The Supreme Court Has Created a Constitutional Right to Racial Discrimination in Voting
Source: Adam Serwer. "The Supreme Court Has Invented a Right to Discriminate - The Atlantic." June 5, 2026. www.theatlantic.com
The Gist
The author argues that the Supreme Court has basically legalized racial discrimination in voting by saying states can discriminate against Black voters as long as they claim it's for partisan political reasons instead of racial ones. This completely undermines the constitutional amendments that were supposed to protect voting rights after the Civil War.
Conclusion
The Roberts Court has effectively rewritten the Civil War amendments to permit intentional racial discrimination in voting as long as there is a partisan pretext, thereby inventing a constitutional right to discriminate that contradicts the Constitution's explicit prohibitions
Premises
- Alabama deliberately defied federal court orders to create a second majority-Black congressional district, gambling that the partisan Roberts Court would side with them
- The Supreme Court allowed Alabama to proceed with racially discriminatory maps despite lower courts finding intentional discrimination against Black voters
- In Louisiana v. Callais, Justice Alito established that race and politics are so intertwined that racial discrimination claims are nearly impossible to prove
- The Court now requires discrimination victims to prove alternative maps that still achieve the discriminators' partisan objectives
- This logic would have made all Jim Crow voting restrictions constitutional, contradicting the historical purpose of the Fifteenth Amendment
- The Fifteenth Amendment was designed to prevent exactly this scenario - partisan-motivated disenfranchisement of Black voters by white supremacist Democrats
Assumptions
- The Roberts Court's decisions are primarily motivated by partisan Republican interests rather than constitutional interpretation
- Intentional racial discrimination can be reliably identified and distinguished from legitimate partisan considerations
- The historical context and purpose of the Civil War amendments should guide their modern interpretation
- Federal courts have the authority and responsibility to enforce voting rights against state resistance