149 STEVENS, J., concurring in judgment gest the nature of limitations without frustrating the appropriate scope of equity." Id., at 31. A party who has been found guilty of repeated and persistent violations of the law bears the burden of demonstrating that the chancellor's efforts to fashion effective relief exceed the bounds of "reasonableness." The burden of proof in a case like this is precisely the opposite of that in cases such as Wygant v. Jackson Board of Education, 476 U. S. 267 (1986), and Fullilove v. Klutznick, 448 U. S. 448 (1980), which did not involve any proven violations of law. In such cases the governmental decisionmaker who would make raceconscious decisions must overcome a strong presumption against them. No such burden rests on a federal district judge who has found that the governmental unit before him is 3 'Inevitably, promotions of the white officers who have been beneficiaries of the past illegal conduct may be delayed even though they are "innocent victims” in the sense that they are not individually responsible for the past illegal conduct. But it is most incongruous to imply, as JUSTICE O'CONNOR's dissent does, that this impact on white "victims" requires that the Federal District Court's decree be judged by the same standards as the State's policy of discriminating against black employees in promotion and against black applicants in hiring. Given the violation of law disclosed by the record, the District Court's use of a racial classification to remedy that violation was presumptively valid; in contrast, the State's racial classification was presumptively invalid. 'The law violator who would oppose a remedy imposed against him as itself a violation of the law does not stand in the same position as an innocent party; those whom the court has found in the wrong may not oppose a remedy on the ground that it would constitute a wrong if leveled at a nonparticipant in the litigation. "In fashioning a remedy, the District Court may, of course, consider the fact that its injunction may impinge upon rights that would otherwise be constitutionally protected, but those protections do not prevent it from remedying" the violations. National Society of Professional Engineers v. United States, 435 U. S. 679, 697-698 (1978). See also International Salt Co. v. United States, 332 U. S. 392, 400-401 (1947); Teachers v. Hudson, 475 U. S. 292, 309-310, n. 22 (1986) (“The judicial remedy for a proven violation of law will often include commands that the law does not impose on the community at large") (citations omitted). STEVENS, J., concurring in judgment 480 U. S. guilty of racially discriminatory conduct that violates the Constitution. The relief that the district judge has a duty to fashion must unavoidably consider race. A unanimous Court held in North Carolina State Board of Education v. Swann, 402 U. S. 43 (1971), a case decided on the same day as Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education, that the State's Anti-Busing Law, which prohibited assignment of any student on account of race or for the purpose of creating a racial balance in the schools, conflicted with the State's duty to remedy constitutional violations. We observed: "[T]he statute exploits an apparently neutral form to control school assignment plans by directing that they be 'color blind'; that requirement, against the background of segregation, would render illusory the promise of Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U. S. 483 (1954). Just as the race of students must be considered in determining whether a constitutional violation has occurred, so also must race be considered in formulating a remedy. To forbid, at this stage, all assignments made on the basis of race would deprive school authorities of the one tool absolutely essential to fulfillment of their constitutional obligation to eliminate existing dual school systems. "Similarly, the flat prohibition against assignment of students for the purpose of creating a racial balance must inevitably conflict with the duty of school authorities to disestablish dual school systems. As we have held in Swann, the Constitution does not compel any particular degree of racial balance or mixing, but when past and continuing constitutional violations are found, some ratios are likely to be useful starting points in shaping a remedy." 402 U. S., at 45-46. The District Court, like the school authority in North Carolina State Board of Education v. Swann, may, and in some instances must, resort to race-conscious remedies to 149 STEVENS, J., concurring in judgment vindicate federal constitutional guarantees. Because the instant employment discrimination case "does not differ fundamentally from other cases involving the framing of equitable remedies to repair the denial of a constitutional right," Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education, 402 U. S., at 15-16, and because there has been no showing that the District Judge abused his discretion in shaping a remedy, I concur in the Court's judgment.* 'For reasons that are not entirely clear to me, JUSTICE POWELL assumes that the standard to be applied in reviewing the court-ordered action a State must take to correct its violations of the Equal Protection Clause is different when the violations take place in the administration of a public school system than when they occur in the operation of a public law enforcement agency. Ante, at 187, n. 2. Dismissing the inconvenience of being bused as a relatively inconsequential by-product of the remedial decree, JUSTICE POWELL suggests that desegregation decisions upholding the District Court's broad remedial powers are less than fully applicable to this case; he seems to regard the possibility that some white troopers will have their promotions delayed, see ante, at 188-189, as mandating a different and more exacting standard of review. I cannot agree that the applicability of the school desegregation cases in determining the validity of any particular remedial solution fashioned by a district court and imposed on a State depends on detailed and inevitably imprecise calculations of hardship. For me the relevant fact in this case is that the remedial order was directed against a proven violator of the Constitution. Just as I believe that a uniform standard should govern our review of the merits of an equal protection claim, see Craig v. Boren, 429 U. S. 190, 211 (1976) (STEVENS, J., concurring), so do I believe that a uniform standard should govern our review of all such decrees entered by district courts. Of course, different violations require different remedies, but they should be reviewed under the principles of equitable discretion set forth in the school desegregation cases. "[A] school desegregation case does not differ fundamentally from other cases involving the framing of equitable remedies to repair the denial of a constitutional right." Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Bd. of Education, 402 U. S. 1, 15–16 (1971). The district court's task in each case is to "be guided by equitable principles. Traditionally, equity has been characterized by a practical flexibility in shaping its remedies and by a facility for adjusting and reconciling public and private needs. These cases call for the exercise of the traditional attributes of equity power." Brown v. Board of Education, O'CONNOR, J., dissenting 480 U. S. JUSTICE WHITE, dissenting. Agreeing with much of what JUSTICE O'CONNOR has written in this case, I find it evident that the District Court exceeded its equitable powers in devising a remedy in this case. I therefore dissent from the judgment of affirmance. JUSTICE O'CONNOR, with whom THE CHIEF JUSTICE and JUSTICE SCALIA join, dissenting. In Wygant v. Jackson Board of Education, 476 U. S. 267, 273 (1986), we concluded that the level of Fourteenth Amendment "scrutiny does not change merely because the challenged classification operates against a group that historically has not been subject to governmental discrimination." Thus, in evaluating the constitutionality of the District Court order in this case under the Fourteenth Amendment, we must undertake a two-part inquiry. First, we must decide whether the order is "supported by a compelling [governmental] purpose." Ibid. Second, we must scrutinize the order to ensure that "the means chosen to accomplish that purpose are narrowly tailored." Ibid. One cannot read the record in this case without concluding that the Alabama Department of Public Safety had undertaken a course of action that amounted to "pervasive, systematic, and obstinate discriminatory conduct." Ante, at 167. Because the Federal Government has a compelling interest in remedying past and present discrimination by the Department, the District Court unquestionably had the authority to fashion a remedy designed to end the Department's egregious history of discrimination. In doing so, however, the District Court was obligated to fashion a remedy that was narrowly tailored to accomplish this purpose. The plurality 349 U. S. 294, 300 (1955) (footnotes omitted). Thus, the remedial issue in these cases is dramatically different from the question whether a statutory racial classification can be justified as a response to a past societal wrong. See Fullilove v. Klutznick, 448 U. S. 448, 537-539 (1980) (STEVENS, J., dissenting). 149 O'CONNOR, J., dissenting today purports to apply strict scrutiny, and concludes that the order in this case was narrowly tailored for its remedial purpose. Because the Court adopts a standardless view of "narrowly tailored" far less stringent than that required by strict scrutiny, I dissent. AS JUSTICE POWELL notes, this case is similar to Sheet Metal Workers v. EEOC, 478 U. S. 421 (1986). In Sheet Metal Workers, I observed that "it is completely unrealistic to assume that individuals of each race will gravitate with mathematical exactitude to each employer or union absent unlawful discrimination." Id., at 494. Thus, a rigid quota is impermissible because it adopts "an unjustified conclusion about the precise extent to which past discrimination has lingering effects, or . . . an unjustified prediction about what would happen in the future in the absence of continuing discrimination." Id., at 494-495. Even more flexible "goals," however, also may trammel unnecessarily the rights of nonminorities. Racially preferential treatment of nonvictims, therefore, should only be ordered "where such remedies are truly necessary." Id., at 496. Thus, "the creation of racial preferences by courts, even in the more limited form of goals rather than quotas, must be done sparingly and only where manifestly necessary." Id., at 496-497. In my view, whether characterized as a goal or a quota, the District Court's order was not "manifestly necessary" to achieve compliance with that court's previous orders. The order at issue in this case clearly had one purpose, and one purpose only-to compel the Department to develop a promotion procedure that would not have an adverse impact on blacks. Although the plurality and the courts below suggest that the order also had the purpose of "eradicat[ing] the ill effects of the Department's delay in producing" such a promotion procedure, ante, at 171, the District Court's subsequent implementation of the order makes clear that the order cannot be defended on the basis of such a purpose. |