Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/22pdf/21-1086_1co6.pdf
Page Number: 64.0

Cite as:  599 U. S. ____ (2023) 

19 

THOMAS, J., dissenting 

  In affirming the District Court’s nonpredominance find-
ing, the plurality glosses over these plain legal errors,12 and 
it entirely ignores Dr. Duchin’s plans—presumably because 
her  own  explanation  of  her  method  sounds  too  much  like 
textbook  racial  predominance.    Compare  2  App.  634 
(“[A]fter  . . .  what  I  took  to  be  nonnegotiable  principles  of 
population  balance  and  seeking  two  majority-black  dis-
tricts,  after  that,  I  took  contiguity  as  a  requirement  and 
compactness as paramount” (emphasis added)) and id., at 
635 (“I took . . . county integrity to take precedence over the 
level  of  [black  voting-age  population]  once  that  level  was 
past 50 percent” (emphasis added)), with Bethune-Hill, 580 
U. S.,  at  189  (explaining  that  race  predominates  when  it 
“ ‘was the criterion that . . . could not be compromised,’ and 
race-neutral  considerations  ‘came  into  play  only  after  the 
race-based decision had been made’ ” (quoting Shaw II, 517 
U. S., at 907)), and Miller, 515 U. S., at 916 (explaining that 
race  predominates  when  “the  [mapmaker]  subordinated 
traditional  race-neutral  districting  principles  . . .  to  racial 
—————— 

12 The  plurality’s  somewhat  elliptical  discussion  of  “the  line  between 
racial predominance and racial consciousness,” ante, at 23, suggests that 
it may have fallen into a similar error.  To the extent the plurality sup-
poses that, under our precedents, a State may purposefully sort voters 
based  on  race  to  some  indefinite  extent  without  crossing  the  line  into 
predominance, it is wrong, and its predominance analysis would water 
down  decades  of  racial-gerrymandering  jurisprudence.    Our  constitu-
tional  precedents’  line  between  racial  awareness  and  racial  predomi-
nance simply tracks the distinction between awareness of consequences, 
on the one hand, and discriminatory purpose, on the other.  See Miller, 
515 U. S., at 916 (“ ‘Discriminatory purpose implies more than intent as 
volition  or  intent  as  awareness  of  consequences.    It  implies  that  the 
decisionmaker  selected  or  reaffirmed  a  particular  course  of  action  at 
least in part “because of,” not merely “in spite of,” its adverse effects’ ” 
(alterations and some internal quotation marks omitted)); accord, Shaw 
I, 509 U. S. 630, 646 (1993).  And our statements that §2 “demands con-
sideration of race,” Abbott v. Perez, 585 U. S. ___, ___ (2018) (slip op., at 
4), and uses a “race-conscious calculus,” De Grandy, 512 U. S., at 1020, 
did not imply that a State can ever purposefully sort voters on a race-
predominant basis without triggering strict scrutiny.