Shaw v. Reno

Shaw v. Reno, 509 U.S. 630 (1993), argued 20 Apr. 1993, decided 28 June 1993 by a vote of 5 to 4; O'Connor for the Court, White, Blackmun, Stevens, and Souter in dissent. In this case, the Supreme Court found that a redistricting plan, even though it does not dilute the votes of any group of voters, may nonetheless violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment if the district lines are so irregular that it can be viewed only as an effort to separate the races for purposes of voting.

The Department of Justice refused to approve a North Carolina congressional districting plan under section 5 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 because the plan failed to create more than one majority‐black district. North Carolina then submitted a second plan with two majority‐black districts. One of those districts had a highly irregular shape—it stretched approximately 160 miles along an interstate highway and was, in places, no wider than the highway itself. The revised districting plan was used for the 1992 congressional elections, and produced North Carolina's first black representatives since Reconstruction. Five white residents challenged the constitutionality of the revised plan as a racial gerrymander.5

The Court held that the white residents had stated a cognizable claim under the Equal Protection Clause. According to the Court, the strange shape of the district showed that traditional race‐neutral districting principles—such as compactness, contiguity, and respect for political subdivisions—were subordinated to racial considerations. Because the districting plan was so “bizarre on its face” that it could only be understood as an attempt to separate voters on the basis of race, it was subject to the strict judicial scrutiny afforded to such statutes.

The majority went beyond the traditional requirement of proving an injury in fact, and instead allowed a claim based on a more generalized harm to the political system itself. Racial gerrymandering, according to the Court, may reinforce impermissible racial stereotypes. It may exacerbate racial bloc voting. And it may send a message to elected representatives that their primary obligation is to represent members of a particular racial group. Thus, the Court reasoned, reapportionment was one area in which “appearances do matter.”

The dissenting justices focused upon the plaintiffs' failure to allege a cognizable injury. Justice Byron White, relying in part on United Jewish Organizations of Williamsburgh v. Carey (1977), argued that the plaintiffs did not demonstrate that the revised districting plan had the intent or effect of unduly diminishing their political influence. Indeed, it may have been impossible for the white residents to show such an effect because whites still constituted a voting majority in ten of the twelve districts, which was more than the white proportion of the state population.

Over the next decade, the Supreme Court was forced to revisit Shaw many times as lower courts struggled with its application. The decision had the immediate effect of placing many recently created majority‐minority districts in constitutional jeopardy. Such districts had become the remedy of choice in cases brought under both section 2 and section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, and had resulted in significant black and Hispanic gains in representation in the 1990s.

Grant M. Hayden