When the Supreme Court struck down race-based admissions at Harvard and the University of North Carolina two years ago, it reaffirmed a fundamental legal principle: Every American must be treated as an individual rather than as a representative of a racial group.
That principle is as essential in the voting booth as it is in the classroom, and next week, the Supreme Court will hear a case—Louisiana v. Callais—that will give it the opportunity to extend it to the ballot box.
The case is a challenge, from “non-African American voters,” to Louisiana’s strangely shaped Sixth Congressional District. It was created in 2022 to ensure two of the state’s six districts are majority-black, a proportion that mirrors the racial makeup of the state, which is 30 percent black.
The case illustrates how Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which outlawed racial discrimination in voting, has been transformed over the years from a shield against racial discrimination into a sword that compels racial gerrymandering. Critics portray the lawsuit as an attack on a “crowning achievement of the civil rights movement,” but it is a necessary return to the original principles of the Voting Rights Act and the Constitution.
The Voting Rights Act abolished literacy tests, poll taxes, and other barriers that disenfranchised black citizens. By the late 1970s, those obstacles were practically gone. Black voter registration and turnout soared, equaling or surpassing white turnout across most of the South.
But Section 2 was dramatically transformed in 1982 when Congress amended it to eliminate the requirement of proving intentional discrimination, replacing it with a “results test.” Courts interpreted this to mean that if minority-preferred candidates did not win seats in proportion to minority population percentages, minority votes were likely being “diluted.” Legislative bodies are now compelled to create as many majority-minority election districts as possible in order to mirror the percentage of black and Hispanic residents in a state, county, or city.
In Fayette County, Tenn., for example, the NAACP sued earlier this year because a quarter of the population is black, but no county commissioner was. The court’s “remedy” was to carve out three majority-black districts—not because black citizens were prevented from participating, but because election outcomes did not align with the county’s racial demographics.
Louisiana’s congressional redistricting is emblematic of this kind of outcome. Under its 2022 map, one of its six congressional districts was majority-black, even though one-third of the state’s population is black. A three-judge federal court declared this unlawful and ordered the creation of a second majority-black district. The legislature complied by drawing a 250-mile long, bug-splat district from Shreveport to Baton Rouge, slicing apart multiracial neighborhoods to harvest black voters.
Soon after this redrawing, another group of voters, describing themselves as “non-African American,” sued, arguing the newly created district was an unconstitutional racial gerrymander. A different three-judge panel agreed. Thus, one court ordered Louisiana to sort voters by race, while another condemned the state for doing so. Louisiana officials were left damned if they did, damned if they didn’t. This is not a quirk of Louisiana politics or geography. It is the inevitable result of Section 2’s application and legal distortion.
Defenders of the reinterpreted Section 2 portray it as a necessary guardrail against discrimination and backsliding. But it is extremely rare for minorities to be denied the right to vote or face unique hurdles.
Many defenders of these racial districts criticized Chief Justice John Roberts’s observation in Shelby County v. Holder, a 2013 case that effectively ended the “preclearance” provision of the Voting Rights Act in which Roberts wrote that “things have changed dramatically in the South.”
Indeed, they have: Black and Hispanic voters now register and turn out to vote at rates comparable to whites. Black Americans serve as presidents, vice presidents, governors, senators, representatives, mayors, and commissioners nationwide. Integrated neighborhoods and multiracial coalitions are commonplace. To pretend we remain in 1965 is to deny six decades of progress.
At its core, Section 2 in its current form collides with the Constitution. The Equal Protection Clause demands colorblindness. The 15th Amendment forbids intentional discrimination in voting. Neither permits representation to be allocated by race.
If applying Section 2 compels racial sorting and proportionality, then Section 2 must yield. The practical effects are corrosive. Majority-minority districts often confine minority voters to enclaves, reducing their influence elsewhere and reinforcing the stereotype that voters of one race think and act alike.
Ending Section 2’s racial proportionality mandate would not mean ignoring real discrimination. If states or jurisdictions intentionally suppress minority votes, the Constitution and the Voting Rights Act remain potent litigation tools.
The Supreme Court’s decision in Students for Fair Admissions closed the chapter on race-based college admissions. The same principle should now guide elections and voting. If the High Court makes that clear, it will fulfill the Voting Rights Act’s legacy.
Edward Blum, a visiting fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, is the president of the Project on Fair Representation and the founder of Students for Fair Admissions. The Project on Fair Representation filed an amicus brief in Louisiana v. Callais. You can read it here.
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