Faculty and student organizations expressed deep concern after the Supreme Court ruled on April 29 that Louisiana must redraw its congressional map — a landmark decision that undermines protections against racial discrimination.

Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act (VRA) prohibits voting practices or procedures that discriminate on the basis of race or color. According to Michael Li, senior counsel in the Brennan Center’s Democracy Program, the Louisiana v. Callais ruling made Section 2 very difficult, if not impossible, to apply.

“I think that people are correctly reading this as a very devastating blow to the Voting Rights Act,” Li said at a Stanford Law School (SLS) event on the topic. “One of the groups that brought the case… called it eviscerating, and I think that that’s correct.”

The event — a fireside chat with Li and law professor Pamela Karlan — was hosted by the American Constitution Society and the Black Law Students Association to assess the implications of the Louisiana v. Callais decision. StanfordVotes tabled outside of the event, which took place on May 4.

In an interview with The Daily, Karlan, who is the co-director of the SLS’s Supreme Court Litigation Clinic, described the ruling’s bottom line: “If a state says ‘We want to have a partisan gerrymander,’ then you can’t come in and say, ‘But that’s unfair to minority voters.’”

Karlan said Justice Samuel Alito, who wrote the majority opinion, was “just plain lying” when he claimed the court only interpreted — rather than nullified — Section 2.

“It is unclear to me that there’s a single case that you could now bring for racial vote dilution under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act where you would not also win if you just brought the case directly under the 14th Amendment,” she said, suggesting the decision rendered Section 2 meaningless. “I honestly don’t see anything in between them.”

According to Li and Karlan, the ruling will further encourage partisan gerrymandering. Karlan said that every justice on the Supreme Court agreed political gerrymandering was unconstitutional 40 years ago, but today a majority of the court consider political gerrymandering to be a legitimate government interest.

“What the court has now done is flip all of this understanding completely on its head to say, if the Republicans want all seven seats in a state… they can take them all,” Karlan said. “And if that means that Black voters are unable to elect the candidates of their choice at all, well, that’s just tough politics.”

Seven southern states — Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida and Tennessee — have redrawn or are currently redrawing their congressional maps to eliminate majority-Black districts. However, Li and Karlan said some of the most significant damage could be at the local level, among city councils, school boards and county commissions, which historically benefitted most from Section 2.

The pair explained that to create a majority-Black district, litigants must now prove their map satisfies the state’s political goals, and to challenge a map for Black vote dilution, litigants must now prove racially discriminatory intent.

In response to the ruling, Stanford Political Union (SPU) hosted a discussion titled “Voting Maps, Race, and the Supreme Court” on May 6. Attendees watched videos on the decision before they broke into discussion groups and reconvened to share their takeaways.

SPU President Nathan Kuczmarski ’26 said he wanted to create a forum for people to come together and make sense of the ruling. He told The Daily he always leaves SPU discussions with a new perspective, and this time was no exception.

“Every time that I come to SPU… the impression or the preconceived notions that I come in with are almost never what I’m thinking when I go out,” he said. “There are a lot of new questions and new ways of looking at how we district that I’m now thinking about that I wasn’t before.”

Attendee Madeleine Jones ’28 said she is unhappy with the decision because, in her view, it misrepresents Louisiana lawmakers’ intentions.

“Louisiana was only in this position because they were starting from a situation… in which their districts did not actually represent their population, and they will likely be back in that position,” she said. “So to treat it like they were doing… affirmative action unfairly, in the interest of creating a larger block than [Black voters] deserve, is just inaccurate.”

Jones said she attended the SPU discussion partly because she was displeased with the ruling, and partly because she was curious how her peers felt, noting that she observed little campus discussion on the topic.

For attendee Rayne Crenshaw ’28, a Florida resident, the decision felt personal —  Florida was amid a special redistricting session when the Supreme Court issued its ruling. The state’s new congressional map packs Black and brown voters into four districts, eliminating all other Democratic majorities.

“Days after the ruling was made, Florida turned from red with blue polka dots to just red,” Crenshaw said. “My district was redrawn… basically to get rid of the blue vote completely.”

StanfordVotes released a statement on Louisiana v. Callais on Apr. 30. “We at StanfordVotes believe that all Stanford students and members of the voting public should have access to elections that authentically represent their voices and their communities,” it read. “We also believe that potentially discriminatory election practices should be changed and prevented, making this Supreme Court decision a matter of great concern.”

The statement gave an overview of the ruling and warned “this is a moment to pay attention.” It urged students to understand how their districts are drawn, who represents them and what is at stake in legislative elections.

2025-26 StanfordVotes Co-Chair Jacob Parker ’27 said the statement aimed to inform students about the ruling, help them understand its broader implications and provide them with the proper resources.

“The fact that this decision seems to give way to targeting of majority Black districts, especially in the south, is deeply concerning,” Parker said. “Wherever there are attacks towards voting rights, regardless of who they are [targeted toward], we are obviously going to stand up and say that this is something that we are concerned about.”

2026-27 StanfordVotes Co-Chair Helen Scarborough ’28 said StanfordVotes, as a nonpartisan organization, was also motivated to release a statement to show the ruling should be of concern to people across the political spectrum. “These issues of voting access should not be partisan,” she said. “Voting is about democracy with a little ‘d.’”

Parker said StanfordVotes will continue to serve the Stanford community in the wake of the decision by hosting voter registration and education events, as well as updating its 50 State Voter Guide.

Stanford ACLU Co-Presidents Catherine Titzer ’26 and Victoria Tuffour ’26 said they stand by StanfordVotes’ statement, and shared similar concerns about the ruling’s impact on voting rights. Tuffour said she felt disheartened and scared by the decision, especially as a Black American.

“It seemed like we were in a good spot and getting towards a better spot,” she said. “But now, seeing that we’re reverting back to watering down the Black vote… is extremely disheartening, and to me, it’s really, really scary.”

Titzer expressed worry about the long-lasting impact of the decision. “As a young person of color, that’s very hard to come face to face with, and it can also feel very frustrating, because… we’ve been making so much progress,” she said. “This decision undoes a lot of that work.”

Despite their pessimism, Titzer and Tuffour said it brings them hope to hear their peers — at least those in the public service sector — discuss the ruling. Tuffour said it shows others care about what is going on, and voiced hope that voters will mobilize in November.

Karlan reassured attendees of the Law School event that all hope is not lost. She cited two possible ways to counter the decision. First, people could build a political movement to force Congress to change how it regulates voting. Second, states could introduce alternative voting systems that don’t depend on single member districts, like direct proportional representation, for example.

Li called upon attendees to take action. “This is an all hands on deck moment,” he said “and we need a lot of bright brains thinking about this.”