Shaw v. Reno

Common card · No. 340859

Shaw v. Reno, 509 U.S. 630 (1993), was a landmark United States Supreme Court case in the area of redistricting and racial gerrymandering. After the 1990 census, North Carolina qualified to have a 12th district and drew it in a distinct snake-like manner to create a "majority-minority" Black district. From there, Ruth O. Shaw sued to challenge this proposed plan with the argument that this 12th district was unconstitutional and violated the Fourteenth Amendment under the Equal Protection Clause. In contrast, Janet Reno, the Attorney General, argued that the district would allow for minority groups to have a voice in elections. In the decision, the court ruled in a 5–4 majority that redistricting based on race must be held to a standard of strict scrutiny under the Equal Protection Clause and on the basis that it violated the Fourteenth Amendment because it was drawn solely based on race. Shaw was an influential precedent in later voting rights cases, including Bush v. Vera and Miller v...

Read on Wikipedia