The Supreme Court’s May and June rulings on Alabama’s congressional map have stirred fierce debate, and this piece pushes back on a high-profile Atlantic critique by laying out the legal context, the procedural posture, and why the per curiam order was not the casual throwaway some critics claim. It explains how the lower court’s handling clashed with the justices’ direction in Louisiana v. Callais, examines claims about racial dilution and unsigned orders, and argues that the Roberts Court acted within precedent while many commentators rushed to partisan conclusions.
Armchair commentary has flooded the aftermath of the June 2 per curiam order that allowed Alabama to use its 2023 congressional map, which contains a single majority-minority district. Critics have been loud, but loud does not equal accurate, and many of their takes ignore what the law actually requires. The dispute boils down to whether the district court followed the Supreme Court’s recent guidance on how to assess race and politics in redistricting claims.
One prominent critique lumped “Black voters” into a uniform bloc and claimed the Court had declared they “have no rights that anyone is bound to respect.” That sweeping characterization ignores the complexity of voting patterns and the legal standards courts must apply. Alabama has roughly 3.8 million registered voters, and about 22 percent—849,602—are Black; they are not monolithic and are spread across 67 counties with varied political behavior.
This week, the Roberts Court made clear that when it comes to drawing congressional districts, Black voters have no rights that anyone is bound to respect.
The Supreme Court’s order emphasized that lower courts must heed prior directions, notably from Louisiana v. Callais, when analyzing claims of racially polarized voting and dilution under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. The per curiam pointed out the district court’s failure to follow that instruction. That procedural misstep matters: courts cannot simply ignore controlling guidance and proceed as if it never existed.
The District Court also failed to follow our instruction in Callais that the mere fact that voters of different races vote for different parties is not relevant to proving racially polarized voting patterns. See id., at ___ (slip op., at 30).
Alabama sought relief twice after a three-judge panel in the Northern District of Alabama ruled the 2023 map discriminatory and ordered a court-appointed special master to draw a new map. The district court found the 2023 plan violated the VRA and described it as “an intentional effort to dilute Black Alabamians’ voting strength and evade the unambiguous requirements of court orders standing in the way.” The state appealed to the Supreme Court, which paused to consider Callais before acting.
A court-appointed special master ultimately created a new map, which the district court ordered the state to use going forward. In 2025, the court ruled after a trial that the 2023 map did indeed violate the VRA. It reasoned that the map was “an intentional effort to dilute Black Alabamians’ voting strength and evade the unambiguous requirements of court orders standing in the way.”
The timing was critical because the state asked the justices to expedite consideration since primary elections loomed. The Supreme Court granted emergency review, vacated the lower court’s ruling on May 11, and sent the matter back for reconsideration in light of Callais. The district court’s reaction, according to observers, was to repeat its earlier approach without properly accounting for that higher-court directive.
Alabama went to the Supreme Court, which delayed its consideration of the state’s appeals until after the justices issued their April 29 decision in Louisiana v. Callais, in which it struck down Louisiana’s congressional map. On Friday, the state – which had asked the justices to expedite their consideration of those appeals – also sought to have the lower-court orders barring Alabama from using the 2023 map put on hold immediately because the justices are not scheduled to issue orders from their next private conference until Monday, May 18, just one day before the state’s primary election is currently scheduled to take place.
Some critics seized on the fact the order was unsigned and labeled it an illegitimate “shadow docket” move. That characterization misunderstands common Supreme Court practice: many dispositive actions come as unsigned orders, not because they lack thought, but because that is how the Court routinely disposes of certain emergency matters. Framing unsigned as suspicious is a baited rhetorical move, not a legal critique.
Other arguments accuse the justices of siding with partisan interests by allowing a map that “diminishes Black voting power to the advantage of Republicans.” Those are political readings, not legal analyses, and they ignore the obligations plaintiffs face under the Court’s framework. The opinion stresses that a plaintiff challenging a map must show an alternative that satisfies the state’s legitimate districting objectives as well as the state’s plan—an exacting burden tied to established doctrine.
The state was making a gamble that the Roberts Court was more partisan than sincere. And it paid off: On Tuesday, the Court allowed Alabama to proceed with a map that diminishes Black voting power to the advantage of Republicans. For all the Court’s pretenses—all of its insistence on the rule of law, precedent, and good faith—many critics and supporters of the Roberts Court see the institution as an appendage of the Republican Party. The only thing that distinguishes the critics from the supporters is whether they think that is a good thing.
The debate will continue, but the immediate legal fight centered on whether the lower court followed binding precedent and whether plaintiffs met their evidentiary and remedial burdens under Section 2. Those are technical issues that deserve sober analysis rather than instant moral outrage. Laws and procedures matter; they are the tools the courts use to resolve these disputes.
In it, the judges argued that the lower court had “failed to follow our instruction” in ordering the creation of the new district. This was a reference to the April decision in Louisiana v. Callais, in which Justice Samuel Alito announced that “race and politics are so intertwined” that there are almost no circumstances under which the Fifteenth Amendment’s prohibition on racial discrimination in voting actually applies.
Critics who default to accusations of racism or partisan malfeasance without engaging the legal record do a disservice to public understanding. Courts are constrained by precedent, statutes, and the specific proofs parties present. If a lower court ignores that structure, the Supreme Court is right to demand adherence to its guidance.
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