668
White, J., dissenting
claim in UJO was that the State had "violated the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments by deliberately revising its reapportionment plan along racial lines." 430 U. S., at 155 (plurality opinion) (emphasis added). They also stated: " 'Our argument is . . . that the history of the area demonstrates that there could be—and in fact was—no reason other than race to divide the community at this time.' " Id., at 154, n. 14 (quoting Brief for Petitioners, O. T. 1976, No. 75-104, p. 6, n. 6) (emphasis in original). Nor was it ever in doubt that "the State deliberately used race in a purposeful manner." 430 U. S., at 165. In other words, the "analytically distinct claim" the majority discovers today was in plain view and did not carry the day for petitioners. The fact that a demonstration of discriminatory effect was required in that case was not a function of the kind of claim that was made. It was a function of the type of injury upon which the Court insisted.
Gomillion is consistent with this view. To begin, the Court's reliance on that case as the font of its novel type of claim is curious. Justice Frankfurter characterized the complaint as alleging a deprivation of the right to vote in violation of the Fifteenth Amendment. See 364 U. S., at 341, 346. Regardless whether that description was accurate, see ante, at 645, it seriously deflates the precedential value which the majority seeks to ascribe to Gomillion: As I see it, the case cannot stand for the proposition that the intentional creation of majority-minority districts, without more, gives rise to an equal protection challenge under the Fourteenth Amendment. But even recast as a Fourteenth Amendment case, Gomillion does not assist the majority, for its focus was on the alleged effect of the city's action, which was to exclude black voters from the municipality of Tuskegee. As the Court noted, the "inevitable effect of this redefinition of Tuskegee's boundaries" was "to deprive the Negro petitioners discriminatorily of the benefits of residence in Tuskegee." 364 U. S., at 341. Even Justice Whit-
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