Cooper v. Harris
The Supreme Court upheld a lower court's ruling that North Carolina's redrawn Congressional Districts 1 and 12 were unconstitutional racial gerrymanders, finding that race, not politics, drove how the lines were drawn.
The decision reinforces strict limits on how far states can go in using race when redistricting, even when a state claims it acted to comply with the Voting Rights Act, and it clarifies that challengers do not always need an alternative map to prove race predominated.
“A State may not use race as the predominant factor in drawing district lines unless it has a compelling reason.”
The Court's core statement of the constitutional rule governing racial gerrymanders.
How it got here: A three-judge federal district court ruled both districts unconstitutional after a trial; North Carolina appealed directly to the Supreme Court.
The Case in Depth
What happened
After the 2010 census, North Carolina lawmakers redrew Congressional Districts 1 and 12, substantially raising the share of Black voters of voting age in each. Registered voters in those districts sued state officials, arguing the new lines were illegal racial gerrymanders. The lawmakers said District 1 was reshaped to comply with the Voting Rights Act and that District 12 was reshaped purely for partisan advantage, not because of race.
The question before the Court
Did North Carolina illegally use race as the main factor in redrawing two of its congressional districts after the 2010 census?
The Court's answer
Yes — the Court ruled that North Carolina's redrawn Districts 1 and 12 were unconstitutional racial gerrymanders. For District 1, the state deliberately set a racial target above 50% Black voting-age population, and it had no solid evidence that the Voting Rights Act actually required that target, since the district had long elected Black-preferred candidates without a Black majority.
For District 12, the trial court heard direct evidence — including credited testimony and internal statements — that lawmakers boosted the district's Black population specifically to satisfy Voting Rights Act concerns, not simply as a byproduct of a partisan plan. The Court also rejected North Carolina's argument that challengers must always present an alternative map to prove such a claim, holding that direct evidence alone was enough here.
Curious how the Court got there? See the step-by-step legal reasoning →
Why it matters
Voters in North Carolina's District 1 and District 12 got new district lines because their maps were struck down. The ruling also affects future redistricting fights nationwide by making clear that states need real evidence, not just a hunch, before using race to comply with the Voting Rights Act, and by rejecting a rigid rule that plaintiffs must always produce an alternative map to prove a racial gerrymander.
What changes now
The ruling is a final decision on the merits, not a temporary order. Both districts remain unconstitutional as drawn, and North Carolina had already been required to adopt replacement maps for subsequent elections. The decision does not set a fixed racial percentage that redistricting must avoid, and future cases over the use of alternative maps or Voting Rights Act compliance will continue to be litigated using the standards the Court applied here.
What this does not decide
The Court did not decide whether the first Gingles precondition (whether Black voters were large and compact enough to form a majority in a fairly drawn district) was met, since the parties did not brief that issue. It also did not adopt any fixed rule about exactly what percentage of a minority population a district must contain, and it left open that alternative maps can still be important evidence in other cases even though they are not always required.
Concurrences and dissents
Concurrence — Justice Thomas
Justice Thomas agreed with the outcome but would have gone further on District 1, saying North Carolina's own concession that it created a majority-Black district was enough by itself to trigger strict scrutiny, without needing further analysis. He also argued that Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act does not apply to redistricting at all, so it could never justify a racial gerrymander. He also noted that this decision correctly confines an earlier ruling, Cromartie II, to its specific facts.
Dissent in part — Justice Alito
“This is not the treatment of precedent that state legislatures have the right to expect from this Court.”Alito's objection that the majority abandoned the alternative-map rule from an earlier ruling on the same district.
Justice Alito agreed that District 1 was an unconstitutional racial gerrymander since the state admitted it deliberately created a majority-Black district. But he dissented as to District 12, arguing the majority abandoned a rule from Cromartie II requiring challengers to produce an alternative map showing the legislature could have achieved its political goals with less racial impact. He contended the evidence showed District 12 was a partisan, not racial, gerrymander, and that the majority ignored the state's coherent political explanation and improperly reweighed the trial evidence.
How the Court got there
The legal reasoning, step by step
- The Court applied a two-step framework for racial-gerrymandering claims: first, did race predominate over other factors like party or compactness in drawing the district; second, if so, can the state show the race-based approach was narrowly tailored to a compelling interest, such as good-faith compliance with the Voting Rights Act.
- Factual findings on whether race predominated are reviewed only for 'clear error,' a deferential standard under which the Court will not reverse a trial court's finding as long as it is plausible, even if another view of the evidence was also possible.
- For District 1, the record showed lawmakers set an explicit racial target (over 50% Black voting-age population) and that this target directly shaped the district's boundaries, so the district court did not clearly err in finding race predominated.
- Applying strict scrutiny to District 1, the Court used the three-part Gingles test for proving that a map dilutes minority voting power under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act: minority voters must be large and compact enough to form a district majority, politically united, and usually outvoted by a bloc-voting white majority. Because the district had long elected Black-preferred candidates without a Black majority, there was no evidence white bloc-voting would defeat those candidates in a new map drawn without regard to race, so the state lacked good reason to believe the Act required a race-based fix.
- For District 12, the district court heard conflicting live testimony about whether race or partisanship drove the new lines, and credited testimony and documents indicating lawmakers deliberately increased the district's Black population to satisfy Voting Rights Act preclearance concerns; because credibility calls from a trial are owed special deference on appeal, the Court found no clear error in that finding.
- The Court rejected North Carolina's argument that a challenger must always produce an alternative map showing the state's political goals could have been achieved with less racial impact; such a map is only one form of evidence, not a mandatory precondition, and the direct evidence here was sufficient on its own to prove racial predominance in District 12.
Doctrinal impact
Cases affected by this decision
Limits Easley v. Cromartie (Cromartie II) (532 U. S. 234)
The Court confined this earlier ruling to its unique facts, rejecting the claim that it requires an alternative map in every race-versus-politics case.
Distinguishes Bartlett v. Strickland (556 U. S. 1)
The Court said this case about crossover districts did not mean the Voting Rights Act required creating a majority-Black District 1.
Reaffirms Thornburg v. Gingles (478 U. S. 30)
The Court relied on and applied this case's three-part test for proving illegal vote dilution under the Voting Rights Act.