MILLER et al. v. JOHNSON et al.

appeal from the united states district court for the southern district of georgia

No. 94­631. Argued April 19, 1995--Decided June 29, 1995^{Footnote *}

In Shaw v. Reno,  509 U.S. 630, this Court articulated the equal protection principles that govern a State's drawing of congressional districts, noting that laws that explicitly distinguish between individuals on racial grounds fall within the core of the Equal Protection Clause's prohibition against race-based decisionmaking, that this prohibition extends to laws neutral on their face but unexplainable on grounds other than race, and that redistricting legislation that is so bizarre on its face that it is unexplainable on grounds other than race demands the same strict scrutiny given to other state laws that classify citizens by race.

Georgia's most recent congressional districting plan contains three majority-black districts and was adopted after the Justice Department refused to preclear, under § 5 of the Voting Rights Act (Act), two earlier plans that each contained only two majority-black districts.

Appellees, voters in the new Eleventh District--which joins metropolitan black neighborhoods together with the poor black populace of coastal areas 260 miles away-challenged the district on the ground that it was a racial gerrymander in violation of the Equal Protection Clause as interpreted in Shaw.

The District Court agreed, holding that evidence of the state legislature's purpose, as well as the district's irregular borders, showed that race was the overriding and predominant force in the districting determination.

The court assumed that compliance with the Act would be a compelling interest, but found that the plan was not narrowly tailored to meet that interest since the Act did not require three majority-black districts.

Held: Georgia's congressional redistricting plan violates the Equal Protection Clause. Pp. 910­928. (a) Parties alleging that a State has assigned voters on the basis of race are neither confined in their proof to evidence regarding a district's geometry and makeup nor required to make a threshold showing of bizarreness.

A district's shape is relevant to Shaw's equal protection analysis not because bizarreness is a necessary element of the constitu-

tional wrong or a threshold requirement of proof, but because it may be persuasive circumstantial evidence that race for its own sake, and not other districting principles, was a legislature's dominant and controlling rationale in drawing district lines.

In some exceptional cases, a reapportionment plan may be so highly irregular that, on its face, it rationally cannot be understood as anything other than an effort to segregate voters based on race, but where the district is not so bizarre, parties may rely on other evidence to establish race-based districting.

The very stereotypical assumptions the Equal Protection Clause forbids underlie the argument that the Clause's general proscription on race-based decisionmaking does not obtain in the districting context because redistricting involves racial consideration.

While redistricting usually implicates a political calculus in which various interests compete for recognition, it does not follow that individuals of the same race share a single political interest.

Nor can the analysis used to assess the vote dilution claim in United Jewish Organizations of Williamsburgh, Inc. v. Carey, 430 U.S. 144, be applied to resuscitate this argument. Pp. 910­915. (b) Courts must exercise extraordinary caution in adjudicating claims that a State has drawn race-based district lines. The plaintiff must show, whether through circumstantial evidence of a district's shape and demographics or more direct evidence of legislative purpose, that race was the predominant factor motivating the legislature's decision to place a significant number of voters within or without a district.

To make this showing, a plaintiff must prove that the legislature subordinated traditional race-neutral districting principles, including but not limited to compactness, contiguity, respect for political subdivisions or communities defined by actual shared interests, to racial considerations. Pp. 915­917.

(c) The District Court applied the correct analysis here, and its finding that race was the predominant factor motivating the Eleventh District's drawing was not clearly erroneous. It need not be decided whether the district's shape, standing alone, was sufficient to establish that the district is unexplainable on grounds other than race, for there is considerable additional evidence showing that the state legislature was motivated by a predominant, overriding desire to create a third majority-black district in order to comply with the Justice Department's preclearance demands.

The District Court's well-supported finding justified its rejection of the various alternative explanations offered for the district. Appellants cannot refute the claim of racial gerrymandering by arguing the legislature complied with traditional districting principles, since those factors were subordinated to racial objectives. Nor are there tangible communities of interest spanning the district's hundreds of miles that can be called upon to rescue the plan. Since race

was the predominant, overriding factor behind the Eleventh District's drawing, the State's plan is subject to strict scrutiny and can be sustained only if it is narrowly tailored to achieve a compelling state interest.

Pp. 917­920. (d) While there is a significant state interest in eradicating the effects of past racial discrimination, there is little doubt that Georgia's true interest was to satisfy the Justice Department's preclearance demands. Even if compliance with the Act, standing alone, could provide a compelling interest, it cannot do so here, where the district was not reasonably necessary under a constitutional reading and application of the Act.

To say that the plan was required in order to obtain preclearance is not to say that it was required by the Act's substantive requirements. Georgia's two earlier plans were ameliorative and could not have violated § 5 unless they so discriminated on the basis of race or color as to violate the Constitution.

However, instead of grounding its objections on evidence of a discriminatory purpose, the Justice Department appears to have been driven by its maximization policy. In utilizing § 5 to require States to create majority-minority districts whenever possible, the Department expanded its statutory authority beyond Congress' intent for § 5: to insure that no voting-procedure changes would be made that would lead to a retrogression in the position of racial minorities with respect to their effective exercise of the electoral franchise.

The policy also raises serious constitutional concerns because its implicit command that States may engage in presumptive unconstitutional race-based districting brings the Act, once upheld as a proper exercise of Congress' Fifteenth Amendment authority, into tension with the Fourteenth Amendment.

Pp. 920­927.

864 F. Supp. 1354, affirmed and remanded.

delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Rehnquist, Kennedy, J., C. J., and O'Connor, Scalia, and Thomas, JJ., joined. filed O'Connor, J., a concurring opinion, post, p. 928. filed a dissenting opinion, Stevens, J., post, p. 929. filed a dissenting opinion, in which Stevens Ginsburg, J., and Breyer, JJ., joined, and in which Souter, J., joined except as to Part III­B, post, p. 934.

David F. Walbert, Special Assistant Attorney General of Georgia, argued the cause for the state and private appellants. With him on the briefs for appellants Miller et al. were Michael J. Bowers, Attorney General, and Dennis R.Dunn, Senior Assistant Attorney General. Solicitor General Days argued the cause for the United States. With

him on the briefs were Assistant Attorney General Patrick,Deputy Solicitor General Bender, James A. Feldman, Ste-ven H. Rosenbaum, and Miriam R. Eisenstein.

Laughlin McDonald, Neil Bradley, Elaine R. Jones, Theodore M.Shaw, Norman J. Chachkin, Jacqueline A. Berrien, and Gerald R. Weber filed briefs for appellants Abrams et al.

A. Lee Parks argued the cause for appellees. With him on the brief was Larry H. Chesin.

delivered the opinion of the Court. Justice Kennedy

The constitutionality of Georgia's congressional redistricting plan is at issue here. In Shaw v. Reno,  509 U.S. 630 (1993), we held that a plaintiff states a claim under the Equal Protection Clause by alleging that a state redistricting plan, on its face, has no rational explanation save as an effort to separate voters on the basis of race.

The question we now decide is whether Georgia's new Eleventh District gives rise to a valid equal protection claim under the principles an-

nounced in Shaw, and, if so, whether it can be sustained nonetheless as narrowly tailored to serve a compelling governmental interest.

I

A

The Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment provides that no State shall "deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." U. S.

Const., Amdt. 14, § 1. Its central mandate is racial neutrality in governmental decisionmaking. See, e. g., Loving v.

Virginia,  388 U.S. 1, 11 (1967); McLaughlin v. Florida,  379 U.S. 184, 191­192 (1964); see also Brown v. Board of Educa-tion,  347 U.S. 483 (1954).

Though application of this imperative raises difficult questions, the basic principle is straightforward: "Racial and ethnic distinctions of any sort are inherently suspect and thus call for the most exacting judicial examination. . . . This perception of racial and ethnic distinctions is rooted in our Nation's constitutional and demographic history."

Regents of Univ. of Cal. v. Bakke,  438 U.S. 265, 291 (1978) (opinion of Powell, J.). This rule obtains with equal force regardless of "the race of those burdened or benefited by a particular classification." Richmond v.

J. A. Croson Co.,  488 U.S. 469, 494 (1989) (plurality opinion) (citations omitted); id., at 520 (Scalia, J., concurring in judgment) ("I agree . . . with Justice O'Connor's conclusion that strict scrutiny must be applied to all governmental classification by race"); see also Adarand Constructors, Inc. v. Pen~a, ante, at 224; Bakke, supra, at 289­291 (opinion of Powell, J.).

Laws classifying citizens on the basis of race cannot be upheld unless they are narrowly tailored to achieving a compelling state interest. See, e. g., Adarand, ante, at 227; Croson, supra, at 494 (plurality opinion); Wygant v. JacksonBd. of Ed.,  476 U.S. 267, 274, 280, and n. 6 (1986) (plurality opinion).

In Shaw v. Reno, supra, we recognized that these equal protection principles govern a State's drawing of congressional districts, though, as our cautious approach there discloses, application of these principles to electoral districting is a most delicate task.

Our analysis began from the premise that "[l]aws that explicitly distinguish between individuals on racial grounds fall within the core of [the Equal Protection Clause's] prohibition."

Id., at 642. This prohibition extends not just to explicit racial classifications, but also to laws neutral on their face but " `unexplainable on grounds other than race.' "

Id., at 644 (quoting Arlington Heights v.

Metropolitan Housing Development Corp.,  429 U.S. 252, 266 (1977)). Applying this basic equal protection analysis in the voting rights context, we held that "redistricting legislation that is so bizarre on its face that it is `unexplainable on grounds other than race,' . . . demands the same close scrutiny that we give other state laws that classify citizens by race."

509 U. S., at 644 (quoting Arlington Heights, supra, at 266). This litigation requires us to apply the principles articulated in Shaw to the most recent congressional redistricting plan enacted by the State of Georgia.

B

In 1965, the Attorney General designated Georgia a covered jurisdiction under § 4(b) of the Voting Rights Act (Act), 79 Stat. 438, as amended, 42 U. S. C. § 1973b(b). 30 Fed.

Reg. 9897 (1965); see 28 CFR pt. 51, App.; see also City ofRome v. United States,  446 U.S. 156, 161 (1980). In consequence, § 5 of the Act requires Georgia to obtain either administrative preclearance by the Attorney General or approval by the United States District Court for the District of Columbia of any change in a "standard, practice, or procedure with respect to voting" made after November 1, 1964. 42 U. S. C. § 1973c.

The preclearance mechanism applies to

congressional redistricting plans, see, e. g., Beer v. UnitedStates,  425 U.S. 130, 133 (1976), and requires that the proposed change "not have the purpose and will not have the effect of denying or abridging the right to vote on account of race or color."

42 U. S. C. § 1973c. "[T]he purpose of § 5 has always been to insure that no voting-procedure changes would be made that would lead to a retrogression in the position of racial minorities with respect to their effective exercise of the electoral franchise."

Beer, supra, at 141. Between 1980 and 1990, one of Georgia's 10 congressional districts was a majority-black district, that is, a majority of the district's voters were black. The 1990 Decennial Census indicated that Georgia's population of 6,478,216 persons, 27% of whom are black, entitled it to an additional eleventh congressional seat, App. 9, prompting Georgia's General Assembly to redraw the State's congressional districts.

Both the House and the Senate adopted redistricting guidelines which, among other things, required single-member districts of equal population, contiguous geography, nondilution of minority voting strength, fidelity to precinct lines where possible, and compliance with §§ 2 and 5 of the Act, 42 U. S. C. §§ 1973, 1973c.

See App. 11­12. Only after these requirements were met did the guidelines permit drafters to consider other ends, such as maintaining the integrity of political subdivisions, preserving the core of existing districts, and avoiding contests between incumbents.

Id., at 12. A special session opened in August 1991, and the General Assembly submitted a congressional redistricting plan to the Attorney General for preclearance on October 1, 1991. The legislature's plan contained two majority-minority districts, the Fifth and Eleventh, and an additional district, the Second, in which blacks comprised just over 35% of the voting age population.

Despite the plan's increase in the number of majority-black districts from one to two and the absence of any evidence of an intent to discriminate against minority voters, 864 F. Supp. 1354, 1363, and n. 7 (SD Ga. 1994), the

Department of Justice refused preclearance on January 21, 1992. App. 99­107. The Department's objection letter noted a concern that Georgia had created only two majorityminority districts, and that the proposed plan did not "recognize" certain minority populations by placing them in a majority-black district.

Id., at 105, 105­106. The General Assembly returned to the drawing board. A new plan was enacted and submitted for preclearance. This second attempt assigned the black population in Central Georgia's Baldwin County to the Eleventh District and increased the black populations in the Eleventh, Fifth, and Second Districts.

The Justice Department refused preclearance again, relying on alternative plans proposing three majority-minority districts. Id., at 120­126. One of the alternative schemes relied on by the Department was the so-called "max-black" plan, 864 F. Supp., at 1360, 1362­1363, drafted by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) for the General Assembly's black caucus.

The key to the ACLU's plan was the "Macon/Savannah trade." The dense black population in the Macon region would be transferred from the Eleventh District to the Second, converting the Second into a majority-black district, and the Eleventh District's loss in black population would be offset by extending the Eleventh to include the black populations in Savannah. Id., at 1365­1366.

Pointing to the General Assembly's refusal to enact the Macon/Savannah swap into law, the Justice Department concluded that Georgia had "failed to explain adequately" its failure to create a third majority-minority district.

App. 125. The State did not seek a declaratory judgment from the District Court for the District of Columbia. 864 F. Supp., at 1366, n. 11. Twice spurned, the General Assembly set out to create three majority-minority districts to gain preclearance. Id., at 1366. Using the ACLU's "max-black" plan as its benchmark, id., at 1366­1367, the General Assembly enacted a plan that

"bore all the signs of [the Justice Department's] involvement: The black population of Meriwether County was gouged out of the Third District and attached to the Second District by the narrowest of land bridges; Effingham and Chatham Counties were split to make way for the Savannah extension, which itself split the City of Savannah; and the plan as a whole split 26 counties, 23 more than the existing congressional districts."

Id., at 1367.

See Appendix A, infra, following p. 928. The new plan also enacted the Macon/Savannah swap necessary to create a third majority-black district. The Eleventh District lost the black population of Macon, but picked up Savannah, thereby connecting the black neighborhoods of metropolitan Atlanta and the poor black populace of coastal Chatham County, though 260 miles apart in distance and worlds apart in culture.

In short, the social, political, and economic makeup of the Eleventh District tells a tale of disparity, not community. See 864 F. Supp., at 1376­1377, 1389­1390; Plaintiff 's Exh. No. 85, pp. 10­27 (report of Timothy G. O'Rourke, Ph.D.). As the appendices to this opinion attest,

"[t]he populations of the Eleventh are centered around four discrete, widely spaced urban centers that have absolutely nothing to do with each other, and stretch the district hundreds of miles across rural counties and narrow swamp corridors."

864 F. Supp., at 1389 (footnote omitted).

"The dense population centers of the approved Eleventh District were all majority-black, all at the periphery of the district, and in the case of Atlanta, Augusta and Savannah, all tied to a sparsely populated rural core by even less populated land bridges.

Extending from Atlanta to the Atlantic, the Eleventh covered 6,784.2 square miles, splitting eight counties and five municipalities along the way."

Id., at 1367 (footnote omitted).

The Almanac of American Politics has this to say about the Eleventh District: "Geographically, it is a monstrosity, stretching from Atlanta to Savannah.

Its core is the plantation country in the center of the state, lightly populated, but heavily black. It links by narrow corridors the black neighborhoods in Augusta, Savannah and southern DeKalb County." M. Barone & G. Ujifusa, Almanac of American Politics 356 (1994). Georgia's plan included three majorityblack districts, though, and received Justice Department preclearance on April 2, 1992. Plaintiff 's Exh. No. 6; see 864 F. Supp., at 1367. Elections were held under the new congressional redistricting plan on November 4, 1992, and black candidates were elected to Congress from all three majority-black districts. Id., at 1369.

On January 13, 1994, appellees, five white voters from the Eleventh District, filed this action against various state officials (Miller Appellants) in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Georgia.

Id., at 1369, 1370. As residents of the challenged Eleventh District, all appellees had standing. See United States v. Hays, ante, at 744­745. Their suit alleged that Georgia's Eleventh District was a racial gerrymander and so a violation of the Equal Protection Clause as interpreted in Shaw v. Reno. A three-judge court was convened pursuant to 28 U. S. C. § 2284, and the United States and a number of Georgia residents intervened in support of the defendant-state officials.

A majority of the District Court panel agreed that the Eleventh District was invalid under Shaw, with one judge dissenting. 864 F. Supp. 1354 (1994). After sharp criticism of the Justice Department for its use of partisan advocates in its dealings with state officials and for its close cooperation with the ACLU's vigorous advocacy of minority district maximization, the majority turned to a careful interpretation of our opinion in Shaw.

It read Shaw to require strict scrutiny whenever race is the "overriding, predominant force" in the redistricting process. 864 F. Supp., at

1372 (emphasis deleted). Citing much evidence of the legislature's purpose and intent in creating the final plan, as well as the irregular shape of the district (in particular several appendages drawn for the obvious purpose of putting black populations into the district), the court found that race was the overriding and predominant force in the districting determination.

Id., at 1378. The court proceeded to apply strict scrutiny. Though rejecting proportional representation as a compelling interest, it was willing to assume that compliance with the Act would be a compelling interest. Id., at 1381­1382.

As to the latter, however, the court found that the Act did not require three majority-black districts, and that Georgia's plan for that reason was not narrowly tailored to the goal of complying with the Act.

Id., at 1392­1393. Appellants filed notices of appeal and requested a stay of the District Court's judgment, which we granted pending the filing and disposition of the appeals in this litigation, Millerv. Johnson, 512 U. S. 1283 (1994).

We later noted probable jurisdiction. 513 U. S. 1071 (1995); see 28 U. S. C. § 1253.

II

A

Finding that the "evidence of the General Assembly's intent to racially gerrymander the Eleventh District is overwhelming, and practically stipulated by the parties involved," the District Court held that race was the predominant, overriding factor in drawing the Eleventh District.

864 F. Supp., at 1374; see id., at 1374­1378. Appellants do not take issue with the court's factual finding of this racial motivation. Rather, they contend that evidence of a legislature's deliberate classification of voters on the basis of race cannot alone suffice to state a claim under Shaw. They argue 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, and that

appellees failed to make that showing here. Appellants' conception of the constitutional violation misapprehends our holding in Shaw and the equal protection precedent upon which Shaw relied.

Shaw recognized a claim "analytically distinct" from a vote dilution claim. 509 U. S., at 652; see id., at 649­650.

Whereas a vote dilution claim alleges that the State has enacted a particular voting scheme as a purposeful device "to minimize or cancel out the voting potential of racial or ethnic minorities," Mobile v. Bolden,  446 U.S. 55, 66 (1980) (citing cases), an action disadvantaging voters of a particular race, 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.

Just as the State may not, absent extraordinary justification, segregate citizens on the basis of race in its public parks, New Orleans City Park Improve-ment Assn. v. Detiege,  358 U.S. 54 (1958) (per curiam),buses, Gayle v. Browder, 352 U. S. 903 (1956) (per curiam),golf courses, Holmes v. Atlanta, 350 U. S. 879 (1955) (percuriam), beaches, Mayor of Baltimore v. Dawson, 350 U. S. 877 (1955) (per curiam), and schools, Brown v. Board of Ed-ucation,  347 U.S. 483 (1954), so did we recognize in Shawthat it may not separate its citizens into different voting districts on the basis of race.

The idea is a simple one: "At the heart of the Constitution's guarantee of equal protection lies the simple command that the Government must treat citizens `as individuals, not "as simply components of a racial, religious, sexual or national class." ' "

Metro Broadcasting, Inc. v. FCC,  497 U.S. 547, 602 (1990) (O'Connor, J., dissenting) (quoting Arizona Governing Comm. for Tax Deferred Annu-ity and Deferred Compensation Plans v. Norris,  463 U.S. 1073, 1083 (1983)); cf. Northeastern Fla. Chapter, AssociatedGen. Contractors of America v. Jacksonville,  508 U.S. 656, 666 (1993) (" `injury in fact' " was "denial of equal treatment . . . , not the ultimate inability to obtain the benefit").

When the State assigns voters on the basis of race, it engages in

the offensive and demeaning assumption that voters of a particular race, because of their race, "think alike, share the same political interests, and will prefer the same candidates at the polls."

Shaw, supra, at 647; see Metro Broadcasting, supra, at 636 (Kennedy, J., dissenting). Race-based assignments "embody stereotypes that treat individuals as the product of their race, evaluating their thoughts and efforts-their very worth as citizens--according to a criterion barred to the Government by history and the Constitution."

Metro Broadcasting, supra, at 604 (O'Connor, J., dissenting) (citation omitted); see Powers v. Ohio,  499 U.S. 400, 410 (1991) ("Race cannot be a proxy for determining juror bias or competence"); Palmore v. Sidoti,  466 U.S. 429, 432 (1984) ("Classifying persons according to their race is more likely to reflect racial prejudice than legitimate public concerns; the race, not the person, dictates the category").

They also cause society serious harm. As we concluded in Shaw:

"Racial classifications with respect to voting carry particular dangers. Racial gerrymandering, even for remedial purposes, may balkanize us into competing racial factions; it threatens to carry us further from the goal of a political system in which race no longer matters-a goal that the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments embody, and to which the Nation continues to aspire. It is for these reasons that race-based districting by our state legislatures demands close judicial scrutiny." Shaw, supra, at 657.

Our observation in Shaw of the consequences of racial stereotyping was not meant to suggest that a district must be bizarre on its face before there is a constitutional violation. Nor was our conclusion in Shaw that in certain instances a district's appearance (or, to be more precise, its appearance in combination with certain demographic evidence) can give rise to an equal protection claim, 509 U. S., at 649, a holding that bizarreness was a threshold showing, as appellants be-

lieve it to be. Our circumspect approach and narrow holding in Shaw did not erect an artificial rule barring accepted equal protection analysis in other redistricting cases. Shape is relevant not because bizarreness is a necessary element of the constitutional wrong or a threshold requirement of proof, but because it may be persuasive circumstantial evidence that race for its own sake, and not other districting principles, was the legislature's dominant and controlling rationale in drawing its district lines.

The logical implication, as courts applying Shaw have recognized, is that parties may rely on evidence other than bizarreness to establish racebased districting.

See Shaw v. Hunt, 861 F. Supp. 408, 431 (EDNC 1994); Hays v. Louisiana, 839 F. Supp. 1188, 1195 (WD La. 1993), vacated, 512 U. S. 1230 (1994); but see DeWittv. Wilson, 856 F. Supp. 1409, 1413 (ED Cal. 1994).

Our reasoning in Shaw compels this conclusion. We recognized in Shaw that, outside the districting context, statutes are subject to strict scrutiny under the Equal Protection Clause not just when they contain express racial classifications, but also when, though race neutral on their face, they are motivated by a racial purpose or object.

509

U. S., at 644. In the rare case, where the effect of government action is a pattern " `unexplainable on grounds other than race,' " ibid. (quoting Arlington Heights, 429 U. S., at 266), "[t]he evidentiary inquiry is . . . relatively easy," Arling-ton Heights, supra, at 266 (footnote omitted).

As early as Yick Wo v. Hopkins,  118 U.S. 356 (1886), the Court recognized that a laundry permit ordinance was administered in a deliberate way to exclude all Chinese from the laundry business; and in Gomillion v. Lightfoot,  364 U.S. 339 (1960), the Court concluded that the redrawing of Tuskegee, Alabama's municipal boundaries left no doubt that the plan was designed to exclude blacks.

Even in those cases, however, it was the presumed racial purpose of state action, not its stark manifestation, that was the constitutional violation. Patterns of discrimination as conspicuous as these are rare, and

are not a necessary predicate to a violation of the Equal Protection Clause. Cf. Arlington Heights, supra, at 266, n. 14.

In the absence of a pattern as stark as those in Yick Wo or Gomillion, "impact alone is not determinative, and the Court must look to other evidence" of race-based decisionmaking. Arlington Heights, supra, at 266 (footnotes omitted).

Shaw applied these same principles to redistricting. "In some exceptional cases, a reapportionment plan may be so highly irregular that, on its face, it rationally cannot be understood as anything other than an effort to `segregat[e] . . . voters' on the basis of race."

Shaw, supra, at 646­647 (quoting Gomillion, supra, at 341). In other cases, where the district is not so bizarre on its face that it discloses a racial design, the proof will be more "difficul[t]." 509 U. S., at 646.

Although it was not necessary in Shaw to consider further the proof required in these more difficult cases, the logical import of our reasoning is that evidence other than a district's bizarre shape can be used to support the claim.

Appellants and some of their amici argue that the Equal Protection Clause's general proscription on race-based decisionmaking does not obtain in the districting context because redistricting by definition involves racial considerations. Underlying their argument are the very stereotypical assumptions the Equal Protection Clause forbids.

It is true that redistricting in most cases will implicate a political calculus in which various interests compete for recognition, but it does not follow from this that individuals of the same race share a single political interest.

The view that they do is "based on the demeaning notion that members of the defined racial groups ascribe to certain `minority views' that must be different from those of other citizens," Metro Broadcast-ing, 497 U. S., at 636 (Kennedy, J., dissenting), the precise use of race as a proxy the Constitution prohibits.

Nor can the argument that districting cases are excepted from standard equal protection precepts be resuscitated by United Jew-ish Organizations of Williamsburgh, Inc. v. Carey, 430 U. S.

144 (1977), where the Court addressed a claim that New York violated the Constitution by splitting a Hasidic Jewish community in order to include additional majority-minority districts.

As we explained in Shaw, a majority of the Justices in UJO construed the complaint as stating a vote dilution claim, so their analysis does not apply to a claim that the State has separated voters on the basis of race.

509 U. S., at 652. To the extent any of the opinions in that "highly fractured decision," id., at 651, can be interpreted as suggesting that a State's assignment of voters on the basis of race would be subject to anything but our strictest scrutiny, those views ought not be deemed controlling.

In sum, we make clear that parties alleging that a State has assigned voters on the basis of race are neither confined in their proof to evidence regarding the district's geometry and makeup nor required to make a threshold showing of bizarreness.

Today's litigation requires us further to consider the requirements of the proof necessary to sustain this equal protection challenge.

B

Federal-court review of districting legislation represents a serious intrusion on the most vital of local functions. It is well settled that "reapportionment is primarily the duty and responsibility of the State." Chapman v. Meier,  420 U.S. 1, 27 (1975); see, e. g., Voinovich v. Quilter,  507 U.S. 146, 156­157 (1993); Growe v. Emison,  507 U.S. 25, 34 (1993). Electoral districting is a most difficult subject for legislatures, and so the States must have discretion to exercise the political judgment necessary to balance competing interests. Although race-based decisionmaking is inherently suspect, e. g., Adarand, ante, at 218 (citing Bakke, 438 U. S., at 291 (opinion of Powell, J.)), until a claimant makes a showing sufficient to support that allegation the good faith of a state legislature must be presumed, see id., at 318­319 (opinion of Powell, J.).

The courts, in assessing the sufficiency of a challenge to a districting plan, must be sensitive to the com-

plex interplay of forces that enter a legislature's redistricting calculus. Redistricting legislatures will, for example, almost always be aware of racial demographics; but it does not follow that race predominates in the redistricting process. Shaw, supra, at 646; see Personnel Administrator of Mass.v. Feeney,  442 U.S. 256, 279 (1979) (" `[D]iscriminatory' purpose' . . . implies more than intent as volition or intent as awareness of consequences.

It implies that the decisionmaker . . . selected or reaffirmed a particular course of action at least in part `because of,' not merely `in spite of,' its adverse effects") (footnotes and citation omitted).

The distinction between being aware of racial considerations and being motivated by them may be difficult to make. This evidentiary difficulty, together with the sensitive nature of redistricting and the presumption of good faith that must be accorded legislative enactments, requires courts to exercise extraordinary caution in adjudicating claims that a State has drawn district lines on the basis of race.

The 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 significant number of voters within or without a particular district. To make this showing, a plaintiff must prove that the legislature subordinated traditional race-neutral districting principles, including but not limited to compactness, contiguity, and respect for political subdivisions or communities defined by actual shared interests, to racial considerations.

Where these or other race-neutral considerations are the basis for redistricting legislation, and are not subordinated to race, a State can "defeat a claim that a district has been gerrymandered on racial lines."

Shaw, supra, at 647. These principles inform the plaintiff 's burden of proof at trial. Of course, courts must also recognize these principles, and the intrusive potential of judicial intervention into the legislative realm, when assessing under the Federal Rules of Civil

Procedure the adequacy of a plaintiff 's showing at the various stages of litigation and determining whether to permit discovery or trial to proceed.

See, e. g., Fed. Rules Civ.

Proc. 12(b) and (e), 26(b)(2), 56; see also Celotex Corp. v. Catrett,  477 U.S. 317, 327 (1986).

In our view, the District Court applied the correct analysis, and its finding that race was the predominant factor motivating the drawing of the Eleventh District was not clearly erroneous.

The court found it was "exceedingly obvious" from the shape of the Eleventh District, together with the relevant racial demographics, that the drawing of narrow land bridges to incorporate within the district outlying appendages containing nearly 80% of the district's total black population was a deliberate attempt to bring black populations into the district.

864 F. Supp., at 1375; see id., at 1374­ 1376. Although by comparison with other districts the geometric shape of the Eleventh District may not seem bizarre on its face, when its shape is considered in conjunction with its racial and population densities, the story of racial gerrymandering seen by the District Court becomes much clearer. See Appendix B, infra, following p. 928; see also App. 133. Although this evidence is quite compelling, we need not determine whether it was, standing alone, sufficient to establish a Shaw claim that the Eleventh District is unexplainable other than by race.

The District Court had before it considerable additional evidence showing that the General Assembly was motivated by a predominant, overriding desire to assign black populations to the Eleventh District and thereby permit the creation of a third majority-black district in the Second.

864 F. Supp., at 1372, 1378. The court found that "it became obvious," both from the Justice Department's objection letters and the three preclearance rounds in general, "that [the Justice Department] would accept nothing less than abject surrender to its maximization agenda."

Id., at 1366, n. 11; see id., at 1360­1367; see also Arlington Heights, 429 U. S., at 267 ("historical

background of the decision is one evidentiary source"). It further found that the General Assembly acquiesced and as a consequence was driven by its overriding desire to comply with the Department's maximization demands.

The court supported its conclusion not just with the testimony of Linda Meggers, the operator of "Herschel," Georgia's reapportionment computer, and "probably the most knowledgeable person available on the subject of Georgian redistricting," 864 F. Supp., at 1361, 1363, n. 6, 1366, but also with the State's own concessions.

The State admitted that it " `would not have added those portions of Effingham and Chatham Counties that are now in the [far southeastern extension of the] present Eleventh Congressional District but for the need to include additional black population in that district to offset the loss of black population caused by the shift of predominantly black portions of Bibb County in the Second Congressional District which occurred in response to the Department of Justice's March 20th, 1992, objection letter.' "

Id., at 1377.

It conceded further that "[t]o the extent that precincts in the Eleventh Congressional District are split, a substantial reason for their being split was the objective of increasing the black population of that district."

Ibid. And in its brief to this Court, the State concedes that "[i]t is undisputed that Georgia's eleventh is the product of a desire by the General Assembly to create a majority black district."

Brief for Miller Appellants 30. Hence the trial court had little difficulty concluding that the Justice Department "spent months demanding purely race-based revisions to Georgia's redistricting plans, and that Georgia spent months attempting to comply."

864 F. Supp., at 1377. On this record, we fail to see how the District Court could have reached any conclusion other than that race was the predominant factor in drawing Georgia's Eleventh District; and in any event we conclude the court's finding is not clearly erroneous.

Cf.

Wright v. Rockefeller,  376 U.S. 52, 56­57 (1964) (evidence presented "conflicting inferences" and therefore "failed to

prove that the New York Legislature was either motivated by racial considerations or in fact drew the districts on racial lines").

In light of its well-supported finding, the District Court was justified in rejecting the various alternative explanations offered for the district. Although a legislature's compliance with "traditional districting principles such as compactness, contiguity, and respect for political subdivisions" may well suffice to refute a claim of racial gerrymandering, Shaw, 509 U. S., at 647, appellants cannot make such a refutation where, as here, those factors were subordinated to racial objectives.

Georgia's Attorney General objected to the Justice Department's demand for three majority-black districts on the ground that to do so the State would have to "violate all reasonable standards of compactness and contiguity." App. 118.

This statement from a state official is powerful evidence that the legislature subordinated traditional districting principles to race when it ultimately enacted a plan creating three majority-black districts, and justified the District Court's finding that "every [objective districting] factor that could realistically be subordinated to racial tinkering in fact suffered that fate."

864 F. Supp., at 1384; see id., at 1364, n. 8; id., at 1375 ("While the boundaries of the Eleventh do indeed follow many precinct lines, this is because Ms. Meggers designed the Eleventh District along racial lines, and race data was most accessible to her at the precinct level").

Nor can the State's districting legislation be rescued by mere recitation of purported communities of interest. The evidence was compelling "that there are no tangible `communities of interest' spanning the hundreds of miles of the Eleventh District."

Id., at 1389­1390. A comprehensive report demonstrated the fractured political, social, and economic interests within the Eleventh District's black population. See Plaintiff 's Exh. No. 85, pp. 10­27 (report of Timothy G. O'Rourke, Ph.D.).

It is apparent that it was not alleged

shared interests but rather the object of maximizing the district's black population and obtaining Justice Department approval that in fact explained the General Assembly's actions.

864 F. Supp., at 1366, 1378, 1380. A State is free to recognize communities that have a particular racial makeup, provided its action is directed toward some common thread of relevant interests.

"[W]hen members of a racial group live together in one community, a reapportionment plan that concentrates members of the group in one district and excludes them from others may reflect wholly legitimate purposes."

Shaw, 509 U. S., at 646. But where the State assumes from a group of voters' race that they "think alike, share the same political interests, and will prefer the same candidates at the polls," it engages in racial stereotyping at odds with equal protection mandates.

Id., at 647; cf. Powers v. Ohio,  499 U.S. 400, 410 (1991) ("We may not accept as a defense to racial discrimination the very stereotype the law condemns").

Race was, as the District Court found, the predominant, overriding factor explaining the General Assembly's decision to attach to the Eleventh District various appendages containing dense majority-black populations.

864 F. Supp., at 1372, 1378. As a result, Georgia's congressional redistricting plan cannot be upheld unless it satisfies strict scrutiny, our most rigorous and exacting standard of constitutional review.

III

To satisfy strict scrutiny, the State must demonstrate that its districting legislation is narrowly tailored to achieve a compelling interest. Shaw, supra, at 653­657; see also Croson, 488 U. S., at 494 (plurality opinion); Wygant, 476 U. S., at 274, 280, and n. 6 (plurality opinion); cf. Adarand, ante, at 227.

There is a "significant state interest in eradicating the effects of past racial discrimination." Shaw, supra, at 656.

The State does not argue, however, that it created the Eleventh District to remedy past discrimination, and with good

reason: There is little doubt that the State's true interest in designing the Eleventh District was creating a third majority-black district to satisfy the Justice Department's preclearance demands.

864 F. Supp., at 1378 ("[T]he only interest the General Assembly had in mind when drafting the current congressional plan was satisfying [the Justice Department's] preclearance requirements"); id., at 1366; compare Wygant, supra, at 277 (plurality opinion) (under strict scrutiny, State must have convincing evidence that remedial action is necessary before implementing affirmative action), with Heller v. Doe,  509 U.S. 312, 320 (1993) (under rationalbasis review, legislature nee