About This Case Study

On April 29, 2026, the Supreme Court of the United States decided Louisiana v. Callais, a major voting-rights case. By a vote of 6–3, in an opinion by Justice Samuel Alito, the Court held that the second majority-Black congressional district Louisiana had drawn to comply with Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act was an unconstitutional racial gerrymander under the Fourteenth Amendment. In doing so, the Court reworked the long-standing legal framework for vote-dilution claims, making such claims substantially harder to bring — most notably by requiring plaintiffs to show that a State had acted with a race-based motive. In dissent, Justice Elena Kagan, joined by Justices Sotomayor and Jackson, wrote that the decision rendered Section 2 "all but a dead letter" in redistricting. Days later, on May 4, the Court took the unusual step of finalizing its judgment immediately — bypassing its normal waiting period — after Louisiana's governor suspended a congressional primary in which more than 100,000 voters had already cast early ballots.

The frame this case study brings to that controversy comes from the legal scholar Cheryl Harris, who argued that whiteness has functioned in American law as a kind of property — a set of legally recognized, settled expectations and entitlements that the law protects even after the formal rules that created them are gone. Harris's claim invites a precise question about any contest over racial advantage: is what is being defended a tangible right, or a settled expectation — an assumption about how things have been and should remain? You will read the Callais decision and the arguments around it closely, and then analyze what, exactly, is being contested: a particular map, a forty-year-old legal test, or a deeper expectation about the distribution of political power. The analytical move is to distinguish the legal, structural, and cultural levels at which a claim about race operates — and to test whether "settled expectations" names something real in the way the controversy unfolds.

Before You Begin

Have ready:

• NPR's reporting on the decision, "Supreme Court Deals Another Blow to Voting Rights Act" — an accessible overview to orient you.
• The Supreme Court's slip opinion in Louisiana v. Callais — the primary source. You need not read all of it, but keep it open to consult the majority opinion and Justice Kagan's dissent.
• A nonpartisan case explainer for background, such as those from the Brennan Center for Justice or the NAACP Legal Defense Fund.
• A note-taking surface — paper, a document, or a shared doc if you are working in a group.

A note on currency: this case study describes events as of mid-2026. The litigation, the redrawing of district maps, and the legislative responses to the decision were ongoing when it was written; check for developments since.

Before you read, write down, in a sentence or two each:

• What does it mean to call a group's political power a "settled expectation"? Whose expectation, settled by what?
• When a law is changed or struck down, how would you tell the difference between protecting a right and protecting an advantage?

The Exercise

Phase 1: Orientation — What the Case Decided (8–10 minutes)

Begin with NPR's report to get the shape of the decision, then turn to the opening pages of the slip opinion. Without yet analyzing it, establish the basic facts in your own words:

• What map was at issue, and what did the Court decide about it?
• What did the Court change about how future Section 2 vote-dilution claims must be proven?
• What is the core disagreement between the majority and the dissent?

Write a short, neutral summary — three or four sentences — that someone who knew nothing about the case could follow. Resist, for now, the urge to take a side; the analysis comes later.

For groups: each member drafts a summary, then the group reconciles them into one agreed account.

Phase 2: Close Reading — The Competing Accounts (10–12 minutes)

Now read more closely, holding the majority and the dissent side by side. For each, identify:

1. The claim. What does the majority say the case is fundamentally about — and what does the dissent say it is about? The majority frames the question around a racial gerrymander and the limits of using race in districting; the dissent frames it around the dilution of Black voting power and the weakening of a civil-rights statute.
2. The mechanism. What concrete legal change does the decision make — for example, in what a plaintiff must now prove? How does each side describe the practical effect of that change?
3. The defense of advantage. The majority's reasoning permits a State to defend a districting choice by pointing to political, rather than racial, goals. Trace how that move works in the opinion. How does the dissent respond to it?

For groups: assign the majority to some members and the dissent to others, then reconvene and compare.

Phase 3: Testing the Frame — Settled Expectations (8–10 minutes)

Return to Harris's idea that the law protects "settled expectations" tied to racial advantage. Holding the Callais controversy against it, ask:

• Whose settled expectations are at stake in this dispute, and what are they expectations about — a map, a share of seats, a way of drawing power that predates the Voting Rights Act?
• Does the property frame illuminate the controversy, or strain against it? The case is, on its face, about partisanship and the limits of race-conscious remedies as much as about race directly. Where does that complicate a reading in terms of whiteness as property?
• Distinguish three levels at which a claim is operating here: the legal (what the doctrine now requires), the structural (how political power is actually distributed and maintained), and the cultural (what people expect and treat as normal). Where do they reinforce one another in this case, and where do they pull apart?

For groups: spend the first half developing the "settled expectations" question together; spend the second on the three-levels distinction.

Phase 4: Tracking What Follows (optional, 5–7 minutes)

A decision like this one does not end with the opinion; its meaning unfolds in what states and courts do next. Using a nonpartisan explainer or recent reporting, identify one development since the ruling — a state redrawing its maps, a new lawsuit, a legislative proposal. Then ask: does that development support the dissent's prediction that Section 2 has become "all but a dead letter," the majority's view that it has merely clarified the law, or something more complicated? What would you need to know to judge?

Closing Reflection

In two or three sentences, complete this thought:

In the Callais controversy, what is being defended is best described as __________. The frame of "settled expectations" helps me see __________, but it strains where __________.

Write the most precise version you can; the value is in naming exactly what is contested and exactly where the frame reaches its limit.

A Note on Modes

Solo mode. Work through the phases in order, keeping brief notes. The neutral summary from Phase 1 and the three-levels analysis from Phase 3 are the central artifacts.

Group mode (3–6 people). Designate a timekeeper. Phase 1 produces a shared summary; Phase 2 works well divided between majority and dissent; Phase 3 benefits from full-group discussion. If time is short, the closing reflection can be individual writing after the session.

After the Case Study

• The Supreme Court's full slip opinion, including the majority opinion, concurrence, and dissents, is available at the Court's website (supremecourt.gov) for readers who want to work entirely from the primary source.
• For the legal concept at the center of this analysis, see Cheryl I. Harris, "Whiteness as Property," Harvard Law Review 106 (1993), and her later reflection, "Reflections on Whiteness as Property," Harvard Law Review Forum 134 (2020).
• For the longer history this decision sits within, the Digital Public Library of America's primary-source set on the Voting Rights Act of 1965 collects documents from the Act's passage and early enforcement, against which its recent narrowing can be measured.