Cite as: 528 U. S. 495 (2000)
Stevens, J., dissenting
Section 1 of the Fifteenth Amendment provides:
"The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude." U. S. Const., Amdt. 15.
As the majority itself must tacitly admit, ante, at 513-514, the terms of the Amendment itself do not here apply. The OHA voter qualification speaks in terms of ancestry and current residence, not of race or color. OHA trustee voters must be "Hawaiian," meaning "any descendant of the aboriginal peoples inhabiting the Hawaiian Islands which exercised sovereignty and subsisted in the Hawaiian Islands in 1778, and which peoples have thereafter continued to reside in Hawaii." Haw. Rev. Stat. § 10-2 (1993). The ability to vote is a function of the lineal descent of a modern-day resident of Hawaii, not the blood-based characteristics of that resident, or of the blood-based proximity of that resident to the "peoples" from whom that descendant arises.
The distinction between ancestry and race is more than simply one of plain language. The ability to trace one's ancestry to a particular progenitor at a single distant point in time may convey no information about one's own apparent or acknowledged race today. Neither does it of necessity imply one's own identification with a particular race, or the exclusion of any others "on account of race." The terms manifestly carry distinct meanings, and ancestry was not included by the Framers in the Amendment's prohibitions.
Presumably recognizing this distinction, the majority relies on the fact that "[a]ncestry can be a proxy for race." Ante, at 514. That is, of course, true, but it by no means
race. Even where, unlike here, blood quantum requirements are express, this Court has repeatedly acknowledged that an overlapping political interest predominates. It is only by refusing to face this Court's entire body of Indian law, see ante, at 511-512, that the majority is able to hold that the OHA qualification denies non-"Hawaiians" the right to vote "on account of race."
539
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