SCOTUS rules 6-3 in Mobile v. Bolden that discriminatory intent required for Section 2 claims

The Supreme Court ruled 6-3 on April 22, 1980, that Black voters in Mobile, Alabama, must prove intentional discrimination to challenge the city's at-large commission system under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. Justice Potter Stewart wrote the plurality opinion holding that the Fifteenth Amendment prohibits only purposeful discrimination, not electoral arrangements that merely produce racially disproportionate results. The ruling effectively gutted Section 2 as a tool against vote dilution and triggered a two-year congressional effort to amend the statute with a results-based standard.