Miller v. Johnson, 515 U.S. 900, 34 (1995)

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Cite as: 515 U. S. 900 (1995)

Stevens, J., dissenting

question its analytic distinction raises: If the Shaw injury does not flow from an increased probability that white candidates will lose, then how can the increased probability that black candidates will win cause white voters, such as appel-lees, cognizable harm? 1

The Court attempts an explanation in these cases by equating the injury it imagines appellees have suffered with the injuries African-Americans suffered under segregation. The heart of appellees' claim, by the Court's account, is that "a State's assignment of voters on the basis of race," ante, at 915, violates the Equal Protection Clause for the same reason a State may not "segregate citizens on the basis of race in its public parks, New Orleans City Park Improvement Assn. v. Detiege, 358 U. S. 54 (1958) (per curiam), buses, Gayle v. Browder, 352 U. S. 903 (1956) (per curiam), golf courses, Holmes v. Atlanta, 350 U. S. 879 (1955) (per curiam), beaches, Mayor of Baltimore v. Dawson, 350 U. S. 877 (1955) (per curiam), and schools, Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U. S. 483 (1954)." Ante, at 911. This equation, however, fails to elucidate the elusive Shaw injury. Our desegregation cases redressed the exclusion of black citizens from public facilities reserved for whites. In these cases, in contrast, any voter, black or white, may live in the Eleventh District. What appellees contest is the inclusion of too many black voters in the district as drawn. In my view, if appellees allege no vote dilution, that inclusion can cause them no conceivable injury.

The Court's equation of Shaw claims with our desegregation decisions is inappropriate for another reason. In each of those cases, legal segregation frustrated the public interest in diversity and tolerance by barring African-Americans

1 White voters obviously lack standing to complain of the other injury the Court has recognized under Shaw: the stigma blacks supposedly suffer when assigned to a district because of their race. See Hays, ante, at 744; cf. Adarand Constructors, Inc. v. Peña, ante, at 247-248, n. 5 (Stevens, J., dissenting).

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