Shaw v. Reno (1993)

After the 1990 census, North Carolina gained a congressional seat, and the Justice Department, reviewing the state's map under Voting Rights Act preclearance, pushed for a second majority-Black district. The legislature drew the 12th District, which snaked about 160 miles along Interstate 85, in places no wider than the highway. White voters sued, arguing that the district segregated voters by race.

On June 28, 1993, the Supreme Court ruled 5 to 4, in an opinion by Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, that a district so irregular that it can be understood only as an effort to separate voters by race is subject to strict scrutiny under the Equal Protection Clause. O'Connor wrote that such districts bear an uncomfortable resemblance to political apartheid. The dissenters argued that the plaintiffs had suffered no harm and that the district helped remedy a long history of exclusion.

In Miller v. Johnson in 1995, the Court held that a district is suspect whenever race is the predominant factor in drawing it, and in Shaw v. Hunt in 1996 it struck down the 12th District. A redrawn version was upheld in Easley v. Cromartie in 2001 because politics, not race, explained its shape. The tension between Shaw and the Voting Rights Act shaped redistricting for decades and was central to Louisiana v. Callais in 2026.