Harvard Law professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz stated on Newsmax Wednesday that he anticipates the Supreme Court will move away from using race as a central factor in redistricting decisions.
Dershowitz’s prediction followed the Supreme Court’s Wednesday hearing of arguments in a key case concerning whether the Voting Rights Act can still compel states to draw congressional districts favorable to minority voters.
Appearing on “The Record with Greta Van Susteren,” Dershowitz suggested the Court appears ready to apply the same reasoning it used in its recent affirmative action rulings to voting districts, which would curb efforts to design maps favoring specific racial groups.
“I suspect the Supreme Court is moving away from focusing on race in the electoral context, as well as in the college-admission context,” Dershowitz said, adding that “there’s no neutral answer to this” issue, echoing Justice Felix Frankfurter’s 1940s warning against the Court entering the “political thicket” of gerrymandering.
The case, Louisiana v. Callais, was reheard to decide if intentionally creating a second majority-minority district violates the Constitution. The challenge arose after a federal court ordered Louisiana to redraw its 2022 map, which originally included only one majority-black district. Lawmakers approved a new map creating a second such district, leading to a lawsuit from non-Black voters who argued it was an unconstitutional racial gerrymander.
Dershowitz believes the outcome rests on “four key votes,” and he expects to see a “diminution of the sensitivity toward kind of creating affirmative action in legislative redistricting.”
During the arguments, justices, including Brett Kavanaugh and Chief Justice John Roberts, pressed civil rights advocates on when race-based remedies should have an “endpoint,” suggesting a move toward limiting the use of race in drawing legislative maps.
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