Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/22pdf/21-1086_1co6.pdf
Page Number: 104.0

8 

ALLEN v. MILLIGAN 

ALITO, J., dissenting 

of its opinion with this revealing statement: 

“Dr. Duchin and Mr. Cooper [plaintiffs’ experts] testi-
fied  that  they  prioritized  race only  for  the  purpose  of 
determining and to the extent necessary to determine 
whether it was possible for the Milligan plaintiffs and 
the Caster plaintiffs to state a Section Two claim.  As 
soon as they determined the answer to that question, 
they assigned greater weight to other traditional redis-
tricting criteria.”  Id., at 1029–1030 (emphasis added). 

This statement overlooks the obvious point that by “priori-
tiz[ing] race” at the outset, Dr. Duchin and Mr. Cooper gave 
race a predominant role. 
  The  next  step  in  the  District  Court’s  analysis was  even 
more troubling.  The court wrote, “Dr. Duchin’s testimony 
that  she  considered  two  majority-Black  districts  as  ‘non- 
negotiable’ does not” show that race played a predominant 
role in her districting process.  Id., at 1030.  But if achieving 
a certain objective is “non-negotiable,” then achieving that 
objective will necessarily play a predominant role.  Suppose 
that a couple are relocating to the Washington, D. C., met-
ropolitan area, and suppose that one says to the other, “I’m 
flexible about where we live, but it has to be in Maryland.  
That’s  non-negotiable.”    Could  anyone  say  that  finding  a 
home  in  Maryland  was  not  a  “predominant”  factor  in  the 
couple’s  search?    Or  suppose  that  a  person  looking  for  a 
flight tells a travel agent, “It has to be non-stop.  That’s non-
negotiable.”  Could it be said that the number of stops be-
tween the city of origin and the destination was not a “pre-
dominant” factor in the search for a good flight?  The obvi-
ous answer to both these questions is no, and the same is 
true about the role of race in the creation of a new district.  
If it is “non-negotiable” that the district be majority black, 
then race is given a predominant role. 
  The District Court wrapped up this portion of its opinion 
with a passage that highlighted its misunderstanding of the