496
Syllabus
of the democratic process, the exercise of the voting franchise. It protects all persons, not just members of a particular race. Important precedents give instruction in the instant case. The Amendment was quite sufficient to invalidate a grandfather clause that did not mention race but instead used ancestry in an attempt to confine and restrict the voting franchise, Guinn v. United States, 238 U. S. 347, 364-365; and it sufficed to strike down the white primary systems designed to exclude one racial class (at least) from voting, see, e. g., Terry v. Adams, 345 U. S. 461, 469-470. The voting structure in this case is neither subtle nor indirect; it specifically grants the vote to persons of the defined ancestry and to no others. Ancestry can be a proxy for race. It is that proxy here. For centuries Hawaii was isolated from migration. The inhabitants shared common physical characteristics, and by 1778 they had a common culture. The provisions at issue reflect the State's effort to preserve that commonality to the present day. In interpreting the Reconstruction Era civil rights laws this Court has observed that racial discrimination is that which singles out "identifiable classes of persons . . . solely because of their ancestry or ethnic characteristics." Saint Francis College v. Al-Khazraji, 481 U. S. 604, 613. The very object of the statutory definition here is to treat the early Hawaiians as a distinct people, commanding their own recognition and respect. The history of the State's definition also demonstrates that the State has used ancestry as a racial definition and for a racial purpose. The drafters of the definitions of "Hawaiian" and "native Hawaiian" emphasized the explicit tie to race. The State's additional argument that the restriction is race neutral because it differentiates even among Polynesian people based on the date of an ancestor's residence in Hawaii is undermined by the classification's express racial purpose and its actual effects. The ancestral inquiry in this case implicates the same grave concerns as a classification specifying a particular race by name, for it demeans a person's dignity and worth to be judged by ancestry instead of by his or her own merit and essential qualities. The State's ancestral inquiry is forbidden by the Fifteenth Amendment for the further reason that using racial classifications is corruptive of the whole legal order democratic elections seek to preserve. The law itself may not become the instrument for generating the prejudice and hostility all too often directed against persons whose particular ancestry is disclosed by their ethnic characteristics and cultural traditions. The State's electoral restriction enacts a race-based voting qualification. Pp. 511-517.
(b) The State's three principal defenses of its voting law are rejected. It argues first that the exclusion of non-Hawaiians from voting is permitted under this Court's cases allowing the differential treatment of Indian tribes. However, even if Congress had the authority, delegated
Page: Index Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 NextLast modified: October 4, 2007