Cite as: 515 U. S. 900 (1995)
Stevens, J., dissenting
within tolerable population limits, because it undertakes, not to minimize or eliminate the political strength of any group or party, but to recognize it and, through districting, provide a rough sort of proportional representation in the legislative halls of the State." Id., at 754.
The Court's refusal to distinguish an enactment that helps a minority group from enactments that cause it harm is especially unfortunate at the intersection of race and voting, given that African-Americans and other disadvantaged groups have struggled so long and so hard for inclusion in that most central exercise of our democracy. See post, at 936-938 (Ginsburg, J., dissenting). I have long believed that treating racial groups differently from other identifiable groups of voters, as the Court does today, is itself an invidious racial classification. Racial minorities should receive neither more nor less protection than other groups against gerrymanders.2 A fortiori, racial minorities should not be less eligible than other groups to benefit from districting plans the majority designs to aid them.
I respectfully dissent.
2 "In my opinion an interpretation of the Constitution which afforded one kind of political protection to blacks and another kind to members of other identifiable groups would itself be invidious. Respect for the citizenry in the black community compels acceptance of the fact that in the long run there is no more certainty that these individuals will vote alike than will individual members of any other ethnic, economic, or social group. The probability of parallel voting fluctuates as the blend of political issues affecting the outcome of an election changes from time to time to emphasize one issue, or a few, rather than others, as dominant. The facts that a political group has its own history, has suffered its own special injustices, and has its own congeries of special political interests, do not make one such group different from any other in the eyes of the law. The members of each go to the polls with equal dignity and with an equal right to be protected from invidious discrimination." Cousins v. City Council of Chicago, 466 F. 2d 830, 852 (CA7 1972) (Stevens, J., dissenting).
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