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Page Number: 31

24 

ALLEN v. MILLIGAN 

Opinion of the Court 
Opinion of ROBERTS, C. J. 

979.  The court also explained that Alabama’s evidence of 
racial  predominance  in  Cooper’s  maps  was  exceedingly 
thin.  Alabama’s expert, Thomas Bryan, “testified that he 
never  reviewed  the  exhibits  to  Mr.  Cooper’s  report”  and 
“that he never reviewed” one of the illustrative plans that 
Cooper  submitted.    Id.,  at  1006.    Bryan  further  testified 
that he could offer no “conclusions or opinions as to the ap-
parent  basis  of  any  individual  line  drawing  decisions  in 
Cooper’s illustrative plans.”  2 App. 740.  By his own admis-
sion, Bryan’s analysis of any race predominance in Cooper’s 
maps “was pretty light.”  Id., at 739.  The District Court did 
not err in finding that race did not predominate in Cooper’s 
maps in light of the evidence before it.5 
  The  dissent  contends  that  race  nevertheless  predomi-
nated  in  both  Cooper’s  and  Duchin’s  maps  because  they 
were  designed  to  hit  “ ‘express  racial  target[s]’ ”—namely, 
two “50%-plus majority-black districts.”  Post, at 15 (opinion 
of  THOMAS,  J.)  (quoting  Bethune-Hill,  580  U. S.,  at  192).  
This argument fails in multiple ways.  First, the dissent’s 
reliance  on  Bethune-Hill  is  mistaken.    In  that  case,  this 
Court was unwilling to conclude that a State’s maps were 
produced  in  a  racially  predominant  manner.    Instead,  we 

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5 The dissent claims that Cooper “treated ‘the minority population in 
and of itself ’ as the paramount community of interest in his plans.”  Post, 
at 14 (opinion of THOMAS, J.) (quoting 2 App. 601).  But Cooper testified 
that he was “aware that the minority population in and of itself can be a 
community of interest.”  Id., at 601 (emphasis added).  Cooper then ex-
plained that the relevant community of interest here—the Black Belt—
was a “historical feature” of the State, not a demographic one.  Ibid. (em-
phasis added).  The Black Belt, he emphasized, was defined by its “his-
torical boundaries”—namely, the group of “rural counties plus Montgom-
ery  County in  the  central  part  of  the  state.”   Ibid.   The District  Court 
treated the Black Belt as a community of interest for the same reason. 
  The  dissent  also  protests  that  Cooper’s  “plans  prioritized  race  over 
neutral districting criteria.”  Post, at 14 (opinion of THOMAS, J.).  But as 
the  District  Court  found,  and  as  Alabama  does  not  contest,  Cooper’s 
maps satisfied other traditional criteria, such as compactness, contigu-
ity, equal populations, and respect for political subdivisions.