On April 29th, 2026, the Supreme Court released a landmark decision regarding racial gerrymandering and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 in Louisiana v. Callais. Justice Samuel Alito wrote the opinion of the Court, with Chief Justice John Robert and Justices Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett joining. Justice Thomas filed a concurring opinion which Justice Gorsuch joined. Justice Elena Kagan wrote the dissenting opinion, in which Justices Ketanji Brown Jackson and Sonia Sotomayor joined. The Court in a 6-3 decision ruled that racial gerrymandering is unconstitutional because it violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. 

The State of Louisiana redrew its congressional districts in 2022, but a federal judge in Robinson v. Ardoin ruled that this map “likely violated §2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 [citations omitted] because it did not include an additional majority-black district.” Louisiana then redrew the map to include the additional black district, but was once again challenged in court in Callais v. Landry, which ruled that this new map violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The State then appealed to the Supreme Court. 

The justices lay out two problems presented with this case. The first being that the rule in gerrymandering cases requires “strict scrutiny” that is only triggered “if race ‘predominated’ in the State’s decision making process.” The second problem was “the long-unresolved question [of] whether compliance with the Voting Rights Act provides a compelling reason that may justify the intentional use of race in drawing legislative districts.” 

Therefore, the question in this case was: Does complying with the Voting Rights Act provide a compelling reason to intentionally use race to draw congressional districts and violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment? The Court ruled that it does not. 

In the majority opinion, Justice Alito lays out several arguments. First, that §2 of the Voting Rights Act “was designed to enforce the Constitution–not collide with it.” Therefore, this issue of compliance with the VRA should not affect compliance with the Equal Protection Clause. Alito argues that “allowing race to play any part in government decisionmaking represents a departure from the constitutional rule that applies in almost every other context.” In other words, race should not be a consideration in congressional districts because the Fourteenth Amendment requires race-blindness. 

Secondly, Alito argues that because §2 of the Fifteenth Amendment authorizes “Congress to enact ‘appropriate legislation’ to enforce the Amendment’s protections,” §2 of the Voting Rights Act cannot be interpreted beyond the scope of what the Fifteenth Amendment was intended to do. This being the prohibition of intentional discrimination against minority voters by the states. This would then possibly allow purposeful majority-minority districts only when you can prove a mapmaker intentionally discriminated against the specific minority. 

Thirdly, Alito states that there are “only two compelling interests” that can satisfy the strict scrutiny standard that allows discrimination on the basis of race. The first being “avoiding imminent and serious risks to human safety in prisons, such as a race riot,” which is not relevant to this case. The other being, “remediating specific, identified instances of past discrimination that violated the Constitution or statute.” In other words, using race as a factor in coming up with solutions to disparities created by race discrimination. Furthermore, to “rise to the level of a compelling state interest,” this discrimination “must satisfy two conditions.” The first condition is “identified discrimination,” meaning that it is real and acknowledged. The second condition requires that “the institution that makes the racial distinction must have… a ‘strong basis in evidence’ to conclude that [its] remedial action [is] necessary.” In other words, if a state identifies that a minority group has diluted voting power, they must prove that their solution to rectify this is even necessary to solve the identified problem. 

Furthermore, the Court argues that “interpreting §2 of the Voting Rights Act to outlaw a map solely because it fails to provide a sufficient number of majority-minority districts would create a right that the [Fifteenth] Amendment does not protect.” Therefore, they conclude that not only are states not required to create majority-minorty districts, it would be unconstitutional to consider race in map drawing at all with a very limited exception.

In a similar sense, the Court discusses the requirements of states when they draw districts, stating, “We have held that they may use traditional districting factors such as ‘compactness, contiguity,’ ‘maintaining the integrity of political subdivisions, preserving the core of existing districts,’ and protecting incumbents.” However, they also state, “Nothing in the Constitution requires States to heed these criteria, of course, and the desirability of some of these criteria might be disputed.” In other words, the Court has outlined proper guidelines for redistricting, but the states have full discretion on what guidelines they will follow in their mapmaking. 

Alito concludes section B of the opinion by stating, “In short, §2 imposes liability only when the evidence supports a strong inference that the State intentionally drew its districts to afford minority voters less opportunity because of their race.” Therefore, the Court imposes intentionality on §2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. 

In Justice Thomas’s concurring opinion, he argues, “This Court should never have interpreted §2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 to effectively give racial groups ‘an entitlement to roughly proportional representation.’” He continues his radical opinion by further arguing that “§2 of the Voting Rights Act does not regulate districting at all.” In other words, he does not believe the Voting Rights Act prohibits or protects any rights districting. He states the Act only prohibits “States from imposing or applying a ‘voting qualification,’ ‘prerequisite to voting,’ or ‘standard, practice, or procedure,’ in a manner that results in a denial or abridgment of the right to vote based on race.” Therefore, the Voting Rights Act does not outline anything in regards to districting and §2 challenges to district should not succeed and shall not under §2. 

Justice Kagan, on the other hand, wrote a scathing dissent full of hypotheticals and historical references. Justice Kagan argues that §2 of the Voting Rights Act “guarantees that members of every racial group have an equal opportunity to ‘elect representatives of their choice.’” With this, she cites the history of the Fifteenth Amendment and the act in question. The Fifteenth Amendment guaranteed the right to vote for African Americans during Reconstruction. Not too long after the states pushed back and began instituting grandfather clauses, poll taxes, and literacy tests. After Selma’s Bloody Sunday, Congress passed the Voting Rights Act of 1965 as part of enforcing the Fifteenth Amendment’s protections. By doing so, “Congress thought… [the Act] could ‘forever banish the blight of racial discrimination in voting’–effectively countering States’ constantly morphing methods of suppressing minority ballots.”

Justice Kagan essentially accuses the majority of revising, reformulating, and destroying the Voting Rights Act by using the following tools: “untenable readings of statutory text, made-up and impossible-to-meet evidentiary requirements, disregard for precedent, and disdain for congressional judgment.” These tools also highlight the main points of her criticism. Kagan states and quotes from the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, “I dissent. The Voting Rights Act is–or, now more accurately, was– ‘one of the most consequential, efficacious, and amply justified exercises of federal legislative power in our Nation’s history.’” 

A main point Justice Kagan consistently reiterates throughout her dissent is that Congress, after the ruling in City of Mobile v. Bolden, passed an amendment to §2 of the Voting Rights Act which made it so that discriminatory effect and not intent was the ruling factor of liability. Bolden had made it so that discriminatory intent was needed for plaintiffs to achieve success in a §2 complaint. Congress, in response, overturned this interpretation of §2 in 1982. Kagan argues, “So even though the Fifteenth Amendment itself barred only intentional discrimination, Congress could enact legislation extending to discriminatory effects.” 

A minor argument the majority offered was that they were simply updating the Thornburg v. Gingles (1986) framework, which established a four piece framework for successful complaints under §2 of the Voting Rights Act. Kagan argues that they did not update the framework, but transformed it and as a result, betraying Congress’s choice. She argues that this decision returned §2 to what it was under Bolden. Therefore, §2 now operates as a case of intention instead of the intended effects test explicitly amended by Congress. 

Furthermore, Kagan argues that the Court has not followed stare decisis which is essentially the principle that the Supreme Court should strive for continuity instead of constantly overturning rulings and contradicting itself. The majority argues that almost forty years of not answering this question has proved that it is time to answer it, but Justices Kagan, Sotomayor, and Jackson disagree. Kagan argues that stare decisis is followed especially when interpreting a statute “because our statutory, unlike our constitutional, rulings can always be changed by Congress itself.” In other words, Congress has the ability to change the decision of the Supreme Court on statutes, but Congress does not have the ability to do so with the Constitution as that lies with the states. Therefore, why should the Court abandon stare decisis if Congress has the ability to answer this question itself? 

Justice Kagan addressed the majority’s “unprecedented”–in her words–argument that “‘Properly understood,’ Section 2 ‘does not intrude on States’ prerogative to draw districts on nonracial factors.’” She states, “I just called that claim ‘unprecedented,’ and so it is: The majority has conjured it out of thin air.” Furthermore, she argues, “It is for the people’s representatives in Congress to decide when the Nation need no longer worry about the dilution of minority voting strength. So long as Congress has not done so–and it has not–this Court has no right to cancel (sorry, ‘update’) a duly enacted statute on the theory that it knows better.” 

Kagan argues that §2 is still necessary because there are areas in which local circumstances make it so the provisions still have effect. Even if discriminatory practices against minorities and their right to vote have gone down, there are still areas in the nation in which it is necessary. She argues that the majority has doomed minorities in these areas. 

Furthermore, she argues that Rucho v. Common Cause (2019) was “an ill-considered decision, whose adverse effects have never been more obvious than today, as this country’s two major parties compete in a race to the bottom.” Rucho held that claims of political gerrymandering are not “justiciable” in federal court. In other words, federal courts do not have jurisdiction over claims of political gerrymandering. Now with the new Callais standards, Kagan argues that §2 has no effect and plays no role unless there is “smoking-gun evidence of a race-based motive.” This type of evidence, usually referred to as direct evidence, is nearly impossible to come by. 

Kagan’s dissent ends with a scathing criticism of the majority and the procedures they chose to abandon in their decision: “I dissent because the Court betrays its duty to faithfully implement the great statute Congress wrote. I dissent because the Court’s decision will set back the foundational right Congress granted of racial equality in electoral opportunity. I dissent.”

Edited by: Evan Kim

Photo Credit: Yoichi Okamoto, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons