Opinion of BRENNAN, J. 480 U. S. The Department and the intervenors, however, maintain that the Department was found guilty only of discrimination in hiring, and not in its promotional practices. They argue that no remedial relief is justified in the promotion context because the intentional discrimination in hiring was without effect in the upper ranks, and because the Department's promotional procedure was not discriminatory. There is no merit in either premise. Discrimination at the entry level necessarily precluded blacks from competing for promotions, and resulted in a departmental hierarchy dominated exclusively by nonminorities. The lower courts determined that this situation was explicable only by reference to the Department's past discriminatory conduct. 19 In 1972 the Department was "not just found guilty of discriminating against blacks in hiring to entry-level positions. The court found that in 37 years there had never been a black trooper at any rank." Paradise v. an integrated police force could develop a better relationship with the community and do a more effective job of maintaining law and order than a force composed only of white officers"); NAACP v. Allen, 493 F. 2d, at 621 ("This is a police department and the visibility of the Black patrolman in the community is a decided advantage for all segments of the public at a time when racial divisiveness is plaguing law enforcement" (citation omitted)). Amicus NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc., suggests that the governmental interest in a racially integrated Department is amplified here due to community perceptions of, and reactions to the Department's historical role in defense of segregation and its active opposition to the civil rights movement. We need not decide if either the generalized governmental interest in effective law enforcement or the more particularized need to overcome any impediments to law enforcement created by perceptions arising from the egregious discriminatory conduct of the Department is compelling. In this case the judicial determinations of prior discriminatory policies and conduct satisfy the first prong of the strict scrutiny test. 19 Compare this situation with that described in Wygant, supra, at 276 (opinion of POWELL, J.) (“There are numerous explanations for a disparity between the percentage of minority students and the percentage of minority faculty, many of them completely unrelated to discrimination of any kind"). 149 Opinion of BRENNAN, J. Shoemaker, 470 F. Supp., at 442. In 1979 the District Judge stated that one continuing effect of the Department's historical discrimination was that, "as of November 1, 1978, out of 232 state troopers at the rank of corporal or above, there is still not one black." Ibid. The court explained that the hiring quota it had fashioned was intended to provide "an impetus to promote blacks into those positions" and that "[t]o focus only on the entry-level positions would be to ignore that past discrimination by the Department was pervasive, that its effects persist, and that they are manifest." Ibid. The District Court crafted the relief it did due to "the department's failure after almost twelve years to eradicate the continuing effects of its own discrimination." 585 F. Supp., at 75, n. 1. It is too late for the Department to attempt to segregate the results achieved by its hiring practices and those achieved by its promotional practices. The argument that the Department's promotion procedure was not discriminatory is belied by the record. In 1979, faced with additional allegations of discrimination, the Department agreed to adopt promotion procedures without an adverse impact on black candidates within one year. See 767 F. 2d, at 1532. By 1983 the Department had promoted only four blacks, and these promotions had been made pursuant to the 1979 Decree, and "not the voluntary action of the Department." Id., at 1533, n. 16. Id., at 1533, n. 16. In December 1983, the District Court found, despite the commitments made in the consent decrees, that the Department's proposed promotion plan would have an adverse impact upon blacks, 580 F. Supp., at 174, and that "the department still operate[d] an upper rank structure in which almost every trooper obtained his position through procedures that totally excluded black persons. 585 F. Supp., at 74 (emphasis in original). On appeal, the Eleventh Circuit summarily rejected the argument of the Department and the intervenors: 99 "[I]t is no answer in this case to say that plaintiffs have not proven that the Department has discriminated Opinion of BRENNAN, J. 480 U. S. against blacks above the entry-level seeking promotions. . . . [I]t cannot be gainsaid that white troopers promoted since 1972 were the specific beneficiaries of an official policy which systematically excluded all blacks." 767 F. 2d, at 1533, n. 16 (emphasis added). Promotion, like hiring, has been a central concern of the District Court since the commencement of this action; since 1972, the relief crafted has included strictures against promotion procedures that have a discriminatory purpose or effect. The race-conscious relief at issue here is justified by a compelling interest in remedying the discrimination that permeated entry-level hiring practices and the promotional process alike.20 Finally, in this case, as in Sheet Metal Workers, 478 U. S., at 485 (POWELL, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment), the District Court's enforcement order is "supported not only by the governmental interest in eradicating [the Department's] discriminatory practices, it is also supported by the societal interest in compliance with the judgments of federal courts." The relief at issue was imposed upon a defendant with a consistent history of resistance to 20 We also reject the argument of the United States, the Department, and the intervenors that the purpose of the order enforcing the consent decrees was the imposition of a particular racial balance on the upper ranks of the Department. The one-for-one mechanism was employed not to punish the Department's failure to achieve racial balance, but to remedy the Department's refusal to fulfill the commitment made in the consent decrees to implement a promotion procedure without adverse impact on blacks and to eradicate the effects of its past delay and discrimination. The racial imbalances in the Department are properly characterized as the effects of the Department's past discriminatory actions and of its failure to develop a promotion procedure without adverse impact as required by the previous court orders and the consent decrees. Cf. Sheet Metal Workers v. EEOC, 478 U. S. 421, 487 (1986) (POWELL, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment) (“The contempt order was not imposed for the Union's failure to achieve the goal, but for its failure to take the prescribed steps that would facilitate achieving the goal"). the District Court's orders, and only after the Department failed to live up to its court-approved commitments. III While conceding that the District Court's order serves a compelling interest, the Government insists that it was not narrowly tailored to accomplish its purposes-to remedy past discrimination and eliminate its lingering effects, to enforce compliance with the 1979 and 1981 Decrees by bringing about the speedy implementation of a promotion procedure that would not have an adverse impact on blacks, and to eradicate the ill effects of the Department's delay in producing such a procedure. We cannot agree. In determining whether race-conscious remedies are appropriate, we look to several factors, including the necessity for the relief and the efficacy of alternative remedies; the flexibility and duration of the relief, including the availability of waiver provisions; the relationship of the numerical goals to the relevant labor market; and the impact of the relief on the rights of third parties. Sheet Metal Workers, 478 U. S., at 481 (opinion of BRENNAN, J.); id., at 486 (POWELL, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment). When considered in light of these factors, it was amply established, and we find that the one-for-one promotion requirement was narrowly tailored to serve its several purposes, both as applied to the initial set of promotions to the rank of corporal and as a continuing contingent order with respect to the upper ranks. A To evaluate the District Court's determination that it was necessary to order the promotion of eight whites and eight blacks to the rank of corporal at the time of the motion to enforce, we must examine the purposes the order was intended to serve. First, the court sought to eliminate the effects of the Department's "long term, open, and pervasive" discrimination, including the absolute exclusion of blacks from Opinion of BRENNAN, J. 480 U. S. its upper ranks. Second, the judge sought to ensure expeditious compliance with the 1979 and 1981 Decrees by inducing the Department to implement a promotion procedure that would not have an adverse impact on blacks. Finally, the court needed to eliminate so far as possible the effects of the Department's delay in producing such a procedure. Confronted by the Department's urgent need to promote at least 15 troopers to corporal, see Paradise v. Prescott, 580 F. Supp., at 173, the District Court determined that all of its purposes could be served only by ordering the promotion of eight blacks and eight whites, as requested by the plaintiff class. The options proffered by the Government and the Department would not have served the court's purposes. The Department proposed, as a stopgap measure, to promote 4 blacks and 11 whites and requested additional time to allow the department of personnel to develop and submit a nondiscriminatory promotion procedure. The United States argues that the Department's proposal would have allowed this round of promotions to be made without adverse impact on black candidates. The Department's proposal was inadequate because it completely failed to address two of the purposes cited above. The Department's ad hoc offer to make one round of promotions without an adverse impact ignored the court's concern that an acceptable procedure be adopted with alacrity. As early as 1972, the Department had been enjoined from engaging in any promotional practices "for the purpose or with the effect of discriminating against any employee. . . on the ground of race or color." NAACP v. Allen, 340 F. Supp., at 706. In 1979, the Department had promised in a courtapproved consent decree to develop and implement a procedure without adverse impact by 1980. By 1983, such a procedure still had not been established, and Paradise sought enforcement of the consent decrees. Given the record of delay, we find it astonishing that the Department should sug |