Cite as: 517 U. S. 899 (1996)
Stevens, J., dissenting
of race in order to comply with the Voting Rights Act with intentional racial discrimination reveals the inadequacy of the framework it adopts for considering the constitutionality of race-based districting.
However, even if I were to assume that strict scrutiny applies, and thus that it makes sense to consider the question, I would not share the majority's hesitancy in concluding that North Carolina had a "compelling interest" in drawing District 12. In my view, the record identifies not merely one, but at least three acceptable reasons that may have motivated legislators to favor the creation of two such districts. Those three reasons easily satisfy the judicially created requirement that the state legislature's decision be supported by a "compelling state interest," particularly in a case in which the alleged injury to the disadvantaged class—i. e., the majority of voters who are white—is so tenuous.
First, some legislators felt that the sorry history of race relations in North Carolina in past decades was a sufficient reason for making it easier for more black leaders to participate in the legislative process and to represent the State in the Congress of the United States. 861 F. Supp., at 462-463. Even if that history does not provide the kind of precise guidance that will justify certain specific affirmative-action programs in particular industries, see ante, at 909-910, it surely provides an adequate basis for a decision to facilitate the election of representatives of the previously disadvantaged minority.
As a class, state legislators are far more likely to be familiar with the role that race plays in electoral politics than they are with the role that it plays in hiring decisions within discrete industries. Moreover, given the North Carolina Legislature's own recent experience with voting rights litigation, see Thornburg v. Gingles, 478 U. S. 30 (1986), as well as the fact that 40 of the State's districts are so-called covered jurisdictions which the Attorney General directly moni-
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