The Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that persons cannot sue federally funded state agencies for having discriminatory policies if discrimination is the effect of the policy but not its stated purpose. It was an unfortunate decision, a sad triumph of legal theory over real life with repercussions that will be felt from the courtroom to the basketball court.

The case at hand came out of Alabama, a class-action challenge to that state’s English-only written exam for drivers’ licenses. Because Alabama receives federal highway and law-enforcement money, a group of Hispanic plaintiffs sued for racial discrimination under Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

Two lower courts ruled in the plaintiffs’ favor, agreeing that the state law had the prohibited effect of discriminating on the basis of national origin. By a 5-4 vote, however, the Supreme Court said such lawsuits can be brought only if the discrimination is intentional – discriminatory impact doesn’t count.

Given that no state or state agency – such as an environmental agency, an economic-development department or a university system – is likely to declare overtly its intent to discriminate, this ruling will send out devastating ripples of bias. The ruling’s effect upon Title VI cases will be immediate.

Across the country there are, for example, hundreds of cases pending in which minority groups claim they are the victims of discrimination in such things as siting waste-treatment plants in poor neighborhoods and the inequitable distribution of economic-development funds. Now they will have to prove the policies they challenge sprang from discriminatory intent, not just political expediency, convenience or any other otherwise unacceptable reason.

Though not directly addressed by this case, the court acknowledged that this ruling also will affect Title IX, the Civil Rights Act amendment of 1972 that protects against discrimination based upon gender, the provision that is most known for requiring equal funding of men’s and women’s college athletic programs. As of Tuesday, anyone alleging a Title IX violation will have to show that the college intended to harm the women’s sports programs. In other words, football-crazy State U can kill field hockey provided it doesn’t come right out and say it meant to.

While it has never been easy to win what are called disparate-impact cases, Title VI and Title IX have been effective protections against discrimination. Now those who would discriminate can be as blatant as they please, just so they don’t say it out loud. Fortunately, because this case was a statutory and not a constitutional interpretation, Congress may reopen the Civil Rights Act and make the necessary adjustments. Unfortunately, the current political climate makes that unlikely.

As this court has done before, and is doing with increased regularity, the majority opinion was based upon distaste for “judicial activism” that is now bordering upon irrational fear. No one expects the court to make law, but in “Having sworn off the habit of venturing beyond Congress’s intent,” as Justice Scalia put it, the court seems to have acquired the nastier habit of ignoring the equal-protection clause of the Constitution.