Cite as: 517 U. S. 899 (1996)
Stevens, J., dissenting
Indeed, the principal opinion in Bush v. Vera, post, p. 952, issued this same day, makes clear that the deliberate consideration of race in drawing district lines does not in and of itself invite constitutional suspicion. As the opinion there explains, our precedents do not require the application of strict scrutiny "to all cases of intentional creation of majority-minority districts." Bush, post, at 958. Rather, strict scrutiny should apply only upon a demonstration that " 'race for its own sake, and not other districting principles, was the legislature's dominant and controlling rationale in drawing its district lines.' " Ibid. (quoting Miller, 515 U. S., at 913).
Because "the legitimate consideration of race in a districting decision is usually inevitable under the Voting Rights Act when communities are racially mixed," Shaw I, 509 U. S., at 683 (Souter, J., dissenting), our decisions in Miller, DeWitt, and Bush have quite properly declined to deem all race-based districting subject to strict scrutiny. Unlike many situations in which the consideration of race itself necessarily gives rise to constitutional suspicion, see, e. g., Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U. S. 79 (1986); Adarand Constructors, Inc. v. Peña, 515 U. S. 200 (1995), our precedents have sensibly recognized that in the context of redistricting a plaintiff must demonstrate that race had been used in a particularly determinative manner before strict constitutional scrutiny should obtain. Cf. Regents of Univ. of Cal. v. Bakke, 438 U. S. 265 (1978). This higher threshold for triggering strict scrutiny comports with the fact that the shared representational and stigmatic harms that Shaw purports to guard against are likely to occur only when the State subordinates race-neutral districting principles to a racial goal. See Shaw I, 509 U. S., at 646-649; 861 F. Supp., at 476-478 (Voorhees, C. J., dissenting); Pildes & Niemi, 92 Mich. L. Rev., at 499-524.
Shaw I is entirely consistent with our holdings that race-based districting which respects traditional districting prin-
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