Bethune-Hill v. Virginia State Bd. of Elections
The Court ruled that a lower court used the wrong legal test when it found that race did not drive the design of 11 Virginia legislative districts, and sent those districts back for reconsideration under the correct standard.
The Court upheld one district, District 75, finding Virginia had good reason to believe a 55% Black voting-age population there was needed to comply with the Voting Rights Act. The decision clarifies how challengers can prove racial gerrymandering and tightens how courts must analyze it district-by-district.
“The Equal Protection Clause does not prohibit misshapen districts. It prohibits unjustified racial classifications.”
Explaining that the constitutional problem is the use of race itself, not oddly shaped district lines.
How it got here: A three-judge federal district court rejected the voters' challenge to all 12 districts, and the voters appealed directly to the Supreme Court.
The Case in Depth
What happened
After the 2010 census, Virginia's legislature redrew 12 state House districts, aiming to keep each district's Black voting-age population at or above 55%, partly to avoid running afoul of federal voting-rights protections. A group of voters sued, arguing the legislature had relied on race more than the Constitution allows in drawing the new district lines, while state legislative officials intervened to defend the map.
The question before the Court
Did Virginia's legislature rely too heavily on race when it redrew 12 state legislative districts to each have at least 55% Black voters?
Why it matters
Voters and mapmakers nationwide gain a clearer test for proving racial gerrymandering: challengers don't have to show the map conflicts with traditional redistricting rules, and courts must look at a district as a whole rather than just its odd-shaped edges. Virginia must now redo the legal analysis for 11 districts, which could eventually mean new district lines before future elections.
What changes now
The case returns to the three-judge district court, which must now decide, under the corrected legal standard, whether race actually predominated in the 11 remaining districts and, if so, whether Virginia's use of race there was narrowly tailored to a compelling interest. District 75's map stands as constitutional. This is a final ruling on the correct legal test, but further fact-finding and possible new maps for the 11 districts still lie ahead.
What this does not decide
The Court did not decide whether race actually predominated in the 11 disputed districts, or whether Virginia's use of race there (if any) was narrowly tailored -- both questions go back to the district court. The Court also assumed, without deciding, that complying with the Voting Rights Act was a compelling government interest.
Concurrences and dissents
Concurrence — Justice Alito
Justice Alito agreed District 75 is constitutional and agreed the other 11 districts should be sent back, but he would have gone further and held that all 11 districts must automatically face strict scrutiny. In his view, once a legislature intentionally creates a majority-minority district, race is necessarily its predominant motivation, so no separate predominance inquiry is needed.
Dissent in part — Justice Thomas
“I respectfully dissent from the Court’s judgment as to District 75.”Thomas's closing statement rejecting the majority's decision to uphold District 75's map.
Justice Thomas agreed the 11 districts should be sent back for strict scrutiny, reasoning that Virginia's admission that it deliberately created majority-Black districts alone triggers that toughest level of review. But he dissented as to District 75, arguing the Court should not have assumed that complying with the Voting Rights Act was a compelling interest, that Section 5 itself is unconstitutional, and that Virginia's informal population analysis fell short of true narrow tailoring.
How the Court got there
The legal reasoning, step by step
- The Court applied the racial-predominance test from Miller v. Johnson, which asks whether race was the main factor behind where district lines were drawn, proven either through circumstantial evidence like a district's shape or direct evidence of the legislature's purpose.
- The district court had wrongly required challengers to first show an actual conflict between the map and traditional redistricting rules like compactness or keeping communities together before race could be found to predominate; the Court held no such threshold requirement exists, because a legislature can use race as its overriding goal even while staying consistent with traditional criteria.
- The Court also held the lower court erred by analyzing only the specific lines that appeared to deviate from traditional criteria, rather than looking at the district as a whole; because a racial gerrymandering claim challenges the design of an entire district, courts must weigh all the evidence about that district together, including things like an express racial population target.
- Applying a different test to District 75 -- narrow tailoring, which asks whether the government's use of race was closely matched to a strong reason -- the Court found Virginia had a 'strong basis in evidence,' meaning good reasons to believe, that a 55% Black voting-age population was needed there to avoid weakening Black voters' ability to elect their preferred candidates under the Voting Rights Act.
- Because the legislator who led the redistricting effort had studied turnout rates, past elections, and the district's population before settling on that figure, the Court concluded this functional, fact-based analysis was enough to satisfy narrow tailoring for District 75, even without a written record proving the figure was strictly necessary.
Doctrinal impact
Cases affected by this decision
Reaffirms Miller v. Johnson (515 U.S. 900)
The Court relies on Miller's test for when race predominates in drawing district lines.
Reaffirms Shaw v. Hunt (517 U.S. 899)
The Court reaffirms that race can predominate even when a map follows traditional redistricting rules.
Reaffirms Alabama Legislative Black Caucus v. Alabama (575 U.S. ___)
The Court applies Alabama's 'strong basis in evidence' standard for narrowly tailoring race-based districting.