Shaw v. Reno
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| Shaw v. Reno | ||||||||||||
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 Supreme Court of the United States |
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| Argued April 20, 1993 Decided June 28, 1993 |
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| Holding | ||||||||||||
| Redistricting based on race must be held to a standard of strict scrutiny under the equal protection clause while bodies doing redistricting must be conscious of race to the extent that they must insure compliance with the Voting Rights Act. | ||||||||||||
| Court membership | ||||||||||||
| Chief Justice: William Rehnquist Associate Justices: Byron White, Harry Blackmun, John Paul Stevens, Sandra Day O'Connor, Antonin Scalia, Anthony Kennedy, David Souter, Clarence Thomas |
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| Case opinions | ||||||||||||
| Majority by: O'Connor Joined by: Rehnquist, Scalia, Kennedy, Thomas Dissent by: White Joined by: Blackmun, Stevens Dissent by: Blackmun Dissent by: Stevens Dissent by: Souter |
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Shaw v. Reno, 509 U.S. 630 (1993), was a United States Supreme Court case argued on April 20, 1993. The ruling was significant in the area of redistricting and racial gerrymandering. The court ruled in a 5-4 decision that redistricting based on race must be held to a standard of strict scrutiny under the equal protection clause. On the other hand, bodies doing redistricting must be conscious of race to the extent that they must insure compliance with the Voting Rights Act. The redistricting that occurred after the 2000 census was the first nationwide redistricting to apply the results of Shaw.
The case involved the redistricting of North Carolina after the 1990 census. North Carolina submitted to the Department of Justice a map with one majority-minority black district—that is, a district with a black majority. The Department of Justice felt that the state could have drawn another such majority-minority district to improve representation of black voters. The state revised its map, but the new plan included a single district that was 160 miles long, winding through the state to connect various areas having in common only a large black population. Justice Sandra Day O'Connor described the shape of the new district as "bizarre." The court found that if a redistricting map is "so bizarre on its face that it is 'unexplainable on grounds other than race'" must be held to the standard of strict scrutiny.
The dissenters noted (1) that the case was brought by white voters challenging the district that made possible North Carolina’s first black representatives to Congress since Reconstruction; (2) that the holding citing the 14th Amendment perversely made redistricting that advantaged blacks subject to more rigorous scrutiny than redistricting advantaging other non-racial groups, though the impetus of the 14th was to provide for equal protection for blacks, and; (3) that allowing race-based voting blocs is distinct from other forms of affirmative action insofar as allowing race-based blocs doesn’t deny another person her rights and privileges, as for example, race-based hiring and retention practices do.
Subsequent decisions on similar issues have made use of Shaw and refined it, though the four dissenters have held fast in their belief that no cause of action exists. For instance, Miller v. Johnson, which concerned a similarly irregular district in Georgia, was also decided 5-4, with the majority comprising exactly the same five justices as in Shaw.
