WASHINGTON — In a decision ripe with symbolism about access to justice in the age of terror, the Supreme Court announced on Monday that visitors to its courthouse will no longer be allowed to enter through the front door.

And it is not just any front door. For decades, people with cases before the court, their lawyers and those who just came to see the arguments have climbed the grand steps arrayed in front of the courthouse’s marble columns, passed under the inscribed words “Equal Justice Under Law” and walked through a passage flanked by two six-ton bronze doors that show historic scenes in the development of the law.

Starting Tuesday, visitors will be directed instead to ground-level side entrances under the stairs that will lead them to what an announcement from the court called “a secure, reinforced area to screen for weapons, explosives, and chemical and biological hazards.”