Allen v. Milligan
The Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that Alabama's congressional map likely violates the Voting Rights Act by giving Black voters a real chance to elect their preferred candidate in only one of seven districts, even though they make up about a quarter of the state's population.
The decision reaffirms the decades-old legal test for minority voting-rights challenges and means Alabama must redraw its map to create a second district where Black voters have an equal shot at electing a representative of their choice.
How it got here: A three-judge federal district court and a separate federal judge each blocked Alabama's new congressional map; the Supreme Court stayed those orders pending review, then took up the case and affirmed both lower courts.
The Case in Depth
What happened
After the 2020 census, Alabama redrew its seven-seat congressional map in a way that created only one majority-Black district — essentially unchanged from the prior map — even though Black Alabamians make up about 27% of the state's population. Three groups of Black voters and advocacy organizations sued, arguing the map diluted Black political power in violation of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, which bans voting rules that result in racial discrimination.
The question before the Court
Did Alabama's congressional map violate the Voting Rights Act by drawing only one majority-Black district in a state where Black residents make up about 27% of the population and face severe racially polarized voting?
The Court's answer
Yes — the Court ruled that Alabama's map likely violates Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. Applying the three-part framework from the 1986 case Thornburg v. Gingles (the long-established checklist for vote-dilution claims), the Court found that Black voters in Alabama could form a majority in a second reasonably drawn district, that they vote as a cohesive bloc, and that white voters consistently vote as a bloc against Black-preferred candidates. Alabama's extensive history of racial discrimination further tipped the "totality of circumstances" against the state.
The Court rejected Alabama's proposed "race-neutral benchmark" approach, which would have judged the map against a computer-generated average of maps drawn without considering race. The Court called this inconsistent with the text of Section 2 and with nearly four decades of precedent, which focuses on specific illustrative maps a plaintiff produces rather than a statistical simulation average. The Court also turned aside Alabama's constitutional challenge, holding that Congress validly used its Fifteenth Amendment authority to prohibit voting practices that are discriminatory in effect, not just in intent.
Curious how the Court got there? See the step-by-step legal reasoning →
Why it matters
Alabama must draw a new congressional map, likely flipping one seat's competitive dynamics. Black voters in other states with similar population shares and racially polarized voting patterns can continue bringing the same type of challenge. The ruling also keeps intact the main legal tool minority communities nationwide use to contest maps that dilute their votes.
What changes now
Alabama must draw a new congressional map creating a second district where Black voters have equal electoral opportunity. The lower courts will oversee the remedy process. The underlying lawsuits continue, but the Supreme Court's affirmance of the preliminary injunction means the original HB1 map cannot be used. Other states with similar demographics and racially polarized voting may face scrutiny of their own maps under the same reinstated framework.
What this does not decide
The opinion does not decide whether race-based redistricting can continue indefinitely into the future — Justice Kavanaugh flagged that question as unresolved but said Alabama did not raise it. The decision also does not address whether Section 2 contains a private right of action, nor does it resolve all questions about how Gingles applies to different electoral structures or states.
Concurrences and dissents
Concurrence — Justice Kavanaugh
Justice Kavanaugh agreed Alabama's map violates Section 2 but wrote separately to stress four points: Alabama is effectively asking the Court to overrule Gingles, a statutory precedent Congress has left undisturbed for 37 years; Gingles does not mandate proportionality because the 'geographically compact' and 'reasonably configured' requirements impose real limits; Section 2's effects test means computer simulations of race-blind maps cannot excuse a state from liability; and while he acknowledged race-based redistricting may not extend indefinitely, Alabama never raised that temporal argument and he would not address it.
Dissent — Justice Thomas
Justice Thomas argued Section 2 does not apply to single-member redistricting plans at all — only to ballot-access rules like registration requirements. Even assuming it did, he contended the Gingles framework provides no principled, race-neutral benchmark and inevitably collapses into racial proportionality, which both the statute and the Constitution forbid. He would have found that the illustrative maps submitted by plaintiffs were themselves racial gerrymanders and that Section 2 as applied here is unconstitutional. He called for reversing the lower courts.
Dissent — Justice Alito
Justice Alito accepted the Gingles framework but argued the majority misapplied the first precondition. In his view, a 'reasonably configured' illustrative district must be one that was created without race playing a 'predominant' role — a requirement drawn from the Court's racial gerrymandering cases. Because plaintiffs' experts openly treated a second majority-Black district as a 'non-negotiable' design goal, race necessarily predominated. He would vacate the lower courts' orders and remand for the district court to apply this correct standard.
How the Court got there
The legal reasoning, step by step
- The Court applied the Gingles framework — the three-part checklist from the 1986 case Thornburg v. Gingles that has governed Section 2 vote-dilution claims for nearly 40 years. To win, plaintiffs must show: (1) the minority group is large enough and geographically compact enough to form a majority in a reasonably drawn district; (2) the minority votes as a cohesive bloc; and (3) the white majority votes as a bloc to regularly defeat the minority's preferred candidates. Then courts weigh the totality of circumstances.
- On the first requirement, the Court found that Black voters could constitute a majority in a second 'reasonably configured' district. Plaintiffs offered eleven illustrative maps, at least one of which performed as well as or better than Alabama's map on compactness, split fewer county lines, contained equal populations, and connected a recognized community of interest — the Black Belt region, whose residents share concentrated poverty, lack of services, and a historical connection to slavery.
- On the second and third requirements, there was no serious dispute: Black voters supported their preferred candidates with 92.3% of the vote on average, while white voters backed Black-preferred candidates only 15.4% of the time. Even Alabama's own expert conceded that white-preferred candidates regularly defeated Black-preferred ones. The totality of circumstances — racially polarized elections, near-zero Black success in statewide races, and Alabama's extensive history of voting discrimination — sealed the finding against the state.
- The Court rejected Alabama's 'race-neutral benchmark' theory, which would have required plaintiffs to show that the state's map deviated from the average of millions of computer-generated race-blind maps. The Court found this incompatible with Section 2's text, which focuses on whether the political process is 'equally open,' and with the Gingles framework, which uses specific illustrative maps — not algorithmic averages — to evaluate whether a second majority-minority district is possible. The Court also noted that two million maps are a tiny fraction of the trillions of possible Alabama maps, making the statistical comparison nearly meaningless.
- The Court rejected Alabama's argument that the Gingles framework inevitably mandates racial proportionality. Traditional districting criteria — compactness, respect for county lines, contiguity — serve as real constraints that have caused most Section 2 challenges nationwide to fail since 2010. Courts have repeatedly refused to require additional majority-minority districts when minority populations are too dispersed to satisfy these criteria.
- Finally, the Court turned aside Alabama's constitutional objection. The Court reaffirmed its 40-year-old holding that Congress may use its Fifteenth Amendment enforcement power to ban voting practices that are discriminatory in effect, not just intent, and that applying Section 2 to redistricting is a permissible exercise of that authority.
Doctrinal impact
Cases affected by this decision
Reaffirms Thornburg v. Gingles (478 U.S. 30)
The Court explicitly preserves Gingles as the controlling framework for all Section 2 redistricting claims, rejecting Alabama's invitation to replace it.
Distinguishes City of Mobile v. Bolden (446 U.S. 55)
The Court reiterates that the 1982 congressional amendments superseded Mobile's intent-only test, so Section 2 liability requires only proof of discriminatory effect.