Page:Students for Fair Admissions v. President and Fellows of Harvard College.pdf/22

14 against any citizen because of his race.’ ” Bolling v. Sharpe, 347 U. S. 497, 499 (1954) (quoting Gibson v. Mississippi, 162 U. S. 565, 591 (1896) (Harlan, J., for the Court)). As we recounted in striking down the State of Virginia’s ban on interracial marriage 13 years after Brown, the Fourteenth Amendment “proscri[bes] … all invidious racial discriminations.” Loving v. Virginia, 388 U. S. 1, 8 (1967). Our cases had thus “consistently denied the constitutionality of measures which restrict the rights of citizens on account of race.” Id., at 11–12; see also Yick Wo, 118 U. S., at 373–375 (commercial property); Shelley v. Kraemer, 334 U. S. 1 (1948) (housing covenants); Hernandez v. Texas, 347 U. S. 475 (1954) (composition of juries); Dawson, 350 U. S., at 877 (beaches and bathhouses); Holmes v. Atlanta, 350 U. S. 879 (1955) (per curiam) (golf courses); Browder, 352 U. S., at 903 (busing); New Orleans City Park Improvement Assn. v. Detiege, 358 U. S. 54 (1958) (per curiam) (public parks); Bailey v. Patterson, 369 U. S. 31 (1962) (per curiam) (transportation facilities); Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Bd. of Ed., 402 U. S. 1 (1971) (education); Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U. S. 79 (1986) (peremptory jury strikes).

These decisions reflect the “core purpose” of the Equal Protection Clause: “do[ing] away with all governmentally imposed discrimination based on race.” Palmore v. Sidoti, 466 U. S. 429, 432 (1984) (footnote omitted). We have recognized that repeatedly. “The clear and central purpose of the Fourteenth Amendment was to eliminate all official state sources of invidious racial discrimination in the States.” Loving, 388 U. S., at 10; see also Washington v. Davis, 426 U. S. 229, 239 (1976) (“The central purpose of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment is the prevention of official conduct discriminating on the basis of race.”); McLaughlin v. Florida, 379 U. S. 184, 192 (1964) (“[T]he historical fact [is] that the central purpose of the Fourteenth Amendment was to eliminate racial discrimination.”).