Melissa Murray

The state does that.

A group of non-African American voters challenge the new map with the two opportunity districts as an impermissible racial gerrymander on the view that in trying to remedy the discrimination done by the first racial gerrymander,

the state has now engaged in more racial discrimination.

And the second round of racial discrimination is racial discrimination against white voters.

And in the decision that was issued last week, Justice Alito said, yeah, that sounds right.

Even thinking about

about race in the context of trying to remedy past racial discrimination is itself a racial violation.

So this is basically applying to the context of voting rights the same logic that this court has used in the context of affirmative action.

The Constitution does not see race at all.

If you're even thinking about race, even if it's for remedial purposes, that is suspect and should be invalidated.

And if you are going to use race as a remedy, the only context where it will be applicable and permissible is in circumstances where you can prove intentional discrimination, which is really, really hard to do, especially in the context of voting, where, and

race and political affiliation run together.

So most Black voters in the South are going to be Democrats.

So if Black voters say, hey, listen, you just totally diluted our voting power.

This is a racial discrimination issue.

It's a racial gerrymander.

The state just has to say,

no, we were doing this because we were trying to consolidate partisan advantage.

And that's probably true, but it doesn't mean it's also not racial discrimination.

The court says, full stop, you've got to have absolute proof that this was intentional racial discrimination.