Cite as: 532 U. S. 234 (2001)
Opinion of the Court
and Brian D. Boyle. Adam Stein argued the cause for appellants Smallwood et al. With him on the briefs were Todd A. Cox, Norman J. Chachkin, and Jacqueline A. Berrien. Robinson O. Everett argued the cause for appellees in both cases. With him on the brief were Martin B. McGee and Douglas E. Markham.‡
Justice Breyer delivered the opinion of the Court. In this appeal, we review a three-judge District Court's determination that North Carolina's Legislature used race as the "predominant factor" in drawing its 12th Congressional District's 1997 boundaries. The court's findings, in our view, are clearly erroneous. We therefore reverse its conclusion that the State violated the Equal Protection Clause. U. S. Const., Amdt. 14, § 1.
I
This "racial districting" litigation is before us for the fourth time. Our first two holdings addressed North Carolina's former Congressional District 12, one of two North Carolina congressional districts drawn in 1992 that contained a majority of African-American voters. See Shaw v. Reno, 509 U. S. 630 (1993) (Shaw I); Shaw v. Hunt, 517 U. S. 899 (1996) (Shaw II).
A
In Shaw I, the Court considered whether plaintiffs' factual allegation—that the legislature had drawn the former district's boundaries for race-based reasons—if true, could underlie a legal holding that the legislature had violated the Equal Protection Clause. The Court held that it could. It wrote that a violation may exist where the legislature's boundary drawing, though "race neutral on its face," none-‡Briefs of amici curiae urging reversal were filed for the United States by Solicitor General Waxman, Acting Assistant Attorney General Yeomans, Deputy Solicitor General Underwood, James A. Feldman, David K. Flynn, and Louis E. Peraertz; and for the American Civil Liberties Union by Laughlin McDonald, Neil Bradley, and Cristina Correia.
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