Cite as: 517 U. S. 952 (1996)
Souter, J., dissenting
incumbents) when the racial composition of a district and voter behavior bar any practical chance of separating them. The incongruities of Shaw's concept of injury when considered in light of our customary equal protection analysis, our remedial practice, and traditional respect for state districting discretion would, of course, persist, but if Shaw were defined by measures that identified forbidden shape as the manifestation of unreasonable racial emphasis, we would at least provide the notice and guidance that are missing from the law today.
The other alternative for retaining a Shaw cause of action in some guise would be to accept the fact that, in the kind of polarized multiracial societies that will generate Shaw actions as presently understood, racial considerations are inseparable from many traditional districting objectives, making it impossible to speak of race as predominating. The consequence of facing this reality is that if some consideration of race is to be forbidden as supposedly unreasonable in degree, then the use of districting principles that implicate the use of race must be forbidden. That is, traditional districting practices must be eliminated. Such a result would, of course, be consistent with Shaw I 's concept of injury as affecting voters of whatever race. But cf. Valley Forge Christian College v. Americans United for Separation of Church and State, Inc., 454 U. S. 464, 489 (1982) (fact that some expressive harms are insufficient to satisfy Article III standing requirements does not allow for relaxation of those requirements). The result, in short, would be colorblindness in determining the manner of choosing representatives, either by eliminating the practice of districting entirely, or by replacing it with districting on some principle of randomness that would not account for race in any way.
While such is the direction in which Shaw and Miller together point, the objections to following any such course seem insurmountable. The first is the irony that the price
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