The logic of the racist Supreme Court isn’t adding up

A striking development has emerged in artificial intelligence. Policy Close Policy Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. Follow Follow See All Policy Law Close Law Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. Follow Follow See All Law The logic of the racist Supreme Court isn’t adding up The court’s dismantling of the Voting Rights Act disregards some obvious math.

The court’s dismantling of the Voting Rights Act disregards some obvious math. by Sarah Jeong Close Sarah Jeong Features Editor Posts from this author will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. Follow Follow See All by Sarah Jeong Apr 30, 2026, 7:52 PM UTC Link Share Gift Illustration by Cath Virginia / The Verge | Photos via Getty Images Sarah Jeong Close Sarah Jeong Posts from this author will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed.

Technical Details

Follow Follow See All by Sarah Jeong is a reporter who writes about law, technology, speech, and democracy. A journalist trained as a lawyer, she has been writing about tech for 10 years. Close watchers of the Supreme Court knew that the conservative supermajority was about to murder what was left of the Voting Rights Act .

Wednesday’s decision in Louisiana v. Callais took down Section 2 of the law, clearing the way for racist gerrymandering, because it is now racist to remedy racism . The decision is an affront to the history of the Voting Rights Act, an affront to the history of the United States, and an affront to math.

The state of Louisiana, which is around 30 percent Black, has six districts. The voting districts are drawn so that there are two majority-Black districts. That is two out of six districts; approximately 33 percent of the districts, you might say.

Industry Implications

Because SCOTUS has ruled this map unconstitutional, the state of Louisiana will almost certainly redraw the maps so there is only one majority-Black district. So a statewide population of 30 percent will now have their voting preferences reflected in 17 percent of the state’s districts. Theoretically, voting is more subtle than race.

Many different things at municipal, state, and federal levels appear on any given ballot; no racial minority is a monolith, and a community will reflect a rich variety of social and political views. But possibly because modern-day Republicans are incapable of toning down the racism, around 83 percent of Black American voters identify as Democrats — this is especially understandable in Southern states like Louisiana, an insurrectionist state readmitted to the Union in 1868 after being forced to fix its bullshit by a civil war that killed somewhere around 750,000 Americans.

This advance offers important signals about the future of the sector, and the tech world is watching closely.