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NOTICE: This opinion is subject to formal revision before publication in the
preliminary print of the United States Reports.  Readers are requested to
notify the Reporter of Decisions, Supreme Court of the United States, Wash-
ington, D.C. 20543, of any typographical or other formal errors, in order that
corrections may be made before the preliminary print goes to press.
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
--------
Nos. 94-631, 94-797 and 94-929
--------
ZELL MILLER, et al., APPELLANTS
94-631               v.
DAVIDA JOHNSON et al.

LUCIOUS ABRAMS, Jr., et al., APPELLANTS
94-797               v.
DAVIDA JOHNSON et al.

UNITED STATES, APPELLANT
94-929               v.
DAVIDA JOHNSON et al.
on appeals from the united states district court
for the southern district of georgia
[June 29, 1995]

  Justice Kennedy delivered the opinion of the Court.
  The constitutionality of Georgia's congressional
redistricting plan is at issue here.  In Shaw v. Reno,
509 U. S. ___ (1993), we held that a plaintiff states a
claim under the Equal Protection Clause by alleging that
a state redistricting plan, on its face, has no rational
explanation save as an effort to separate voters on the
basis of race.  The question we now decide is whether
Georgia's new Eleventh District gives rise to a valid
equal protection claim under the principles announced in
Shaw, and, if so, whether it can be sustained nonethe-
less as narrowly tailored to serve a compelling govern-
mental interest.

                      I
                      A
  The Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amend-
ment provides that no State shall -deny to any person
within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.-
U. S. Const., Amdt. 14, 1.  Its central mandate is racial
neutrality in governmental decisionmaking.  See, e.g.,
Loving v. Virginia, 388 U. S. 1, 11 (1967); McLaughlin
v. Florida, 379 U. S. 184, 191-192 (1964); see also
Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U. S. 483 (1954).
Though application of this imperative raises difficult
questions, the basic principle is straightforward: -Racial
and ethnic distinctions of any sort are inherently suspect
and thus call for the most exacting judicial examina-
tion. . . .  This perception of racial and ethnic distinc-
tions is rooted in our Nation's constitutional and demo-
graphic history.-  Regents of Univ. of California v.
Bakke, 438 U. S. 265, 291 (1978) (opinion of Powell, J.).
This rule obtains with equal force regardless of -the race
of those burdened or benefited by a particular classifica-
tion.-  Richmond v. J. A. Croson Co., 488 U. S. 469, 494
(1989) (plurality opinion) (citations omitted); id., at 520
(Scalia, J., concurring in judgment) (-I agree . . . with
Justice O'Connor's conclusion that strict scrutiny must
be applied to all governmental classification by race-);
see also Adarand Constructors, Inc. v. Pena, ___ U. S.
___, ___ (1995) (slip op., at 21); Bakke, supra, at
289-291 (opinion of Powell, J.).  Laws classifying
citizens on the basis of race cannot be upheld unless
they are narrowly tailored to achieving a compelling
state interest.  See, e.g., Adarand, supra, at ___ (slip
op., at 29); Croson, supra, at 494 (plurality opinion);
Wygant v. Jackson Bd. of Ed., 476 U. S. 267, 274, 280,
and n. 6 (1986) (plurality opinion).
  In Shaw v. Reno, supra, we recognized that these
equal protection principles govern a State's drawing of
congressional districts, though, as our cautious approach
there discloses, application of these principles to elec-
toral districting is a most delicate task.  Our analysis
began from the premise that -[l]aws that explicitly dis-
tinguish between individuals on racial grounds fall
within the core of [the Equal Protection Clause's] pro-
hibition.-  Id., at ___ (slip op., at 10).  This prohibition
extends not just to explicit racial classifications, but also
to laws neutral on their face but -`unexplainable on
grounds other than race.'-  Id., at ___ (slip op., at 12)
(quoting Arlington Heights v. Metropolitan Housing De-
velopment Corp., 429 U. S. 252, 266 (1977)).  Applying
this basic Equal Protection analysis in the voting rights
context, we held that -redistricting legislation that is so
bizarre on its face that it is `unexplainable on grounds
other than race,' . . . demands the same close scrutiny
that we give other state laws that classify citizens by
race.-  509 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 12) (quoting
Arlington Heights, supra, at 266).
  This case requires us to apply the principles articu-
lated in Shaw to the most recent congressional redis-
tricting plan enacted by the State of Georgia.

                      B
  In 1965, the Attorney General designated Georgia a
covered jurisdiction under 4(b) of the Voting Rights Act,
79 Stat. 438, as amended, 42 U. S. C. 1973b(b) (Act).
30 Fed. Reg. 9897 (1965); see 28 CFR pt. 51, App.; see
also City of Rome v. United States, 446 U. S. 156, 161
(1980).  In consequence, 5 of the Act requires Georgia
to obtain either administrative preclearance by the At-
torney General or approval by the United States District
Court for the District of Columbia of any change in a
-standard, practice, or procedure with respect to voting-
made after November 1, 1964.  42 U. S. C. 1973c.  The
preclearance mechanism applies to congressional redis-
tricting plans, see, e.g., Beer v. United States, 425 U. S.
130, 133 (1976), and requires that the proposed change
-not have the purpose and will not have the effect of
denying or abridging the right to vote on account of race
or color.-  42 U. S. C. 1973c.  -[T]he purpose of 5 has
always been to insure that no voting-procedure changes
would be made that would lead to a retrogression in the
position of racial minorities with respect to their effec-
tive exercise of the electoral franchise.-  Beer, supra, at
141.
  Between 1980 and 1990, one of Georgia's 10 congres-
sional districts was a majority-black district, that is, a
majority of the district's voters were black.  The 1990
Decennial Census indicated that Georgia's population of
6,478,216 persons, 27% of whom are black, entitled it to
an additional eleventh congressional seat, App. 9,
prompting Georgia's General Assembly to redraw the
State's congressional districts.  Both the House and the
Senate adopted redistricting guidelines which, among
other things, required single-member districts of equal
population, contiguous geography, nondilution of minority
voting strength, fidelity to precinct lines where possible,
and compliance with 2 and 5 of the Act, 42 U. S. C.
1973, 1973c.  See App. 11-12.  Only after these re-
quirements were met did the guidelines permit drafters
to consider other ends, such as maintaining the integrity
of political subdivisions, preserving the core of existing
districts, and avoiding contests between incumbents.  Id.,
at 12.
  A special session opened in August 1991, and the
General Assembly submitted a congressional redistricting
plan to the Attorney General for preclearance on October
1, 1991.  The legislature's plan contained two majority-
minority districts, the Fifth and Eleventh, and an
additional district, the Second, in which blacks com-
prised just over 35% of the voting age population.
Despite the plan's increase in the number of majority-
black districts from one to two and the absence of any
evidence of an intent to discriminate against minority
voters, 864 F. Supp. 1354, 1363, and n. 7 (SD Ga. 1994),
the Department of Justice refused preclearance on Janu-
ary 21, 1992.  App. 99-107.  The Department's objection
letter noted a concern that Georgia had created only two
majority-minority districts, and that the proposed plan
did not -recognize- certain minority populations by plac-
ing them in a majority-black district.  Id., at 105,
105-106.
  The General Assembly returned to the drawing board.
A new plan was enacted and submitted for preclearance.
This second attempt assigned the black population in
Central Georgia's Baldwin County to the Eleventh
District and increased the black populations in the
Eleventh, Fifth and Second Districts.  The Justice
Department refused preclearance again, relying on
alternative plans proposing three majority-minority
districts.  Id., 120-126.  One of the alternative schemes
relied on by the Department was the so-called -max-
black- plan, 864 F. Supp., at 1360, 1362-1363, drafted
by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) for the
General Assembly's black caucus.  The key to the
ACLU's plan was the -Macon/Savannah trade.-  The
dense black population in the Macon region would be
transferred from the Eleventh District to the Second,
converting the Second into a majority-black district, and
the Eleventh District's loss in black population would be
offset by extending the Eleventh to include the black
populations in Savannah.  Id., at 1365-1366.  Pointing
to the General Assembly's refusal to enact the Macon/Sa-
vannah swap into law, the Justice Department concluded
that Georgia had -failed to explain adequately- its fail-
ure to create a third majority-minority district.  App.
125.  The State did not seek a declaratory judgment
from the District Court for the District of Columbia.
864 F. Supp., at 1366, n. 11.
  Twice spurned, the General Assembly set out to create
three majority-minority districts to gain preclearance.
Id., at 1366.  Using the ACLU's -max-black- plan as its
benchmark, id., at 1366-1367, the General Assembly
enacted a plan that
-bore all the signs of [the Justice Department's]
involvement: The black population of Meriwether
County was gouged out of the Third District and
attached to the Second District by the narrowest of
land bridges; Effingham and Chatham Counties were
split to make way for the Savannah extension,
which itself split the City of Savannah; and the plan
as a whole split 26 counties, 23 more than the
existing congressional districts.-  Id., at 1367; see
Appendix A (attached).
The new plan also enacted the Macon/Savannah swap
necessary to create a third majority-black district.  The
Eleventh District lost the black population of Macon, but
picked up Savannah, thereby connecting the black
neighborhoods of metropolitan Atlanta and the poor
black populace of coastal Chatham County, though 260
miles apart in distance and worlds apart in culture.  In
short, the social, political and economic makeup of the
Eleventh District tells a tale of disparity, not commu-
nity.  See id., at 1376-1377, 1389-1390; Plaintiff's Exh.
No. 85, pp. 10-27 (report of Timothy G. O'Rourke,
Ph.D.).  As the attached appendices attest,
-[t]he populations of the Eleventh are centered
around four discrete, widely spaced urban centers
that have absolutely nothing to do with each other,
and stretch the district hundreds of miles across
rural counties and narrow swamp corridors.-  864
F. Supp., at 1389 (footnote omitted).
-The dense population centers of the approved
Eleventh District were all majority-black, all at the
periphery of the district, and in the case of Atlanta,
Augusta and Savannah, all tied to a sparsely
populated rural core by even less populated land
bridges.  Extending from Atlanta to the Atlantic, the
Eleventh covered 6,784.2 square miles, splitting
eight counties and five municipalities along the
way.-  Id., at 1367 (footnote omitted).
The Almanac of American Politics has this to say about
the Eleventh District: -Geographically, it is a monstros-
ity, stretching from Atlanta to Savannah.  Its core is the
plantation country in the center of the state, lightly
populated, but heavily black.  It links by narrow
corridors the black neighborhoods in Augusta, Savannah
and southern DeKalb County.-  M. Barone & G. Ujifusa,
Almanac of American Politics 356 (1994).  Georgia's plan
included three majority-black districts, though, and re-
ceived Justice Department preclearance on April 2, 1992.
Plaintiff's Exh. No. 6; see 864 F. Supp., at 1367.
  Elections were held under the new congressional redis-
tricting plan on November 4, 1992, and black candidates
were elected to Congress from all three majority-black
districts.  Id., at 1369.  On January 13, 1994, appellees,
five white voters from the Eleventh District, filed this
action against various state officials (Miller Appellants)
in the United States District Court for the Southern
District of Georgia.  Id., at 1369, 1370.  As residents of
the challenged Eleventh District, all appellees had
standing.  See United States v. Hays, ___ U. S. ___, ___
(1995) (slip op., at 8).  Their suit alleged that Georgia's
Eleventh District was a racial gerrymander and so a vio-
lation of the Equal Protection Clause as interpreted in
Shaw v. Reno.  A three-judge court was convened pursu-
ant to 28 U. S. C. 2284, and the United States and a
number of Georgia residents intervened in support of the
defendant-state officials.
  A majority of the District Court panel agreed that the
Eleventh District was invalid under Shaw, with one
judge dissenting.  864 F. Supp. 1354 (SD Ga. 1994).
After sharp criticism of the Justice Department for its
use of partisan advocates in its dealings with state of-
ficials and for its close cooperation with the ACLU's
vigorous advocacy of minority district maximization, the
majority turned to a careful interpretation of our opinion
in Shaw.  It read Shaw to require strict scrutiny when-
ever race is the -overriding, predominant force- in the
redistricting process.  Id., at 1372 (emphasis omitted).
Citing much evidence of the legislature's purpose and in-
tent in creating the final plan, as well as the irregular
shape of the District (in particular several appendages
drawn for the obvious purpose of putting black popula-
tions into the District), the court found that race was
the overriding and predominant force in the districting
determination.  Id., at 1378.  The court proceeded to
apply strict scrutiny.  Though rejecting proportional rep-
resentation as a compelling interest, it was willing to as-
sume that compliance with the Voting Rights Act would
be a compelling interest.  Id., at 1381-1382.  As to the
latter, however, the court found that the Act did not re-
quire three majority-black districts, and that Georgia's
plan for that reason was not narrowly tailored to the
goal of complying with the Act.  Id., at 1392-1393.
  Appellants filed notices of appeal and requested a stay
of the District Court's judgment, which we granted
pending the filing and disposition of the appeals in this
case, Miller v. Johnson, 512 U. S. ___ (1994).  We later
noted probable jurisdiction.  513 U. S. ___ (1995); see 28
U. S. C. 1253.

                     II
                      A
  Finding that the -evidence of the General Assembly's
intent to racially gerrymander the Eleventh District is
overwhelming, and practically stipulated by the parties
involved,- the District Court held that race was the
predominant, overriding factor in drawing the Eleventh
District.  864 F. Supp., at 1374; see id., at 1374-1378.
Appellants do not take issue with the court's factual
finding of this racial motivation.  Rather, they contend
that evidence of a legislature's deliberate classification
of voters on the basis of race cannot alone suffice to
state a claim under Shaw.  They argue that, regardless
of the legislature's purposes, a plaintiff must demon-
strate that a district's shape is so bizarre that it is
unexplainable other than on the basis of race, and that
appellees failed to make that showing here.  Appellants'
conception of the constitutional violation misapprehends
our holding in Shaw and the Equal Protection precedent
upon which Shaw relied.
  Shaw recognized a claim -analytically distinct- from a
vote dilution claim.  509 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 21);
see id., at ___ (slip op., at 18).  Whereas a vote dilution
claim alleges that the State has enacted a particular
voting scheme as a purposeful device -to minimize or
cancel out the voting potential of racial or ethnic
minorities,- Mobile v. Bolden, 446 U. S. 55, 66 (1980)
(citing cases), an action disadvantaging voters of a par-
ticular race, the essence of the equal protection claim
recognized in Shaw is that the State has used race as
a basis for separating voters into districts.  Just as the
State may not, absent extraordinary justification, segre-
gate citizens on the basis of race in its public parks,
New Orleans City Park Improvement Assn. v. Detiege,
358 U. S. 54 (1958) (per curiam), buses, Gayle v.
Browder, 352 U. S. 903 (1956) (per curiam), golf courses,
Holmes v. Atlanta, 350 U. S. 879 (1955) (per curiam),
beaches, Mayor and City Council of Baltimore v. Daw-
son, 350 U. S. 877 (1955) (per curiam), and schools,
Brown, supra, so did we recognize in Shaw that it may
not separate its citizens into different voting districts on
the basis of race.  The idea is a simple one: -At the
heart of the Constitution's guarantee of equal protection
lies the simple command that the Government must
treat citizens `as individuals, not -as simply components
of a racial, religious, sexual or national class.-'-  Metro
Broadcasting, Inc. v. FCC, 497 U. S. 547, 602 (1990)
(O'Connor, J., dissenting) (quoting Arizona Governing
Comm. for Tax Deferred Annuity and Deferred Compen-
sation Plans v. Norris, 463 U. S. 1073, 1083 (1983));
cf. Northeastern Fla. Chapter, Associated Gen. Contrac-
tors of America v. Jacksonville, 508 U. S. ___, ___ (1993)
(slip op., at 9) (-`injury in fact'- was -denial of equal
treatment . . . not the ultimate inability to obtain the
benefit-).  When the State assigns voters on the basis of
race, it engages in the offensive and demeaning assump-
tion that voters of a particular race, because of their
race, -think alike, share the same political interests, and
will prefer the same candidates at the polls.-  Shaw,
supra, at ___ (slip op., at 16); see Metro Broadcasting,
supra, at 636 (Kennedy, J., dissenting).  Race-based as-
signments -embody stereotypes that treat individuals as
the product of their race, evaluating their thoughts and
efforts-their very worth as citizens-according to a cri-
terion barred to the Government by history and the Con-
stitution.-  Metro Broadcasting, supra, at 604 (O'Con-
nor, J., dissenting) (citation omitted); see Powers v.
Ohio, 499 U. S. 400, 410 (1991) (-Race cannot be a
proxy for determining juror bias or competence-);
Palmore v. Sidoti, 466 U. S. 429, 432 (1984) (-Classi-
fying persons according to their race is more likely to
reflect racial prejudice than legitimate public concerns;
the race, not the person, dictates the category-).  They
also cause society serious harm.  As we concluded in
Shaw:
-Racial classifications with respect to voting carry
particular dangers.  Racial gerrymandering, even for
remedial purposes, may balkanize us into competing
racial factions; it threatens to carry us further from
the goal of a political system in which race no
longer matters-a goal that the Fourteenth and Fif-
teenth Amendments embody, and to which the Na-
tion continues to aspire.  It is for these reasons that
race-based districting by our state legislatures de-
mands close judicial scrutiny.-  Shaw, supra, at ___
(slip op., at 26).
  Our observation in Shaw of the consequences of racial
stereotyping was not meant to suggest that a district
must be bizarre on its face before there is a constitu-
tional violation.  Nor was our conclusion in Shaw that
in certain instances a district's appearance (or, to be
more precise, its appearance in combination with certain
demographic evidence) can give rise to an equal protec-
tion claim, 509 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 17), a holding
that bizarreness was a threshold showing, as appellants
believe it to be.  Our circumspect approach and narrow
holding in Shaw did not erect an artificial rule barring
accepted equal protection analysis in other redistricting
cases.  Shape is relevant not because bizarreness is a
necessary element of the constitutional wrong or a thresh-
old requirement of proof, but because it may be persua-
sive circumstantial evidence that race for its own sake,
and not other districting principles, was the legislature's
dominant and controlling rationale in drawing its district
lines.  The logical implication, as courts applying Shaw
have recognized, is that parties may rely on evidence
other than bizarreness to establish race-based districting.
See Shaw v. Hunt, 861 F. Supp. 408, 431 (EDNC 1994);
Hays v. Louisiana, 839 F. Supp. 1188, 1195 (WD La.
1993), vacated, 512 U. S. ___ (1994); but see DeWitt v.
Wilson, 856 F. Supp. 1409, 1413 (ED Cal. 1994).
  Our reasoning in Shaw compels this conclusion.  We
recognized in Shaw that, outside the districting context,
statutes are subject to strict scrutiny under the Equal
Protection Clause not just when they contain express
racial classifications, but also when, though race neutral
on their face, they are motivated by a racial purpose or
object.  509 U. S. , at ___ (slip op., at 12).  In the rare
case, where the effect of government action is a pattern
-`unexplainable on grounds other than race,'- ibid.
(quoting Arlington Heights, 429 U. S., at 266), -[t]he evi-
dentiary inquiry is . . . relatively easy.-  Arlington
Heights, supra, at 266 (footnote omitted).  As early as
Yick Wo v. Hopkins, 118 U. S. 356 (1886), the Court
recognized that a laundry permit ordinance was adminis-
tered in a deliberate way to exclude all Chinese from
the laundry business; and in Gomillion v. Lightfoot, 364
U. S. 339 (1960), the Court concluded that the redraw-
ing of Tuskegee, Alabama's municipal boundaries left no
doubt that the plan was designed to exclude blacks.
Even in those cases, however, it was the presumed ra-
cial purpose of state action, not its stark manifestation,
that was the constitutional violation.  Patterns of dis-
crimination as conspicuous as these are rare, and are
not a necessary predicate to a violation of the Equal
Protection Clause.  Cf. Arlington Heights, supra, at 266,
n. 14.  In the absence of a pattern as stark as those in
Yick Wo or Gomillion, -impact alone is not determina-
tive, and the Court must look to other evidence- of race-
based decisionmaking.  Arlington Heights, supra, at 266
(footnotes omitted).
  Shaw applied these same principles to redistricting.
-In some exceptional cases, a reapportionment plan may
be so highly irregular that, on its face, it rationally
cannot be understood as anything other than an effort
to `segregat[e] . . . voters' on the basis of race.-  Shaw,
supra, at ___ (slip op., at 15) (quoting Gomillion, supra,
at 341).  In other cases, where the district is not so
bizarre on its face that it discloses a racial design, the
proof will be more -difficul[t].-  Ibid.  Although it was
not necessary in Shaw to consider further the proof re-
quired in these more difficult cases, the logical import of
our reasoning is that evidence other than a district's bi-
zarre shape can be used to support the claim.
  Appellants and some of their amici argue that the
Equal Protection Clause's general proscription on race-
based decisionmaking does not obtain in the districting
context because redistricting by definition involves racial
considerations.  Underlying their argument are the very
stereotypical assumptions the Equal Protection Clause
forbids.  It is true that redistricting in most cases will
implicate a political calculus in which various interests
compete for recognition, but it does not follow from this
that individuals of the same race share a single political
interest.  The view that they do is -based on the
demeaning notion that members of the defined racial
groups ascribe to certain `minority views' that must be
different from those of other citizens,- Metro Broadcast-
ing, 497 U. S., at 636 (Kennedy, J., dissenting), the
precise use of race as a proxy the Constitution prohibits.
Nor can the argument that districting cases are excepted
from standard equal protection precepts be resuscitated
by United Jewish Organizations of Williamsburgh, Inc.
v. Carey, 430 U. S. 144 (1977), where the Court ad-
dressed a claim that New York violated the Constitution
by splitting a Hasidic Jewish community in order to in-
clude additional majority-minority districts.  As we ex-
plained in Shaw, a majority of the Justices in UJO con-
strued the complaint as stating a vote dilution claim, so
their analysis does not apply to a claim that the State
has separated voters on the basis of race.  509 U. S., at
___ (slip op., at 20).  To the extent any of the opinions
in that -highly fractured decision,- id., at ___ (slip op.,
at 19), can be interpreted as suggesting that a State's
assignment of voters on the basis of race would be sub-
ject to anything but our strictest scrutiny, those views
ought not be deemed controlling.
  In sum, we make clear that parties alleging that a
State has assigned voters on the basis of race are nei-
ther confined in their proof to evidence regarding the
district's geometry and makeup nor required to make a
threshold showing of bizarreness.  Today's case requires
us further to consider the requirements of the proof nec-
essary to sustain this equal protection challenge.

                      B
  Federal court review of districting legislation repre-
sents a serious intrusion on the most vital of local
functions.  It is well settled that -reapportionment is
primarily the duty and responsibility of the State.-
Chapman v. Meier, 420 U. S. 1, 27 (1975); see, e.g.,
Voinovich v. Quilter, 507 U. S. ___, ___-___ (1993) (slip
op., at 8-9); Growe v. Emison, 507 U. S. ___, ___ (1993)
(slip op., at 8).  Electoral districting is a most difficult
subject for legislatures, and so the States must have dis-
cretion to exercise the political judgment necessary to
balance competing interests.  Although race-based deci-
sionmaking is inherently suspect, e.g., Adarand, ___
U. S., at ___, (slip op. at 15) (citing Bakke, 438 U. S., at
291 (opinion of Powell, J.)), until a claimant makes a
showing sufficient to support that allegation the good
faith of a state legislature must be presumed, see Bakke,
supra, at 318-319 (opinion of Powell, J.).  The courts, in
assessing the sufficiency of a challenge to a districting
plan, must be sensitive to the complex interplay of
forces that enter a legislature's redistricting calculus.
Redistricting legislatures will, for example, almost al-
ways be aware of racial demographics; but it does not
follow that race predominates in the redistricting proc-
ess.  Shaw, supra, at ___ (slip op., at 14); see Personnel
Administrator of Mass. v. Feeney, 442 U. S. 256, 279
(1979) (-`[D]iscriminatory' purpose' . . . implies more
than intent as volition or intent as awareness of conse-
quences.  It implies that the decisionmaker . . . selected
or reaffirmed a particular course of action at least in
part `because of,' not merely `in spite of,' its adverse
effects-) (footnotes and citation omitted).  The distinction
between being aware of racial considerations and being
motivated by them may be difficult to make.  This
evidentiary difficulty, together with the sensitive nature
of redistricting and the presumption of good faith that
must be accorded legislative enactments, requires courts
to exercise extraordinary caution in adjudicating claims
that a state has drawn district lines on the basis of
race.  The plaintiff's burden is to show, either through
circumstantial evidence of a district's shape and demo-
graphics or more direct evidence going to legislative
purpose, that race was the predominant factor motivat-
ing the legislature's decision to place a significant
number of voters within or without a particular district.
To make this showing, a plaintiff must prove that the
legislature subordinated traditional race-neutral
districting principles, including but not limited to
compactness, contiguity, respect for political subdivisions
or communities defined by actual shared interests, to
racial considerations.  Where these or other race-neutral
considerations are the basis for redistricting legislation,
and are not subordinated to race, a state can -defeat a
claim that a district has been gerrymandered on racial
lines.-  Shaw, supra, at 2827.  These principles inform
the plaintiff's burden of proof at trial.  Of course, courts
must also recognize these principles, and the intrusive
potential of judicial intervention into the legislative
realm, when assessing under the Federal Rules of Civil
Procedure the adequacy of a plaintiff's showing at the
various stages of litigation and determining whether to
permit discovery or trial to proceed.  See, e.g., Fed.
Rules Civ. Proc. 12(b) & (e), 26(b)(2), 56; see also Celotex
Corp. v. Catrett, 477 U. S. 317, 327 (1986).
  In our view, the District Court applied the correct
analysis, and its finding that race was the predominant
factor motivating the drawing of the Eleventh District
was not clearly erroneous.  The court found it was
-exceedingly obvious- from the shape of the Eleventh
District, together with the relevant racial demographics,
that the drawing of narrow land bridges to incorporate
within the District outlying appendages containing
nearly 80% of the district's total black population was a
deliberate attempt to bring black populations into the
district.  864 F. Supp., at 1375; see id., at 1374-1376.
Although by comparison with other districts the geomet-
ric shape of the Eleventh District may not seem bizarre
on its face, when its shape is considered in conjunction
with its racial and population densities, the story of
racial gerrymandering seen by the District Court
becomes much clearer.  See Appendix B (attached); see
also App. 133.  Although this evidence is quite compel-
ling, we need not determine whether it was, standing
alone, sufficient to establish a Shaw claim that the
Eleventh District is unexplainable other than by race.
The District Court had before it considerable additional
evidence showing that the General Assembly was
motivated by a predominant, overriding desire to assign
black populations to the Eleventh District and thereby
permit the creation of a third majority-black district in
the Second.  864 F. Supp., at 1372, 1378.
  The court found that -it became obvious,- both from
the Justice Department's objection letters and the three
preclearance rounds in general, -that [the Justice
Department] would accept nothing less than abject
surrender to its maximization agenda.-  Id., at 1366,
n. 11; see id., at 1360-1367; see also Arlington Heights,
429 U. S., at 267 (-historical background of the decision
is one evidentiary source-).  It further found that the
General Assembly acquiesced and as a consequence was
driven by its overriding desire to comply with the
Department's maximization demands.  The court sup-
ported its conclusion not just with the testimony of
Linda Meggers, the operator of -Herschel,- Georgia's
reapportionment computer, and -probably the most
knowledgeable person available on the subject of Geor-
gian redistricting,- 864 F. Supp., at 1361, 1363, n. 6,
1366, but also with the State's own concessions.  The
State admitted that it -`would not have added those
portions of Effingham and Chatham Counties that are
now in the [far southeastern extension of the] present
Eleventh Congressional District but for the need to in-
clude additional black population in that district to
offset the loss of black population caused by the shift of
predominantly black portions of Bibb County in the Sec-
ond Congressional District which occurred in response to
the Department of Justice's March 20th, 1992, objection
letter.'-  Id., at 1377.  It conceded further that -[t]o the
extent that precincts in the Eleventh Congressional Dis-
trict are split, a substantial reason for their being split
was the objective of increasing the black population of
that district.-  Ibid.  And in its brief to this Court, the
State concedes that -[i]t is undisputed that Georgia's
eleventh is the product of a desire by the General As-
sembly to create a majority black district.-  Brief for
Miller Appellants 30.  Hence the trial court had little
difficulty concluding that the Justice Department -spent
months demanding purely race-based revisions to Geor-
gia's redistricting plans, and that Georgia spent months
attempting to comply.-  864 F. Supp., at 1377.  On this
record, we fail to see how the District Court could have
reached any conclusion other than that race was the
predominant factor in drawing Georgia's Eleventh Dis-
trict; and in any event we conclude the court's finding
is not clearly erroneous.  Compare Wright v. Rockefeller,
376 U. S. 52, 56-57 (1964) (evidence presented -conflict-
ing inferences- and therefore -failed to prove that the
New York Legislature was either motivated by racial
considerations or in fact drew the districts on racial
lines-).
  In light of its well-supported finding, the District
Court was justified in rejecting the various alternative
explanations offered for the District.  Although a
legislature's compliance with -traditional districting
principles such as compactness, contiguity, and respect
for political subdivisions- may well suffice to refute a
claim of racial gerrymandering, Shaw, 509 U. S., at ___
(slip op., at 15), appellants cannot make such a refuta-
tion where, as here, those factors were subordinated to
racial objectives.  Georgia's Attorney General objected to
the Justice Department's demand for three majority-
black districts on the ground that to do so the State
would have to -violate all reasonable standards of
compactness and contiguity.-  App. 118.  This statement
from a state official is powerful evidence that the
legislature subordinated traditional districting principles
to race when it ultimately enacted a plan creating three
majority-black districts, and justified the District Court's
finding that -every [objective districting] factor that
could realistically be subordinated to racial tinkering in
fact suffered that fate.-  864 F. Supp., at 1384; see id.,
at 1364, n. 8; id., at 1375 (-While the boundaries of the
Eleventh do indeed follow many precinct lines, this is
because Ms. Meggers designed the Eleventh District
along racial lines, and race data was most accessible to
her at the precinct level-).
  Nor can the State's districting legislation be rescued
by mere recitation of purported communities of interest.
The evidence was compelling -that there are no tangible
`communities of interest' spanning the hundreds of miles
of the Eleventh District.-  Id., at 1389-1390.  A compre-
hensive report demonstrated the fractured political, so-
cial, and economic interests within the Eleventh Dis-
trict's black population.  See Plaintiff's Exh. No. 85,
pp. 10-27 (report of Timothy G. O'Rourke, Ph.D.).  It is
apparent that it was not alleged shared interests but
rather the object of maximizing the District's black popu-
lation and obtaining Justice Department approval that
in fact explained the General Assembly's actions.  864
F. Supp., at 1366, 1378, 1380.  A State is free to recog-
nize communities that have a particular racial makeup,
provided its action is directed toward some common
thread of relevant interests.  -[W]hen members of a
racial group live together in one community, a reappor-
tionment plan that concentrates members of the group
in one district and excludes them from others may
reflect wholly legitimate purposes.-  Shaw, supra, at ___
(slip op., at 14).  But where the State assumes from a
group of voters' race that they -think alike, share the
same political interests, and will prefer the same can-
didates at the polls,- it engages in racial stereotyping at
odds with equal protection mandates.  Id., at ___ (slip
op., at 16); cf. Powers v. Ohio, 499 U. S., at 410 (-We
may not accept as a defense to racial discrimination the
very stereotype the law condemns-).
  Race was, as the District Court found, the predomi-
nant, overriding factor explaining the General
Assembly's decision to attach to the Eleventh District
various appendages containing dense majority-black
populations.  864 F. Supp., at 1372, 1378.  As a result,
Georgia's congressional redistricting plan cannot be up-
held unless it satisfies strict scrutiny, our most rigorous
and exacting standard of constitutional review.

                     III
  To satisfy strict scrutiny, the State must demonstrate
that its districting legislation is narrowly tailored to
achieve a compelling interest.  Shaw, supra, at ___ (slip
op., at 21-26); see also Croson, 488 U. S., at 494 (plural-
ity opinion); Wygant, 476 U. S., at 274, 280, and n. 6
(plurality opinion); cf. Adarand, ___ U. S., at ___ (slip
op., at 29).  There is a -significant state interest in
eradicating the effects of past racial discrimination.-
Shaw, supra, at ___ (slip op., at 25).  The State does not
argue, however, that it created the Eleventh District to
remedy past discrimination, and with good reason: there
is little doubt that the State's true interest in designing
the Eleventh District was creating a third majority-black
district to satisfy the Justice Department's preclearance
demands.  864 F. Supp., at 1378 (-the only interest the
General Assembly had in mind when drafting the
current congressional plan was satisfying [the Justice
Department's] preclearance requirements-); id., at 1366;
compare Wygant, supra, at 277 (plurality opinion) (under
strict scrutiny, state must have convincing evidence that
remedial action is necessary before implementing
affirmative action), with Heller v. Doe, 509 U. S. ___, ___
(1993) (slip op., at 6) (under rational basis review,
legislature need not -`actually articulate at any time the
purpose or rationale supporting its classification'-)
(quoting Nordlinger v. Hahn, 505 U. S. 1, 15 (1992)).
Whether or not in some cases compliance with the
Voting Rights Act, standing alone, can provide a compel-
ling interest independent of any interest in remedying
past discrimination, it cannot do so here.  As we
suggested in Shaw, compliance with federal antidiscrimi-
nation laws cannot justify race-based districting where
the challenged district was not reasonably necessary
under a constitutional reading and application of those
laws.  See 509 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 23-24).  The
congressional plan challenged here was not required by
the Voting Rights Act under a correct reading of the
statute.
  The Justice Department refused to preclear both of
Georgia's first two submitted redistricting plans.  The
District Court found that the Justice Department had
adopted a -black-maximization- policy under 5, and that
it was clear from its objection letters that the Depart-
ment would not grant preclearance until the State made
the -Macon/Savannah trade- and created a third ma-
jority-black district.  864 F. Supp., at 1366, 1380.  It is,
therefore, safe to say that the congressional plan enacted
in the end was required in order to obtain preclearance.
It does not follow, however, that the plan was required
by the substantive provisions of the Voting Rights Act.
  We do not accept the contention that the State has a
compelling interest in complying with whatever
preclearance mandates the Justice Department issues.
When a state governmental entity seeks to justify race-
based remedies to cure the effects of past discrimination,
we do not accept the government's mere assertion that
the remedial action is required.  Rather, we insist on a
strong basis in evidence of the harm being remedied.
See, e.g., Shaw, supra, at ___ (slip op., at 26); Croson,
supra, at 500-501; Wygant, supra, at 276-277 (plurality
opinion).  -The history of racial classifications in this
country suggests that blind judicial deference to legisla-
tive or executive pronouncements of necessity has no
place in equal protection analysis.-  Croson, supra, at
501.  Our presumptive skepticism of all racial classifica-
tions, see Adarand, supra, at ___ (slip op., at 21),
prohibits us as well from accepting on its face the
Justice Department's conclusion that racial districting is
necessary under the Voting Rights Act.  Where a State
relies on the Department's determination that race-based
districting is necessary to comply with the Voting Rights
Act, the judiciary retains an independent obligation in
adjudicating consequent equal protection challenges to
ensure that the State's actions are narrowly tailored to
achieve a compelling interest.  See Shaw, supra, at
___-___ (slip op., at 23-24).  Were we to accept the
Justice Department's objection itself as a compelling
interest adequate to insulate racial districting from
constitutional review, we would be surrendering to the
Executive Branch our role in enforcing the constitutional
limits on race-based official action.  We may not do so.
See, e.g., United States v. Nixon, 418  U. S. 683, 704
(1974) (judicial power cannot be shared with Executive
Branch); Marbury v. Madison, 1 Cranch 137, 177 (1803)
(-It is emphatically the province and duty of the judicial
department to say what the law is-); cf. Baker v. Carr,
369 U. S. 186, 211 (1962) (Supreme Court is -ultimate
interpreter of the Constitution-); Cooper v. Aaron, 358
U. S. 1, 18 (1958) (-permanent and indispensable feature
of our constitutional system- is that -the federal judi-
ciary is supreme in the exposition of the law of the
Constitution-).
  For the same reasons, we think it inappropriate for a
court engaged in constitutional scrutiny to accord
deference to the Justice Department's interpretation of
the Act.  Although we have deferred to the Department's
interpretation in certain statutory cases, see, e.g., Presley
v. Etowah County Comm'n, 502 U. S. 491, 508-509
(1992) and cases cited therein, we have rejected agency
interpretations to which we would otherwise defer where
they raise serious constitutional questions.  Edward J.
DeBartolo Corp. v. Florida Gulf Coast Buildidng & Con-
struction Trades Council, 485 U. S. 568, 574-575 (1988).
When the Justice Department's interpretation of the Act
compels race-based districting, it by definition raises
a serious constitutional question, see, e.g., Bakke,
438 U. S., at 291 (opinion of Powell, J.) (-Racial and
ethnic distinctions of any sort are inherently supect-
under the Equal Protection Clause), and should not re-
ceive deference.
  Georgia's drawing of the Eleventh District was not
required under the Act because there was no reasonable
basis to believe that Georgia's earlier enacted plans
violated 5.  Wherever a plan is -ameliorative,- a term
we have used to describe plans increasing the number
of majority-minority districts, it -cannot violate 5 unless
the new apportionment itself so discriminates on the
basis of race or color as to violate the Constitution.-
Beer, 425 U. S., at 141.  Georgia's first and second pro-
posed plans increased the number of majority-black dis-
tricts from 1 out of 10 (10%) to 2 out of 11 (18.18%).
These plans were -ameliorative- and could not have vio-
lated 5's non-retrogression principle.  Ibid.  Acknowl-
edging as much, see Brief for United States 29; 864
F. Supp., at 1384-1385, the United States now relies on
the fact that the Justice Department may object to a
state proposal either on the ground that it has a prohib-
ited purpose or a prohibited effect, see, e.g., Pleasant
Grove v. United States, 479 U. S. 462, 469 (1987).  The
Government justifies its preclearance objections on the
ground that the submitted plans violated 5's purpose
element.  The key to the Government's position, which
is plain from its objection letters if not from its briefs to
this Court, compare App. 105-106, 124-125 with Brief
for United States 31-33, is and always has been that
Georgia failed to proffer a nondiscriminatory purpose for
its refusal in the first two submissions to take the steps
necessary to create a third majority-minority district.
  The Government's position is insupportable.
-[A]meliorative changes, even if they fall short of what
might be accomplished in terms of increasing minority
representation, cannot be found to violate section 5
unless they so discriminate on the basis of race or color
as to violate the Constitution.-  Days, Section 5 and
the Role of the Justice Department, in B. Grofman &
C. Davidson, Controversies in Minority Voting 56 (1992).
Although it is true we have held that the State has the
burden to prove a nondiscriminatory purpose under 5,
e.g., Pleasant Grove, supra, at 469, Georgia's Attorney
General provided a detailed explanation for the State's
initial decision not to enact the max-black plan, see App.
117-119.  The District Court accepted this explanation,
864 F. Supp., at 1365, and found an absence of any dis-
criminatory intent, id., at 1363, and n. 7.  The State's
policy of adhering to other districting principles instead
of creating as many majority-minority districts as possi-
ble does not support an inference that the plan -so dis-
criminates on the basis of race or color as to violate the
Constitution,- Beer, supra, at 141; see Mobile v. Bolden,
446 U. S. 55 (1980) (plurality opinion), and thus cannot
provide any basis under 5 for the Justice Department's
objection.
  Instead of grounding its objections on evidence of a
discriminatory purpose, it would appear the Government
was driven by its policy of maximizing majority-black
districts.  Although the Government now disavows
having had that policy, see Brief for United States 35,
and seems to concede its impropriety, see Tr. of Oral
Arg. 32-33, the District Court's well-documented factual
finding was that the Department did adopt a maximiza-
tion policy and followed it in objecting to Georgia's first
two plans.  One of the two Department of Justice line
attorneys overseeing the Georgia preclearance process
himself disclosed that -what we did and what I did
specifically was to take a . . . map of the State of
Georgia shaded for race, shaded by minority concentra-
tion, and overlay the districts that were drawn by the
State of Georgia and see how well those lines adequately
reflected black voting strength.-  864 F. Supp., at 1362,
n. 4.  In utilizing 5 to require States to create ma-
jority-minority districts wherever possible, the Depart-
ment of Justice expanded its authority under the statute
beyond what Congress intended and we have upheld.
  Section 5 was directed at preventing a particular set
of invidious practices which had the effect of -undo[ing]
or defeat[ing] the rights recently won by nonwhite vot-
ers.-  H. R. Rep. No. 91-397, p. 8 (1969).  As we ex-
plained in Beer v. United States,
-`Section 5 was a response to a common practice in
some jurisdictions of staying one step ahead of the
federal courts by passing new discriminatory voting
laws as soon as the old ones had been struck down.
That practice had been possible because each new
law remained in effect until the Justice Department
or private plaintiffs were able to sustain the burden
of proving that the new law, too, was discrimina-
tory. . . . Congress therefore decided, as the Su-
preme Court held it could, -to shift the advantage of
time and inertia from the perpetrators of the evil to
its victim,- by -freezing election procedures in the
covered areas unless the changes can be shown to
be nondiscriminatory.-'-  425 U. S., at 140 (quoting
H. R. Rep. No. 94-196, pp. 57-58 (1975) (footnotes
omitted)).
  Based on this historical understanding, we recognized
in Beer that -the purpose of 5 has always been to
insure that no voting-procedure changes would be made
that would lead to a retrogression in the position of
racial minorities with respect to their effective exercise
of the electoral franchise.-  425 U. S., at 141.  The
Justice Department's maximization policy seems quite
far removed from this purpose.  We are especially reluc-
tant to conclude that 5 justifies that policy given the
serious constitutional concerns it raises.  In South
Carolina v. Katzenbach, 383 U. S. 301 (1966), we upheld
5 as a necessary and constitutional response to some
states' -extraordinary stratagem[s] of contriving new
rules of various kinds for the sole purpose of perpetu-
ating voting discrimination in the face of adverse federal
court decrees.-  Id., at 335 (footnote omitted); see also
City of Rome v. United States, 446 U. S. 156, 173-183
(1980).  But our belief in Katzenbach that the federalism
costs exacted by 5 preclearance could be justified by
those extraordinary circumstances does not mean they
can be justified in the circumstances of this case.  And
the Justice Department's implicit command that States
engage in presumptively unconstitutional race-based dis-
tricting brings the Voting Rights Act, once upheld as a
proper exercise of Congress' authority under 2 of the
Fifteenth Amendment, Katzenbach, supra, at 327, 337,
into tension with the Fourteenth Amendment.  As we re-
called in Katzenbach itself, Congress' exercise of its
Fifteenth Amendment authority even when otherwise
proper still must -`consist with the letter and spirit of
the constitution.'-  383 U. S., at 326 (quoting McCulloch
v. Maryland, 4 Wheat. 316, 421 (1819)).  We need not,
however, resolve these troubling and difficult constitu-
tional questions today.  There is no indication Congress
intended such a far-reaching application of 5, so we re-
ject the Justice Department's interpretation of the stat-
ute and avoid the constitutional problems that interpre-
tation raises.  See, e.g., DeBartolo Corp. v. Florida Gulf
Coast Trades Council, 485 U. S., at 575.

                     IV
  The Voting Rights Act, and its grant of authority to
the federal courts to uncover official efforts to abridge
minorities' right to vote, has been of vital importance in
eradicating invidious discrimination from the electoral
process and enhancing the legitimacy of our political
institutions.  Only if our political system and our society
cleanse themselves of that discrimination will all
members of the polity share an equal opportunity to
gain public office regardless of race.  As a Nation we
share both the obligation and the aspiration of working
toward this end.  The end is neither assured nor well
served, however, by carving electorates into racial blocs.
-If our society is to continue to progress as a multiracial
democracy, it must recognize that the automatic invoca-
tion of race stereotypes retards that progress and causes
continued hurt and injury.-  Edmondson v. Leesville
Concrete Co., 500 U. S. 614, 630-631 (1991).  It takes a
shortsighted and unauthorized view of the Voting Rights
Act to invoke that statute, which has played a decisive
role in redressing some of our worst forms of discrimina-
tion, to demand the very racial stereotyping the Four-
teenth Amendment forbids.

                 *    *    *
  The judgment of the District Court is affirmed, and
the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent
with this decision.
                            It is so ordered.

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