See Fullilove v. Klutznick, 448 U. S. 448,524-525, n. 3 (1980) (Stewart, J., dissenting) ("No person in [UJOJ was deprived of his electoral franchise"); Regents of Univ. Gomillion thus supports appellants' contention that district lines obviously drawn for the purpose of separating voters by race require careful scrutiny under the Equal Protection Clause regardless of the motivations underlying their adoption. They also contend that recent black electoral successes demonstrate the willingness of white voters in North Carolina to vote for black candidates. Id., at 56 (internal quotation marks omitted); id., at 58 (Harlan, J., concurring); id., at 59-62 (Douglas, J., dissenting). The shapes of the two districts in question were quite controversial. 14th Amendment Equal Protection Clause. Wright illustrates the difficulty of determining from the face of a single-member districting plan that it purposefully distinguishes between voters on the basis of race. An attorney on behalf of North Carolina argued that the general assembly had created the second district in an attempt to better comply with requests from the Attorney General in accordance with the Voting Rights Act. 21-24 (Powell, J., joined by STEVENS, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part) (describing "grotesque gerrymandering" and "unusual shapes" drawn solely to deprive Democratic voters of electoral power). Did North Carolina residents claim that the 1990 redistricting plan discriminated on the basis of race raise a valid constitutional issue under the 14th Amendment's Equal Protection Clause? JUSTICE WHITE WITH WHOM JUSTICE BLACKMUN AND JUSTICE STEVENS JOIN, DISSENTING. That duty, however, is not violated when the majority acts to facilitate the election of a member of a group that lacks such power because it remains underrepresented in the state legislature - whether that group is defined by political affiliation, by common economic interests, or by religious, ethnic, or racial characteristics. Id., at 313. Appellants maintain that the General Assembly's revised plan could not have been required by 2. Thus, we express no view as to whether "the intentional creation of majority-minority districts, without more," always gives rise to an equal protection claim. Get free summaries of new US Supreme Court opinions delivered to your inbox! UJO, supra, at 151-152. It is true, of course, that one's vote may be more or less effective depending on the interests of the other individuals who are in one's district, and our cases recognize the reality that members of the same race often have shared interests. For the following sentence, locate the action verb and underline it twice. There is a characteristic coincidence of disadvantageous effect and illegitimate purpose associated with the State's use of race in those situations in which it has immediately trig-. The General Assembly located the second district not in the south-central to southeastern part of the State, but in the north-central region along Interstate 85. c. Answer the questions in part (b) for the minimum body temperature during the 24-hour period. Although I would leave this question for another day, I would note that even then courts have insisted on "some showing of injury to assure that the district court can impose a meaningful remedy." It does so by glossing over the striking similarities, focusing on surface differences, most notably the (admittedly unusual) shape of the newly created district, and imagining an entirely new cause of action. that the white voters who brought the suit could not prove they had been injured in any way by the redistricting plan, and second, that the redistricting plan was an attempt to equalize treatment by providing minority voters with an effective voice in the political process, not an attempt to strip voting power from a particular group. A. Thernstrom, Whose Votes Count? Id., at 472-473. of Gal. To begin, the Court's reliance on that case as the font of its novel type of claim is curious. See 364 U. S., at 341, 346. Cf. Ante, at 653; see also ante, at 658.8, Nonetheless, in those cases where this cause of action is sufficiently pleaded, the State will have to justify its decision to consider race as being required by a compelling state interest, and its use of race as narrowly tailored to that interest. The three-judge District Court held that it lacked subject matter jurisdiction over the federal appellees. The Court offers them no explanation of this paradox. The second majority-black district, District 12, is even more unusually shaped. The difference between constitutional and unconstitutional gerrymanders has nothing to do with whether they are based on assumptions about the groups they affect, but whether their purpose is to enhance the power of the group in control of the districting process at the expense of any minority group, and thereby to strengthen the unequal distribution of electoral power. Id., at 342-348. O. Gade & H. Stillwell, North Carolina: People and Environments 65-68 (1986). Since the holding here makes it unnecessary to decide whether or how a reapportionment plan that, on its face, can be explained in nonracial terms successfully could be challenged, the Court expresses no view on whether the intentional creation of majorityminority districts, without more, always gives rise to an equal protection claim. Accordingly, the Court held that such schemes violate the Fourteenth Amendment when they are adopted with a discriminatory purpose and have the effect of diluting minority voting strength. The same principle pertains in nondistricting aspects of voting law, where race-based discrimination places the disfavored voters at the disadvantage of exclusion from the franchise without any alternative benefit. 14, 1. The Equal Protection Clause of the Constitution, surely, does not stand in the way. This case involves two of the most complex and sensitive issues this Court has faced in recent years: the meaning of the constitutional "right" to vote, and the propriety of racebased state legislation designed to benefit members of historically disadvantaged racial minority groups. See, e. g., Guinn v. United States, 238 U. S. 347 (1915). Racial classifications of any sort pose the risk of lasting harm to our society. It reinforces racial stereotypes and threatens to undermine our system of representative democracy by signaling to elected officials that they represent a particular racial group rather than their constituency as a whole. to Juris. See Mobile v. Bolden, 446 U. S., at 86-90, and nn. The Court today answers this question in the affirmative, and its answer is wrong. As we have said, "it requires no special genius to recognize the political consequences of drawing a district line along one street rather than another." You're all set! Ruth O. Shaw, a North Carolina resident who led a group of white voters in the lawsuit, Justices Rehnquist, O'Connor, Scalia, Kennedy, Thomas. I join JUSTICE WHITE'S dissenting opinion. And those three Justices specifically concluded that race-based districting, as a response to racially polarized voting, is constitutionally permissible only when the State "employ[s] sound districting principles," and only when the affected racial group's "residential patterns afford the opportunity of creating districts in which they will be in the majority." Alabama's exercise in geometry was but one example of the racial discrimination in voting that persisted in parts of this country nearly a century after ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment. To comply with 5 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965-which prohibits a covered jurisdiction from implementing changes in a "standard, practice, or . 808 F. 115 S. Ct. 2475 (1995). 16-19. We emphasize that these criteria are important not because they are constitutionally required-they are not, cf. 1 It has been argued that the required showing of discriminatory effect should be lessened once a plaintiff successfully demonstrates intentional discrimination. Supp., at 472. Nothing in the decision precludes white voters (or voters of any other race) from bringing the analytically distinct claim that a reapportionment plan rationally cannot be understood as anything other than an effort to segregate citizens into separate voting districts on the basis of race without sufficient justification. Ibid. Appellants allege that the revised plan, which contains district boundary lines of dramatically irregular shape, consti-. Of the 10 counties through which District 12 passes, 5 are cut into 3 different districts; even towns are divided. The Attorney General specifically objected to the configuration of boundary lines drawn in the south-central to southeastern region of the State. Lane v. Wilson, 307 U. S. 268; Gomillion v. Lightfoot, 364 U. S. in relevant part). can imagine would be the preservation of "sound districting principles," UJO, 430 U. S., at 168, such as compactness and contiguity. by Daniel J. Popeo and Richard A. Samp. districts in order to comply with the Voting Rights Act. In this case, however, we know what the legislators' purpose was: The North Carolina Legislature drew District 12 to include a majority of African-American voters. 6 In this regard, I agree with JUSTICE WHITE'S assessment of the difficulty the white plaintiffs would have here in showing that their opportunity to participate equally in North Carolina's electoral process has been unconstitutionally diminished. I dissent. Finally, we must ask whether otherwise permissible redistricting to benefit an underrepresented minority group becomes impermissible when the minority group is defined by its race. They also point out that in 1990 a black candidate defeated a white opponent in the Democratic Party runoff for a United States Senate seat before being defeated narrowly by the Republican incumbent in the general election. Such districting might have both the intent and effect of "packing" members of the group so as to deprive them of any influence in other districts. The Court expresses no view on whether appellants successfully could have challenged a district such as that suggested by the Attorney General or whether their complaint stated a claim under other constitutional provisions. cases of electoral districting and one for most other types of state governmental decisions. Plainly, this variety is not implicated by appellants' allegations and need not detain us further. In the meantime, our human resources manager will send you an application form. The Court affirmed the District Court's dismissal of the complaint on the ground that plaintiffs had not met their burden of proving discriminatory intent. On the same reasoning, I would affirm the District Court's dismissal of appellants' claim in this instance. Robinson O. Everett argued the cause for appellants. I The voting age population of North Carolina is approxi-mately 78% white, 20% black, and 1% Native American; the remaining 1% is predominantly Asian. 15, 1. Appellants contend that redistricting legislation that is so bizarre on its face that it is "unexplainable on grounds other than race,"Arlington Heights, demands the same close scrutiny that we give other state laws that classify citizens by race. of Ed., 476 U. S. 267, 279-280 (1986) (plurality opinion of Powell, J.) Carr. Arlington Heights v. Metropolitan Housing Development Corp.(1977). Nonetheless, in those cases where this cause of action is sufficiently pleaded, the State will have to justify its decision to consider race as being required by a compelling state interest, and its use of race as narrowly tailored to that interest. Accord, Wygant, 476 U. S., at 273 (plurality opinion). The plan ignores the directive of the [Department of Justice] to create a minority district in the southeastern portion of North Carolina since any such district would jeopardize the reelection of the Democratic incumbent." 7, that included a second majority-black district. 364 U. S., at 341. See UJO, 430 U. S., at 165-166 (plurality opinion of WHITE, J., joined by STEVENS and REHNQUIST, JJ. by Herbert Wachtell, William H. Brown III, Thomas J. Henderson, Frank R. Parker, Brenda Wright, Nicholas DeB. They did not even claim to be white. 7 The Court accuses me of treating the use of race in electoral redistricting as a "benign" form of discrimination. We also do not decide whether appellants' complaint stated a claim under constitutional provisions other than the Fourteenth Amendment. Grofman, Would Vince Lombardi Have Been Right If He Had Said: "When It Comes to Redistricting, Race Isn't Everything, It's the Only Thing"?, 14 Cardozo L. Rev. Justia makes no guarantees or warranties that the annotations are accurate or reflect the current state of law, and no annotation is intended to be, nor should it be construed as, legal advice. Id., at 349. As Justice Douglas explained in his dissent inWright v. Rockefellernearly 30 years ago: "Here the individual is important, not his race, his creed, or his color. 2 It should be noted that 2 of the Voting Rights Act forbids any State to impose specified devices or procedures that result in a denial or abridgment of the right to vote on account of race or color. We said as much in Gaffney: "[C]ourts have [no] constitutional warrant to invalidate a state plan, otherwise within tolerable population limits, because it undertakes, not to minimize or eliminate the political strength of any group or party, but to recognize it and, through districting, provide a rough sort of proportional representation in the legislative halls of the State." The case established that any legislative redistricting must be strictly scrutinized and that any laws related to racially motivated redistricting must be held to narrow standards and The Attorney General, acting through the Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division, interposed a formal objection to the General Assembly's plan. Shaw v. Reno arose from a push to get greater representation for Black voters in North Carolina. Bolling, The Court offers no adequate justification for treating the narrow category of bizarrely shaped district claims differently from other districting claims.9 The only justification I. The fact that a demonstration of discriminatory effect was required in that case was not a function of the kind of claim that was made. Connor, supra, at 425. Brief for Appellants 57. and by him referred to the Court in No. A. Croson Co., supra, at 493; see also Fullilove v. Klutznick, 448 U. S. 448, 484 (1980) (opinion of Burger, C. Byron R. White White. The first involves direct and outright deprivation of the right to vote, for example by means of a poll tax or literacy test. In Whitcomb v. Chavis, 403 U. S., at 149, we searched in vain for evidence that black voters "had less opportunity than did other residents to participate in the political processes and to elect legislators of their choice." depends on these twin elements. They found that race-based districting is not prohibited by the Constitution. Ante, at 652. Of the following two options-creation of two minority influence districts or of a single majority-minority district-is one "narrowly tailored" and the other not? H. Lefler & A. Newsom, The History of a Southern State: North Carolina 18-22 (3d ed. It included all or portions of twenty-eight counties. 92-357. of Ed., supra, at 282-283 (plurality opinion). But the State must have a "'strong basis in evidence for [concluding] that remedial action [is] necessary.'" After the General Assembly passed legislation creating the second district, a group of white voters in North Carolina, led by Ruth O. Shaw, sued on the grounds that the district was an unconstitutional gerrymander . Since there is no justification for the departure here from the principles that continue to govern electoral districting cases generally in accordance with our prior decisions, I would not respond to the seeming egregiousness of the redistricting now before us by untethering the concept of racial gerrymander in such a case from the concept of harm exemplified by dilution. By perpetuating stereotypical notions about members of the same racial group-that they think alike, share the same political interests, and prefer the same candidates-a racial gerrymander may exacerbate the very patterns of racial bloc voting that majority-minority districting is sometimes said to counteract. Unlike other contexts in which we have addressed the State's conscious use of race, see, e. g., Richmond v. J. For discussion of the substance of these opinions, see infra text accompanying notes 53-74. A special three-judge district court dismissed the suit against both the attorney general and the state officials. In short, even assuming that racial (or political) factors were considered in the drawing of district boundaries, a showing of discriminatory effects is a "threshold requirement" in the absence of which there is no equal protection violation, id., at 143, and no need to "reach the question of the state interests served by the particular districts," id., at 142.4, To distinguish a claim that alleges that the redistricting scheme has discriminatory intent and effect from one that does not has nothing to do with dividing racial classifications between the "benign" and the malicious-an enterprise which, as the majority notes, the Court has treated with skepticism. Complaint' 29, App. What is the purpose of an input device? Cf. Yes; the Court agreed that the shape of the proposed district was so odd that there was no compelling explanation for its shape other than separating voters by race. Gomillion v. Lightfoot, 364 U. S. 339, 340 (1960). The Justice Department accepted this revision. a law designed to help end formal and informal barriers to African-American suffrage, Court case that ruled that district lines may not dilute minority representation, but neither may they be drawn with race as the predominant consideration, 5 white voters, it was motivated by race and violated 14th amendment, Declares that all persons born in the U.S. are citizens and are guaranteed equal protection of the laws, U.S. cannot prevent a person from voting because of race, color, or creed, racial gerrymandering-ordinance declared unconstitutional, -constitution prohibits using race as the main reason for how to draw districts, -using race in redistricting is as important of it being continuous, Criminal Justice Unit 1 Exam--STUDY GUIDE, Christina Dejong, Christopher E. Smith, George F Cole, Government in America: Elections and Updates Edition, George C. Edwards III, Martin P. Wattenberg, Robert L. Lineberry, Chapter 1: The Role of a Diversity Practition. Arlington Heights v. Metropolitan Housing Development Corp., 429 U. S. 252, 266 (1977). In 1991, a group of white voters in North Carolina challenged the state's new congressional district map, which had two "majority-minority" districts. As UJO held, a State is entitled to take such action. See supra, at 680-681. gered at least heightened scrutiny (which every Member of the Court to address the issue has agreed must be applied even to race-based classifications designed to serve some permissible state interest).5 Presumably because the legitimate consideration of race in a districting decision is usually inevitable under the Voting Rights Act when communities are racially mixed, however, and because, without more, it does not result in diminished political effectiveness for anyone, we have not taken the approach of applying the usual standard of such heightened "scrutiny" to race-based districting decisions. 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