Cite as: 521 U. S. 74 (1997)
Opinion of the Court
didates. In 1994, five white voters from the Eleventh District filed suit in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Georgia, alleging a racial gerrymander in the lines of the Eleventh District, in violation of the Equal Protection Clause as interpreted in Shaw v. Reno, 509 U. S. 630 (1993). The District Court panel found the district invalid, with one judge dissenting. Johnson v. Miller, 864 F. Supp. 1354 (1994).
We affirmed. Miller v. Johnson, 515 U. S. 900 (1995).
We rejected appellants' argument that "regardless of the legislature's purposes, a plaintiff must demonstrate that a district's shape is so bizarre that it is unexplainable other than on the basis of race." Id., at 910. We said "the essence of the equal protection claim recognized in Shaw is that the State has used race as a basis for separating voters into districts." Id., at 911. And we explained that "[t]he plaintiff's burden is to show, either through circumstantial evidence of a district's shape and demographics or more direct evidence going to legislative purpose, that race was the predominant factor motivating the legislature's decision to place a signifi-cant number of voters within or without a particular district." Id., at 916.
We upheld two principal findings of the District Court indicating race was the predominant factor in constructing the Eleventh District. First, it was " 'exceedingly obvious' " from the district's contorted shape, together with the relevant racial demographics, that it was designed to bring in black populations. Id., at 917 (quoting 864 F. Supp., at 1375). Second, considerable evidence—including the State's own concessions—showed that the General Assembly was driven by "a predominant, overriding desire" to create three majority-black districts to satisfy the Department of Justice. 515 U. S., at 917. The Justice Department, indeed, " 'would accept nothing less than abject surrender to its maximization agenda.' " Ibid. (quoting 864 F. Supp., at 1366, n. 11).
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