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Page Number: 65.0

20 

ALLEN v. MILLIGAN 

THOMAS, J., dissenting 

considerations”).    The  plurality  thus  affirms  the  District 
Court’s finding only in part and with regard to Mr. Cooper’s 
plans alone. 
  In doing so, the plurality acts as if the only relevant evi-
dence  were  Mr.  Cooper’s  testimony  about  his  own  mental 
state and the State’s expert’s analysis of Mr. Cooper’s maps.  
See ante,  at  23–24.   Such  a  blinkered  view  of the  issue is 
unjustifiable.  All 11 illustrative maps follow the same ap-
proach to creating two majority-black districts.  The essen-
tial design features of Mr. Cooper’s maps are indistinguish-
able from Dr. Duchin’s, and it is those very design features 
that would require race to predominate.  None of the plain-
tiffs’ maps could possibly be drawn by a mapmaker who was 
merely  “aware  of,”  rather  than  motivated  by,  “racial  de-
mographics.”  Miller, 515 U. S., at 916.  They could only ever 
be drawn by a mapmaker whose predominant motive was 
hitting the “express racial target” of two majority-black dis-
tricts.  Bethune-Hill, 580 U. S., at 192.13 
  The plurality endeavors in vain to blunt the force of this 
obvious fact.  See ante, at 24–25.  Contrary to the plurality’s 
apparent understanding, nothing in Bethune-Hill suggests 

—————— 

13 The  plurality’s  reasoning  does  not  withstand  scrutiny  even  on  its 
own terms.  Like Dr. Duchin, Mr. Cooper found it “necessary to consider 
race” to construct two majority-black districts, 2 App. 591, and he frankly 
acknowledged “reconfigur[ing]” the southern part of the State “to create 
the second African-American majority district,” id., at 610.  Further, his 
conclusory statement that race did not “predominate” in his plans, id., at 
595, must be interpreted in light of the rest of his testimony and the rec-
ord as a whole.  Mr. Cooper recognized communities of interest as a tra-
ditional districting principle, but he applied that principle in a nakedly 
race-focused manner, explaining that “the minority population in and of 
itself ” was the community of interest that was “top of mind as [he] was 
drawing the plan[s].”  Id., at 601.  As noted, he also testified that he con-
sidered  “minority  voting  strengt[h]”  to  be  a  “traditional  redistricting 
principl[e]” in its own right.  Id., at 591.  His testimony therefore but-
tresses, rather than undermines, the conclusion already obvious from the 
maps themselves: Only a mapmaker pursuing a fixed racial target would 
produce them.