Case Summary
Southern Coalition for Social Justice and a coalition of civil rights groups (The Legal Defense Fund, American Civil Liberties Union, ACLU of South Carolina, and Arnold & Porte) called upon the U.S. Supreme Court as amici curiae to affirm that South Carolina's congressional map is racially gerrymandered, in violation of the 14th Amendment.
In a May 23, 2024 decision, the Supreme Court reversed the trial court's order and held that plaintiffs must provide alternative maps achieving a legislator's partisan objectives in order to prove gerrymandering had racial, instead of partisan, considerations predominating.
Why it's Important
The decision is part of the U.S. Supreme Court case regarding South Carolina's racially gerrymandered congressional map in 2022 that moved hundreds of thousands of South Carolinians to different congressional districts, including moving more than two-thirds of Black Charlestonians out of that one county. By increasing the burden on plaintiffs seeking to prove racial gerrymandering, and ignoring that partisanship can and is a proxy for race in many jurisdictions with extreme racially polarized voting, the Court severely eroded the protections for minority and other historically excluded voters.
