638
Opinion of the Court
in relevant part). Two judges also concluded that, to the extent appellants challenged the Attorney General's pre-clearance decisions, their claim was foreclosed by this Court's holding in Morris v. Gressette, 432 U. S. 491 (1977). 808 F. Supp., at 467.
By a 2-to-1 vote, the District Court also dismissed the complaint against the state appellees. The majority found no support for appellants' contentions that race-based districting is prohibited by Article I, § 4, or Article I, § 2, of the Constitution, or by the Privileges and Immunities Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. It deemed appellants' claim under the Fifteenth Amendment essentially subsumed within their related claim under the Equal Protection Clause. 808 F. Supp., at 468-469. That claim, the majority concluded, was barred by United Jewish Organizations of Williamsburgh, Inc. v. Carey, 430 U. S. 144 (1977) (UJO).
The majority first took judicial notice of a fact omitted from appellants' complaint: that appellants are white. It rejected the argument that race-conscious redistricting to benefit minority voters is per se unconstitutional. The majority also rejected appellants' claim that North Carolina's reapportionment plan was impermissible. The majority read UJO to stand for the proposition that a redistricting scheme violates white voters' rights only if it is "adopted with the purpose and effect of discriminating against white voters . . . on account of their race." 808 F. Supp., at 472. The purposes of favoring minority voters and complying with the Voting Rights Act are not discriminatory in the constitutional sense, the court reasoned, and majority-minority districts have an impermissibly discriminatory effect only when they unfairly dilute or cancel out white voting strength. Because the State's purpose here was to comply with the Voting Rights Act, and because the General Assembly's plan did not lead to proportional underrepresentation of white voters state-
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