WASHINGTON, DC – Following today’s decision at the Supreme Court in Alexander v. The South Carolina State Conference of the NAACP, a case in which the Court was considering whether South Carolina’s District 1 is a racial gerrymander in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment, Constitutional Accountability Center Human Rights, Civil Rights & Citizen Program Director David Gans issued the following reaction:

Today’s 6-3 decision, written by Justice Samuel Alito, in Alexander v. The South Carolina State Conference of the NAACP strikes a severe blow to our Constitution’s promise of a multiracial democracy, rewrites Supreme Court precedent to make it easier for states to use race to manipulate the electoral process for partisan ends, and arrogates for itself the power to second-guess factual findings made by trial court judges. In each of these respects, the conservative majority turns a blind eye to a long history of racial gerrymanders that have weakened Black voting strength; our Constitution’s text and history that demand racial equality at the polls; and the proper role of appellate courts.

As Justice Elena Kagan observed in a forceful dissenting opinion, the upshot of today’s ruling is to send the message to state legislators and mapmakers that so long as they cover their tracks, they can use race as a proxy to manipulate the political process for partisan ends at the expense of communities of color.

A year ago, in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard College, the same majority that upheld today’s racial gerrymander insisted that government must respect the principle of color blindness. While Justice Alito’s opinion pays lip service to the constitutional principle of racial equality, insisting that “the Fourteenth Amendment was designed to eradicate race-based state action,” it rewrites established legal principles to make it harder to challenge racial gerrymandering by the states by requiring federal courts to presume the good faith of state legislators.

This gets the Constitution upside down. The Court’s role is to enforce the promise of racial equality in voting, a responsibility the Court’s conservative majority abdicated in today’s ruling.