932
Stevens, J., dissenting
ciples does not give rise to constitutional suspicion. As the District Court noted, Shaw I expressly reserved the question whether " 'the intentional creation of majority-minority districts, without more,' always gives rise to an equal protection claim." 861 F. Supp., at 429 (quoting Shaw I, 509 U. S., at 649). Shaw I held only that an equal protection claim could lie as a result of allegations suggesting that the State's districting was "so extremely irregular on its face that it rationally can be viewed only as an effort to segregate the races for purposes of voting, without regard for traditional districting principles." Id., at 642 (emphasis added).
Moreover, Miller belies the conclusion that strict scrutiny must apply to all deliberate attempts to draw majority-minority districts if the Equal Protection Clause is to provide any practical limitation on a State's power to engage in race-based districting. Although Georgia argued that it had complied with traditional districting principles, the Miller majority had little difficulty concluding that the State's race-neutral explanations were implausible. Miller v. Johnson, 515 U. S. 900 (1995).7 Thus, Miller demonstrates that although States may avoid strict scrutiny by complying with traditional districting principles, they may not do so by proffering pretextual, race-neutral explanations for their maps.
The notion that conscientious federal judges will be able to distinguish race-neutral explanations from pretextual ones is hardly foreign to our race discrimination jurisprudence. In a variety of contexts, from employment to juror selection, we have required plaintiffs to demonstrate not only that a
7 For example, the State argued that it drew the majority-minority district under review so that it would follow precinct lines, but the Court found that precinct lines had been relied on only because they happened to facilitate the State's effort to achieve a particular racial makeup. Similarly, the State argued that District 11 was drawn in order to ensure that communities of interest would be kept within a single district, but the Court found that no such communities could be found within the district's boundaries. See Miller v. Johnson, 515 U. S., at 918-920.
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