Court Opinion

ID: 9785953
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-30 23:04:46.676053+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:36:18.241891
License: Public Domain

*33SILBERMAN, Circuit Judge, concurring.
The Supreme Court remanded part of this case primarily because it was uncertain whether we had considered the “dilutive impact” of the Board’s redistricting plan as relevant evidence in determining whether it had been adopted for a.discriminatory purpose within the meaning of § 5. The term “dilution” has become a rather confusing word of art in § 2 cases, 42 U.S.C. § 1973. See Abrams v. Johnson, 521 U.S. 74,- -, 117 S.Ct. 1925, 1935-38, 138 L.Ed.2d 285 (1997); see also Thornburg v. Gingles, 478 U.S. 30, 106 S.Ct. 2752, 92 L.Ed.2d 25 (1986). The Supreme Court never explicitly defined what it meant by evidence of “dilu-tive impact” — a phrase that neither the Court, any court of appeals, nor this district court has used in connection with § 2 before — in this case. A careful reading of the opinion suggests, however, that the Court meant only that the plan the Board adopted had less majority black districts than that which could have been created. See Reno v. Bossier Parish Sch. Bd., 520 U.S. 471, 117 S.Ct. 1491, 1503, 137 L.Ed.2d 730 (1997). We, of course, never rejected such evidence; it was the premise of the government’s ease. “Here defendant argues that the School Board has failed to provide an adequate reason explaining why it declined to act on a proposal featuring two majority-black districts.” Bossier Parish Sch. Bd. v. Reno, 907 F.Supp. 434, 449 (D.D.C.1995).
To be sure, we did say we would “not permit § 2 evidence to prove discriminatory purpose_” Id. at 445 (emphasis added). But we never said that any evidence that would be relevant in a § 2 ease would be excluded in a § 5 case. Indeed, in footnote 6 we specifically excluded “evidence relevant only to [a] § 2 inquiry,” id. at 445 n. 6, necessarily implying that some evidence could go to both. The Supreme Court itself recognized that only “some of this ‘§ 2 evidence’ may be relevant” in a § 5 case, Reno, 117 S.Ct. at 1501, and, furthermore, “[tjhat evidence of a plan’s dilutive impact may be relevant to the § 5 purpose inquiry does not, of course, mean that such evidence is disposi-tive of [proves] that inquiry.” Id. at 1502.
The phrase “dilutive impact” was not used in our opinion — nor for that matter in the dissent — because it was not an issue in the case. That the NAACP offered an alternate plan whereby more majority black districts would be created was undisputed. (In that regard, I believe the government’s filings in the Supreme Court were deceptive.)1 The real issue in the case was whether Bossier Parish had an affirmative obligation to create the maximum number of black majority districts. I take it the Supreme Court agrees with us that it did not. “At one point, the District Court correctly stated that ‘the adoption of one nonretrogressive plan rather than another nonretrogressive plan that contains moré majority-black districts cannot by itself give rise to the inference of discriminatory intent.’ ” Id. at 1503, quoting Bossier Parish, 907 F.Supp. at 450.
As for the Arlington Heights framework which the Supreme Court said should be applied to determine whether the Board had a discriminatory purpose, it should be readily apparent that our previous opinion, without citing the case, did just that. We carefully considered “the historical background of the [jurisdiction’s] decision”; “[t]he specific sequence of events leading up to the challenged decision”; “[departures from the normal procedural sequence”; and “[t]he legislative or administrative history, especially ... [any] contemporary statements by members of the decisionmaking body.” Id. at 1503, quoting Arlington Heights v. Metropolitan Housing Corp., 429 U.S. 252, 267-68, 97 S.Ct. 555, 50 L.Ed.2d 450 (1976). The Court does not indicate that our review of that evidence was in any way inadequate except that it notes that we did not indicate how we viewed the claim that Bossier Parish was in supposed violation of an injunction issued by the west*34ern district of Louisiana to unify the school system. We do so now.

. In its brief on remand, the government, only in passing, refers to the plan’s "dilutive impact.” Plaintiff asks us to take judicial notice that two blacks have been elected to the School Board since we granted preclearance of the plan. while I doubt that we may take notice of this, it seems anomalous to emphasize, as Judge Kessler does, that no black has ever been elected to the Board. See Dissent at 36-37.