Writing for the majority, Justice Byron White held that a law or official action with a racially disproportionate impact does not automatically trigger a constitutional violation under the Equal Protection component of the Fifth Amendment’s Due Process Clause. White argued that discriminatory intent, rather than just disparate impact, is required to establish a constitutional violation.

White acknowledged that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 imposes stricter requirements on employment practices that result in racial disparities, even without proof of intentional discrimination. However, it distinguished the statutory standard from the constitutional one, stating that the latter does not extend to prohibiting government practices simply because they result in racial disparities. Justice White explained that the Constitution requires proof of discriminatory intent, and statistical disparities alone are insufficient to establish such intent.

Applying this framework, the Court found that Test 21, the written personnel test used by the Washington, D.C. police department, was facially neutral and designed to assess verbal skills relevant to the job. The Court concluded that its disproportionate impact on black applicants did not prove it was adopted or used with discriminatory intent. As a result, the Court reversed the Court of Appeals’ decision and upheld the District Court’s ruling that Test 21 did not violate the Constitution .

In his concurring opinion, Justice Lewis Powell explained that while he agrees with the Opinion of the Court, he had “reservations as to some of the discussion concerning the appropriate standard for equal protection analysis and the relevance of the statistical evidence.” Powell stated that while he agrees that the Court’s holding in Reed v. Reed (1971) is the most relevant precedent, he was concerned about the Court’s broad interpretation of it in this case. He explained, “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.”

Powell also responded to Oklahoma’s statistical evidence, acknowledging that while they indicate that young men drive more and may be more inclined to drink, he was “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.” He ultimately concluded that the gender based classification did not bear a “fair and substantial” relation to the state’s interest in traffic safety.