City of Richmond v. J. A. Croson Company (488 U.S. 469)
U.S. Supreme Court · decided January 23, 1989 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Citation
- 488 U.S. 469 · 109 S. Ct. 706
- Decided
- January 23, 1989
- Term
- October Term 1988
- Vote
- 6–3
- Majority author
- Justice O'Connor
- Issue area
- Civil Rights
- Disposition
- Affirmed
- Outcome
- Petitioning party lost
- Ideological direction
- Conservative
- Constitutional ruling
- Local ordinance held unconstitutional
Opinion excerpt
Justice O’Connor announced the judgment of the Court and delivered the opinion of the Court with respect to Parts I, III-B, and IV, an opinion with respect to Part II, in which The Chief Justice and Justice White join, and an opinion with respect to Parts III-A and V, in which The Chief Justice, Justice White, and Justice Kennedy join. In this case, we confront once again the tension between the Fourteenth Amendment’s guarantee of equal treatment to all citizens, and the use of race-based measures to ameliorate the effects of past discrimination on the opportunities enjoyed by members of minority groups in our society. In Fullilove v. Klutznick, 448 U. S. 448 (1980), we held that a congressional program requiring that 10% of certain federal construction grants be awarded to minority contractors did not violate the equal protection principles embodied in the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment. Relying largely on our decision in Fullilove, some lower federal courts have applied a similar standard of review in assessing the constitutionality of state and local minority set-aside provisions under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. See, e. g., South Florida Chapter, Associated General Contractors of America, Inc. v. Metropolitan Dade County, 723 F. 2d 846 (CA11), cert. denied, 469 U. S. 871 (1984); Ohio Contractors Assn. v. Keip, 713 F. 2d 167 (CA6…
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