one “born of educational-benefit considerations,” “that single-sex education should be provided only by the private sector.” Id., at 1412.

4. The Court contends that Virginia, and the District Court, erred, and “misperceived our precedent,” by “training] their argument on ‘means’ rather than ‘end,’” ante, at 545. The Court focuses on “VMI’s mission,” which is to produce individuals “imbued with love of learning, confident in the functions and attitudes of leadership, possessing a high sense of public service, advocates of the American democracy and free enterprise system, and ready ... to defend their country in time of national peril.” 766 F. Supp., at 1425 (quoting Mission Study Committee of the VMI Board of *587Visitors, Report, May 16, 1986). “Surely,” the Court says, “that goal is great enough to accommodate women.” Ante, at 545.

This is lawmaking by indirection. What the Court describes as “VMI’s mission” is no less the mission of all Virginia colleges. Which of them would the Old Dominion continue to fund if they did not aim to create individuals “imbued with love of learning, etc.,” right down to being ready “to defend their country in time of national peril”? It can be summed up as “learning, leadership, and patriotism.” To be sure, those general educational values are described in a particularly martial fashion in VMI’s mission statement, in accordance with the military, adversative, and all-male character of the institution. But imparting those values in that fashion — i. e., in a military, adversative, all-male environment — is the distinctive mission of VMI. And as I have discussed (and both courts below found), that mission is not “great enough to accommodate women.”

The Court’s analysis at least has the benefit of producing foreseeable results. Applied generally, it means that whenever a State’s ultimate objective is “great enough to accommodate women” (as it always will be), then the State will be held to have violated the Equal Protection Clause if it restricts to men even one means by which it pursues that objective — no matter how few women are interested in pursuing the objective by that means, no matter how much the single-sex program will have to be changed if both sexes are admitted, and no matter how beneficial that program has theretofore been to its participants.

5. The Court argues that VMI would not have to change very much if it were to admit women. See, e. g., ante, at 540-542. The principal response to that argument is that it is irrelevant: If VMI’s single-sex status is substantially related to the government’s important educational objectives, as I have demonstrated above and as the Court refuses to dis*588cuss, that concludes the inquiry. There should be no debate in the federal judiciary over “how much” VMI would be required to change if it admitted women and whether that would constitute “too much” change.

But if such a debate were relevant, the Court would certainly be on the losing side. The District Court found as follows: “[T]he evidence establishes that key elements of the adversative VMI educational system, with its focus on barracks life, would be fundamentally altered, and the distinctive ends of the system would be thwarted, if VMI were forced to admit females and to make changes necessary to accommodate their needs and interests.” 766 F. Supp., at 1411. Changes that the District Court’s detailed analysis found would be required include new allowances for personal privacy in the barracks, such as locked doors and coverings on windows, which would detract from VMI’s approach of regulating minute details of student behavior, “contradict the principle that everyone is constantly subject to scrutiny by everyone else,” and impair VMI’s “total egalitarian approach” under which every student must be “treated alike”; changes in the physical training program, which would reduce “[t]he intensity and aggressiveness of the current program”; and various modifications in other respects of the adversative training program that permeates student life. See id., at 1412-1413, 1435-1443. As the Court of Appeals summarized it, “the record supports the district court’s findings that at least these three aspects of VMI’s program— physical training, the absence of privacy, and the adversative approach — would be materially affected by coeducation, leading to a substantial change in the egalitarian ethos that is a critical aspect of VMI’s training.” 976 F. 2d, at 896-897.

In the face of these findings by two courts below, amply supported by the evidence, and resulting in the conclusion that VMI would be fundamentally altered if it admitted women, this Court simply pronounces that “[t]he notion that *589admission of women would downgrade VMI’s stature, destroy the adversative system and, with it, even the school, is a judgment hardly proved.” Ante, at 542 (footnote omitted). The point about “downgrad[ing] VMI’s stature” is a straw man; no one has made any such claim. The point about “destroy[ing] the adversative system” is simply false; the District Court not only stated that “[ejvidence supports this theory,” but specifically concluded that while “[without a doubt” VMI could assimilate women, “it is equally without a doubt that VMI’s present methods of training and education would have to be changed” by a “move away from its adver-sative new cadet system.” 766 F. Supp., at 1413, and n. 8, 1440. And the point about “destroy[ing] the school,” depending upon what that ambiguous phrase is intended to mean, is either false or else sets a standard much higher than VMI had to meet. It sufficed to establish, as the District Court stated, that VMI would be “significantly different” upon the admission of women, 766 F. Supp., at 1412, and “would eventually find it necessary to drop the adversative system altogether,” id., at 1413.5

*5906. Finally, the absence of a precise “all-women’s analogue” to VMI is irrelevant. In Mississippi Univ. for Women v. Hogan, 458 U. S. 718 (1982), we attached no constitutional significance to the absence of an all-male nursing school. As Virginia notes, if a program restricted to one sex is necessarily unconstitutional unless there is a parallel program restricted to the other sex, “the opinion in Hogan could have ended with its first footnote, which observed that ‘Mississippi maintains no other single-sex public university or college.’ ” Brief for Cross-Petitioners in No. 94-2107, p. 38 (quoting Mississippi Univ. for Women v. Hogan, supra, at 720, n. 1).

Although there is no precise female-only analogue to VMI, Virginia has created during this litigation the Virginia Women’s Institute for Leadership (VWIL), a state-funded all-women’s program run by Mary Baldwin College. I have thus far said nothing about VWIL because it is, under our established test, irrelevant, so long as VMFs all-male character is “substantially related” to an important state goal. But VWIL now exists, and the Court’s treatment of it shows how far reaching today’s decision is.

VWIL was carefully designed by professional educators who have long experience in educating young women. The program rejects the proposition that there is a “difference in the respective spheres and destinies of man and woman,” Bradwell v. State, 16 Wall. 130, 141 (1873), and is designed to “provide an all-female program that will achieve substantially similar outcomes [to VMI’s] in an all-female environment,” 852 F. Supp. 471, 481 (WD Va. 1994). After holding a trial where voluminous evidence was submitted and making detailed findings of fact, the District Court concluded that “there is a legitimate pedagogical basis for the different means employed [by VMI and VWIL] to achieve the sub*591stantially similar ends.” Ibid. The Court of Appeals undertook a detailed review of the record and affirmed. 44 F. 3d 1229 (CA4 1995).6 But it is Mary Baldwin College, which runs VWIL, that has made the point most succinctly:

“It would have been possible to develop the VWIL program to more closely resemble VMI, with adver-sative techniques associated with the rat line and barracks-like living quarters. Simply replicating an existing program would have required far less thought, research, and educational expertise. But such a facile approach would have produced a paper program with no real prospect of successful implementation.” Brief for Mary Baldwin College as Amicus Curiae 5.

It is worth noting that none of the United States’ own experts in the remedial phase of this litigation was willing to testify that VMI’s adversative method was an appropriate methodology for educating women. This Court, however, does not care. Even though VWIL was carefully designed by professional educators who have tremendous experience in the area, and survived the test of adversarial litigation, the Court simply declares, with no basis in the evidence, that *592these professionals acted on “‘overbroad’ generalizations,” ante, at 542, 550.

C

A few words are appropriate in response to the concurrence, which finds VMI unconstitutional on a basis that is more moderate than the Court’s but only at the expense of being even more implausible. The concurrence offers three reasons: First, that there is “scant evidence in the record,” ante, at 562, that diversity of educational offering was the real reason for Virginia’s maintaining VMI. “Scant” has the advantage of being an imprecise term. I have cited the clearest statements of diversity as a goal for higher education in the 1990 Report, the 1989 Virginia Plan for Higher Education, the Budget Initiatives prepared in 1989 by the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia, the 1974 Report of the General Assembly Commission on Higher Education to the General Assembly of Virginia, and the 1969 Report of the Virginia Commission on Constitutional Revision. See supra, at 579, 581-582, and n. 2, 583, n. 3. There is no evidence to the contrary, once one rejects (as the concurrence rightly does) the relevance of VMI’s founding in days when attitudes toward the education of women were different. Is this conceivably not enough to foreclose rejecting as clearly erroneous the District Court’s determination regarding “the Commonwealth’s objective of educational diversity”? 766 F. Supp., at 1413. Especially since it is absurd on its face even to demand “evidence” to prove that the Commonwealth’s reason for maintaining a men’s military academy is that a men’s military academy provides a distinctive type of educational experience (i. e., fosters diversity). What other purpose would the Commonwealth have? One may argue, as the Court does, that this type of diversity is designed only to indulge hostility toward women — but that is a separate point, explicitly rejected by the concurrence, and amply refuted by the evidence I have mentioned in dis*593cussing the Court’s opinion.7 What is now under discussion — the concurrence’s making central to the disposition of this litigation the supposedly “scant” evidence that Virginia maintained VMI in order to offer a diverse educational experience — is rather like making crucial to the lawfulness of the United States Army record “evidence” that its purpose is to do battle. A legal culture that has forgotten the concept of res ipsa loquitur deserves the fate that it today decrees for VMI.

Second, the concurrence dismisses out of hand what it calls Virginia’s “second justification for the single-sex admissions policy: maintenance of the adversative method.” Ante, at 564. The concurrence reasons that “this justification does not serve an important governmental objective” because, whatever the record may show about the pedagogical benefits of single-sex education, “there is no similar evidence in the record that an adversative method is pedagogically beneficial or is any more likely to produce character traits than other methodologies.” Ibid. That is simply wrong. See, e. g., 766 F. Supp., at 1426 (factual findings concerning character traits produced by VMI’s adversative methodology); id., at 1434 (factual findings concerning benefits for many college-age men of an adversative approach in general). In reality, the pedagogical benefits of VMI’s adversative approach were not only proved, but were a given in this litigation. The reason the woman applicant who prompted this suit wanted to enter VMI was assuredly not that she wanted to go to an all-male school; it would cease being all-male as *594soon as she entered. She wanted the distinctive adversative education that VMI provided, and the battle was joined (in the main) over whether VMI had a basis for excluding women from that approach. The Court’s opinion recognizes this, and devotes much of its opinion to demonstrating that “ ‘some women ... do well under [the] adversative model’ ” and that “[i]t is on behalf of these women that the United States has instituted this suit.” Ante, at 550 (quoting 766 F. Supp., at 1434). Of course, in the last analysis it does not matter whether there are any benefits to the adversative method. The concurrence does not contest that there are benefits to single-sex education, and that alone suffices to make Virginia’s case, since admission of a woman will even more surely put an end to VMI’s single-sex education than it will to VMI’s adversative methodology.

A third reason the concurrence offers in support of the judgment is that the Commonwealth and VMI were not quick enough to react to the “further developments” in this Court’s evolving jurisprudence. Ante, at 561. Specifically, the concurrence believes it should have been clear after Hogan that “[t]he difficulty with [Virginia’s] position is that the diversity benefited only one sex; there was single-sex public education available for men at VMI, but no corresponding single-sex public education available for women.” Ante, at 562. If only, the concurrence asserts, Virginia had “made a genuine effort to devote comparable public resources to a facility for women, and followed through on such a plan, it might well have avoided an equal protection violation.” Ante, at 563. That is to say, the concurrence believes that after our decision in Hogan (which held a program of the Mississippi University for Women to be unconstitutional — without any reliance on the fact that there was no corresponding Mississippi all-men’s program), the Commonwealth should have known that what this Court expected of it was . .. yes!, the creation of a state all-women’s program. Any lawyer who gave that advice to the Commonwealth *595ought to have been either disbarred or committed. (The proof of that pudding is today’s 6-Justice majority opinion.) And any Virginia politician who proposed such a step when there were already four 4-year women’s colleges in Virginia (assisted by state support that may well exceed, in the aggregate, what VMI costs, see n. 3, supra) ought to have been recalled.

In any event, “diversity in the form of single-sex, as well as coeducational, institutions of higher learning” is “available to women as well as to men” in Virginia. Ante, at 564. The concurrence is able to assert the contrary only by disregarding the four all-women’s private colleges in Virginia (generously assisted by public funds) and the Commonwealth’s longstanding policy of coordinating public with private educational offerings, see supra, at 579, 581-582, and n. 2, 583-584, and n. 3. According to the concurrence, the reason Virginia’s assistance to its four all-women’s private colleges does not count is that “[tjhe private women’s colleges are treated by the State exactly as all other private schools are treated.” Ante, at 564. But if Virginia cannot get credit for assisting women’s education if it only treats women’s private schools as it does all other private schools, then why should it get blame for assisting men’s education if it only treats VMI as it does all other public schools? This is a great puzzlement.

IV

As is frequently true, the Court’s decision today will have consequences that extend far beyond the parties to the litigation. What I take to be the Court’s unease with these consequences, and its resulting unwillingness to acknowledge them, cannot alter the reality.

A

Under the constitutional principles announced and applied today, single-sex public education is unconstitutional. By going through the motions of applying a balancing test — ask*596ing whether the State has adduced an “exceedingly persuasive justification” for its sex-based classification — the Court creates the illusion that government officials in some future case will have a clear shot at justifying some sort of single-sex public education. Indeed, the Court seeks to create even a greater illusion than that: It purports to have said nothing of relevance to other public schools at all. “We address specifically and only an educational opportunity recognized ... as ‘unique.’ ” Ante, at 534, n. 7.

The Supreme Court of the United States does not sit to announce “unique” dispositions. Its principal function is to establish precedent — that is, to set forth principles of law that every court in America must follow. As we said only this Term, we expect both ourselves and lower courts to adhere to the “rationale upon which the Court based the results of its earlier decisions.” Seminole Tribe of Fla. v. Florida, 517 U. S. 44, 66-67 (1996) (emphasis added). That is the principal reason we publish our opinions.

And the rationale of today’s decision is sweeping: for sex-based classifications, a redefinition of intermediate scrutiny that makes it indistinguishable from strict scrutiny. See supra, at 571-574. Indeed, the Court indicates that if any program restricted to one sex is “uniqu[e],” it must be opened to members of the opposite sex “who have the will and capacity” to participate in it. Ante, at 542. I suggest that the single-sex program that will not be capable of being characterized as “unique” is not only unique but nonexistent.8

In any event, regardless of whether the Court’s rationale leaves some small amount of room for lawyers to argue, it ensures that single-sex public education is functionally dead. *597The costs of litigating the constitutionality of a single-sex education program, and the risks of ultimately losing that litigation, are simply too high to be embraced by public officials. Any person with standing to challenge any sex-based classification can haul the State into federal court and compel it to establish by evidence (presumably in the form of expert testimony) that there is an “exceedingly persuasive justification” for the classification. Should the courts happen to interpret that vacuous phrase as establishing a standard that is not utterly impossible of achievement, there is considerable risk that whether the standard has been met will not be determined on the basis of the record evidence — indeed, that will necessarily be the approach of any court that seeks to walk the path the Court has trod today. No state official in his right mind will buy such a high-cost, high-risk lawsuit by commencing a single-sex program. The enemies of single-sex education have won; by persuading only seven Justices (five would have been enough) that their view of the world is enshrined in the Constitution, they have effectively imposed that view on all 50 States.

This is especially regrettable because, as the District Court here determined, educational experts in recent years have increasingly come to “suppor[t] [the] view that substantial educational benefits flow from a single-gender environment, be it male or female, that cannot be replicated in a coeducational setting.” 766 F. Supp., at 1415 (emphasis added). “The evidence in th[is] case,” for example, “is virtually uncontradicted” to that effect. Ibid. Until quite recently, some public officials have attempted to institute new single-sex programs, at least as experiments. In 1991, for example, the Detroit Board of Education announced a program to establish three boys-only schools for inner-city youth; it was met with a lawsuit, a preliminary injunction was swiftly entered by a District Court that purported to rely on Hogan, see Garrett v. Board of Ed. of School Dist. of Detroit, 775 F. Supp. 1004, 1006 (ED Mich. 1991), and the *598Detroit Board of Education voted to abandon the litigation and thus abandon the plan, see Detroit Plan to Aid Blacks with All-Boy Schools Abandoned, Los Angeles Times, Nov. 8, 1991, p. A4, col. 1. Today’s opinion assures that no such experiment will be tried again.

B

There are few extant single-sex public educational programs. The potential of today’s decision for widespread disruption of existing institutions lies in its application to private single-sex education. Government support is immensely important to private educational institutions. Mary Baldwin College — which designed and runs VWIL— notes that private institutions of higher education in the 1990-1991 school year derived approximately 19 percent of their budgets from federal, state, and local government funds, not including financial aid to students. See Brief for Mary Baldwin College as Amicus Curiae 22, n. 13 (citing U. S. Dept. of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, Digest of Education Statistics, p. 38 and Note (1993)). Charitable status under the tax laws is also highly significant for private educational institutions, and it is certainly not beyond the Court that rendered today’s decision to hold that a donation to a single-sex college should be deemed contrary to public policy and therefore not deductible if the college discriminates on the basis of sex. See Note, The Independent Sector and the Tax Laws: Defining Charity in an Ideal Democracy, 64 S. Cal. L. Rev. 461, 476 (1991). See also Bob Jones Univ. v. United States, 461 U. S. 574 (1983).

The Court adverts to private single-sex education only briefly, and only to make the assertion (mentioned above) that “[w]e address specifically and only an educational opportunity recognized by the District Court and the Court of Appeals as ‘unique.’ ” Ante, at 534, n. 7. As I have already remarked, see supra, at 596, that assurance assures nothing, unless it is to be taken as a promise that in the future *599the Court will disclaim the reasoning it has used today to destroy VML The Government, in its briefs to this Court, at least purports to address the consequences of its attack on VMI for public support of private single-sex education. It contends that private colleges that are the direct or indirect beneficiaries of government funding are not thereby necessarily converted into state actors to which the Equal Protection Clause is then applicable. See Brief for United States in No. 94-2107, at 35-37 (discussing Rendell-Baker v. Kohn, 457 U. S. 830 (1982), and Blum v. Yaretsky, 457 U. S. 991 (1982)). That is true. It is also virtually meaningless.

The issue will be not whether government assistance turns private colleges into state actors, but whether the government itself would be violating the Constitution by providing state support to single-sex colleges. For example, in Norwood v. Harrison, 413 U. S. 455 (1973), we saw no room to distinguish between state operation of racially segregated schools and state support of privately run segregated schools. “Racial discrimination in state-operated schools is barred by the Constitution and ‘[i]t is also axiomatic that a state may not induce, encourage or promote private persons to accomplish what it is constitutionally forbidden to accomplish.”’ Id., at 465 (quoting Lee v. Macon County Bd. of Ed., 267 F. Supp. 458, 475-476 (MD Ala. 1967)); see also Cooper v. Aaron, 358 U. S. 1, 19 (1958) (“State support of segregated schools through any arrangement, management, funds, or property cannot be squared with the [Fourteenth] Amendment’s command that no State shall deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws”); Grove City College v. Bell, 465 U. S. 555, 565 (1984) (case arising under Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 and stating that “[t]he economic effect of direct and indirect assistance often is indistinguishable”). When the Government was pressed at oral argument concerning the implications of these cases for private single-sex education if government-provided single-sex education is unconstitu*600tional, it stated that the implications will not be so disastrous, since States can provide funding to racially segregated private schools, “depending] on the circumstances,” Tr. of Oral Arg. 56. I cannot imagine what those “circumstances” might be, and it would be as foolish for private-school administrators to think that that assurance from the Justice Department will outlive the day it was made, as it was for VMI to think that the Justice Department's “unequivocal]” support for an intermediate-scrutiny standard in this litigation would survive the Government’s loss in the courts below.

The only hope for state-assisted single-sex private schools is that the Court will not apply in the future the principles of law it has applied today. That is a substantial hope, I am happy and ashamed to say. After all, did not the Court today abandon the principles of law it has applied in our earlier sex-classification cases? And does not the Court positively invite private colleges to rely upon our ad-hocery by assuring them this litigation is “unique”? I would not advise the foundation of any new single-sex college (especially an all-male one) with the expectation of being allowed to receive any government support; but it is too soon to abandon in despair those single-sex colleges already in existence. It will certainly be possible for this Court to write a future opinion that ignores the broad principles of law set forth today, and that characterizes as utterly dispositive the opinion’s perceptions that VMI was a uniquely prestigious all-male institution, conceived in chauvinism, etc., etc. I will not join that opinion.

* * *

Justice Brandéis said it is “one of the happy incidents of the federal system that a single courageous State may, if its citizens choose, serve as a laboratory; and try novel social and economic experiments without risk to the rest of the country.” New State Ice Co. v. Liebmann, 285 U. S. 262, 311 *601(1932) (dissenting opinion). But it is one of the unhappy incidents of the federal system that a self-righteous Supreme Court, acting on its Members’ personal view of what would make a “ ‘more perfect Union,’ ” ante, at 558 (a criterion only slightly more restrictive than a “more perfect world”), can impose its own favored social and economic dispositions nationwide. As today’s disposition, and others this single Term, show, this places it beyond the power of a “single courageous State,” not only to introduce novel dispositions that the Court frowns upon, but to reintroduce, or indeed even adhere to, disfavored dispositions that are centuries old. See, e. g., BMW of North America, Inc. v. Gore, 517 U. S. 559 (1996); Romer v. Evans, 517 U. S. 620 (1996). The sphere of self-government reserved to the people of the Republic is progressively narrowed.

In the course of this dissent, I have referred approvingly to the opinion of my former colleague, Justice Powell, in Mississippi Univ. for Women v. Hogan, 458 U. S. 718 (1982). Many of the points made in his dissent apply with equal force here — in particular, the criticism of judicial opinions that purport to be “narro[w]” but whose “logic” is “sweepin[g].” Id., at 745-746, n. 18. But there is one statement with which I cannot agree. Justice Powell observed that the Court’s decision in Hogan, which struck down a single-sex program offered by the Mississippi University for Women, had thereby “[l]eft without honor ... an element of diversity that has characterized much of American education and enriched much of American life.” Id., at 735. Today’s decision does not leave VMI without honor; no court opinion can do that.

In an odd sort of way, it is precisely VMI’s attachment to such old-fashioned concepts as manly “honor” that has made it, and the system it represents, the target of those who today succeed in abolishing public single-sex education. The record contains a booklet that all first-year VMI stu*602dents (the so-called “rats”) were required to keep in their possession at all times. Near the end there appears the following period piece, entitled “The Code of a Gentleman”:

“Without a strict observance of the fundamental Code of Honor, no man, no matter how ‘polished,’ can be considered a gentleman. The honor of a gentleman demands the inviolability of his word, and the incorruptibility of his principles. He is the descendant of the knight, the crusader; he is the defender of the defenseless and the champion of justice ... or he is not a Gentleman.

“A Gentleman . . .

“Does not discuss his family affairs in public or with acquaintances.

“Does not speak more than casually about his girl friend.

“Does not go to a lady’s house if he is affected by alcohol. He is temperate in the use of alcohol.

“Does not lose his temper; nor exhibit anger, fear, hate, embarrassment, ardor or hilarity in public.

“Does not hail a lady from a club window.

“A gentleman never discusses the merits or demerits of a lady.

“Does not mention names exactly as he avoids the mention of what things cost.

“Does not borrow money from a friend, except in dire need. Money borrowed is a debt of honor, and must be repaid as promptly as possible. Debts incurred by a deceased parent, brother, sister or grown child are assumed by honorable men as a debt of honor.

“Does not display his wealth, money or possessions.

“Does not put his manners on and off, whether in the club or in a ballroom. He treats peop’e with courtesy, no matter what their social position may be.

*603“Does not slap strangers on the back nor so much as lay a finger on a lady.

“Does not ‘lick the boots of those above’ nor ‘kick the face of those below him on the social ladder/

“Does not take advantage of another’s helplessness or ignorance and assumes that no gentleman will take advantage of him.

“A Gentleman respects the reserves of others, but demands that others respect those which are his.

“A Gentleman can become what he wills to be. . . .”

I do not know whether the men of VMI lived by this code; perhaps not. But it is powerfully impressive that a public institution of higher education still in existence sought to have them do so. I do not think any of us, women included, will be better off for its destruction.