Supreme Court Establishes Gingles Test for Voting Rights Act Section 2

The Supreme Court issued a unanimous ruling in Thornburg v. Gingles, striking down four North Carolina multi-member legislative districts as violations of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. Justice William Brennan wrote the opinion establishing the three-part Gingles test for vote dilution claims: the minority group must be sufficiently large and geographically compact to form a majority in a single-member district, must be politically cohesive, and must face bloc voting by the majority that usually defeats the minority group's preferred candidate. The ruling established the legal framework for majority-minority districts over the next four decades.