How the Supreme Court Perpetuates the Double Standard

By Aryan Ranjan

High School Essay Contest 3rd Place

From Patrick Henry’s glorious ultimatum of liberty or death to the colonists’ valiant display of defiance against the Tea Act at Griffin’s Wharf in 1773, the very premise of American patriotism has always stemmed from riots and protests – the will to reject the status quo by any means necessary to fight for real, beneficial change. Unfortunately, if there’s one thing that has become evident since the storming of our nation’s Capitol just days ago, it's that even this hallmark of our democracy is prejudiced. As predominantly white Americans fought through barricades armed with pipe bombs and nooses, law enforcement met them with selfies and hand-holding; yet, when millions of Black Americans marched through the streets, fighting for their very livelihoods, they were violated with rubber bullets and batons.[1]

However, this double standard is anything but new for minority communities, especially when it comes to voter integrity. To this, we can look to the Fifteenth Amendment, which had noble intentions but was easily circumvented. Although the Amendment prohibited the denial of voting rights on the basis of race or skin color, it conveniently left it up to the states to oversee elections in any manner they saw fit.[2] In Mississippi, this meant launching a series of poll taxes and literacy tests in the hopes of intimidating Black voters. And when challenged on this blatant abuse of power in the case of Williams v. Mississippi, 170 U.S. 213 (1898), the Supreme Court upheld the state’s rules, touting that even though the measures reduced Black voter registration rates to nearly zero, they did not violate the Constitution because the language of the disenfranchisement measures were race-neutral: both White and Black men were affected by the tests, illustrating that neither side was specifically targeted.[3] With such a faulty precedent set in place, numerous Southern states followed suit, leading to a slippery slope of the Jim Crow laws which weren’t eliminated until the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (VRA). 

According to the US Commission on Civil Rights, the VRA was quite effective, as black voter registration rates in Mississippi increased from 6.7% in 1965 to 59.8% in 1967.[4] Unfortunately, the protections granted by the VRA were soon gutted when Section 4 was ruled unconstitutional, in Shelby County v. Holder U.S. 529 (2013). Writing the majority opinion, Chief Justice Roberts used the same mentality as Justice McKenna in Williams v. Mississippi, arguing that there was no sign of prejudice directed specifically towards Black Americans anymore; what was prejudicial, however, was the VRA’s treatment of states with a history of disenfranchising Blacks.[5] Since the Department of Justice could no longer monitor “covered jurisdictions,” Section 5 of the VRA essentially became moot – states were now free to enact much stronger restrictions on minority voters without the Attorney General’s approval. Just like that, Jim Crow 2.0 came into full effect.

Just a month after the case’s ruling, North Carolina’s State Legislature requested and received racial data from across the state to change its voting requirements. After analyzing the data, a new bill was passed, maintaining only the IDs that white North Carolinians were more likely to possess, eliminating the first week of early voting, and removing one of the two “souls-to-the-polls” Sundays in which African American churches provided transportation to voters.[6] Although the US Court of Appeals held that this law specifically targeted African Americans, the actions taken in North Carolina opened the floodgates for more exploitation, spotlighting the fundamental flaw in Chief Justice Roberts’s reasoning to vote against the VRA in the first place.  

Unfortunately, the cases of voter suppression didn’t just stop there. In 2018, the Supreme Court’s ruling in Husted v. A. Philip Randolph Institute No. 16-980, U.S. 584 (2018) upheld an Ohio law allowing states to purge names from voting rolls if those persons had not voted recently.[7] The inherent harms of this ruling can be seen by Virginia’s actions in 2013, in which officials purged nearly 39,000 voters based on data that was later found to have an error rate of up to 17%.[8] Then, in terms of partisan gerrymandering, the Supreme Court ruled in Rucho v. Common Cause No. 18-422, U.S. 588 (2019) that federal courts could not review challenges to heavily political issues, instead leaving the decision up to the individual states. This opened the doors for lower court judges to to allow new restrictions on voting, leading to the Seventh Circuit upholding efforts by Wisconsin Republicans to limit early voting even after a district court found that early voting hours were cut to suppress the reliably Democratic vote of Milwaukee’s African American population.[9] Not to mention, in Alabama, legislators closed down nearly thirty-six DMV offices in eight of the ten Alabama counties with the highest percentage of non-white voters to prevent their votes from being counted to the fullest extent.[10] All together, fourteen states have enacted stricter voter restrictions since Shelby County making it difficult and confusing to vote.

Given these statistics, there should be no surprise as to why America ranks lower than any other long-established democracy in terms of election integrity.[11] With over eight-hundred polling places being closed prior to the 2016 election nationwide, experts believe that even the Presidential Election was overturned largely due to voter suppression. In a country where every single bill, law, and letter is inked in the name of equality itself, this is truly unacceptable and the Supreme Court must take immediate action to ensure that our democracy is no longer undermined by selfish politicians who care more about their reelections than the wellbeing of their constituents.

It’s still important to acknowledge that true equity is not going to come by merely pointing out where the injustices lie. True equity will come by fighting for what is right. By continuing the legacy of our Founding Fathers and rejecting these social norms, we can bring back the essence of our democracy – as Americans.

Endnotes

[1] Feis, Aaron. "Two Capitol cops suspended in riot probe, congressman says." New York Post. Last modified January 11, 2021. Accessed January 11, 2021. https://nypost.com/2021/01/11/two-capitol-cops-suspended-one-law-enforcement-member-arrested-pol/.

[2] "A History of Voter Suppression." National Low Income Housing Coalition. Last modified October 31, 2020. Accessed January 11, 2021. https://nlihc.org/resource/history-voter-suppression.

[3] Mckeever, Amy. "Voter suppression has haunted America since it was founded." National Geographic. Last modified August 21, 2020. Accessed January 11, 2021. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/reference/united-states-history/voter-suppression-haunted-united-states-since-founded/.

[4] Lopez, German. "How the Voting Rights Act transformed black voting rights in the South, in one chart." Vox. Last modified March 6, 2015. Accessed January 11, 2021. https://www.vox.com/2015/3/6/8163229/voting-rights-act-1965.

[5] Serwer, Adam. "The Supreme Court Is Helping Republicans Rig Elections." The Atlantic. Last modified October 22, 2020. Accessed January 12, 2021. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/10/dont-let-supreme-court-choose-its-own-electorate/616808/.

[6] "The Effects of Shelby County v. Holder." Brennan Center for Justice. Last modified October 2, 2019. Accessed January 12, 2021. https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/policy-solutions/effects-shelby-county-v-holder.

[7] HUSTED, OHIO SECRETARY OF STATE v. A. PHILIP RANDOLPH INSTITUTE, 584 S. Ct. (June 11, 2018).

[8] "Virginia Election Officials Purging Almost 40000 Voters." The Washington Post. Last modified October 18, 2013. Accessed January 11, 2021. https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/govbeat/wp/2013/10/17/virginia-election-officials-purging-almost-40000-voters/.

[9] Neuman, Scott. "Federal Court In Wisconsin Upholds Voting Restrictions Favored By Republicans." NPR. Last modified July 1, 2020. Accessed January 11, 2021. https://www.npr.org/2020/06/29/885096130/federal-court-in-wisconsin-upholds-voting-restrictions-favored-by-republicans.

[10] Luzer, Daniel. "Alabama Closing Many DMV Offices in Majority Black Counties." Governing. Last modified October 2, 2015. Accessed January 11, 2021. https://www.governing.com/archive/alabama-demands-voter-id--then-closes-drivers-license-offices-In-clack-counties.html.

[11] Davis, Elliott. "U.S. Election Integrity Compares Poorly to Other Democracies." U.S. News and World Report. Last modified October 7, 2020. Accessed January 11, 2021. https://www.usnews.com/news/best-countries/articles/2020-10-07/us-elections-compare-poorly-to-other-democracies-research-shows.

Bibliography

"A History of Voter Suppression." National Low Income Housing Coalition. Last modified October 31, 2020. Accessed January 11, 2021. https://nlihc.org/resource/history-voter-suppression.

Davis, Elliott. "U.S. Election Integrity Compares Poorly to Other Democracies." U.S. News and World Report. Last modified October 7, 2020. Accessed January 11, 2021. https://www.usnews.com/news/best-countries/articles/2020-10-07/us-elections-compare-poorly-to-other-democracies-research-shows.

Feis, Aaron. "Two Capitol cops suspended in riot probe, congressman says." New York Post. Last modified January 11, 2021. Accessed January 11, 2021. https://nypost.com/2021/01/11/two-capitol-cops-suspended-one-law-enforcement-member-arrested-pol/.

HUSTED, OHIO SECRETARY OF STATE v. A. PHILIP RANDOLPH INSTITUTE, 584 S. Ct. (June 11, 2018).

Lopez, German. "How the Voting Rights Act transformed black voting rights in the South, in one chart." Vox. Last modified March 6, 2015. Accessed January 11, 2021. https://www.vox.com/2015/3/6/8163229/voting-rights-act-1965.

Luzer, Daniel. "Alabama Closing Many DMV Offices in Majority Black Counties." Governing. Last modified October 2, 2015. Accessed January 11, 2021. https://www.governing.com/archive/alabama-demands-voter-id--then-closes-drivers-license-offices-In-clack-counties.html.

Mckeever, Amy. "Voter suppression has haunted America since it was founded." National Geographic. Last modified August 21, 2020. Accessed January 11, 2021. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/reference/united-states-history/voter-suppression-haunted-united-states-since-founded/.

Neuman, Scott. "Federal Court In Wisconsin Upholds Voting Restrictions Favored By Republicans." NPR. Last modified July 1, 2020. Accessed January 11, 2021. https://www.npr.org/2020/06/29/885096130/federal-court-in-wisconsin-upholds-voting-restrictions-favored-by-republicans.

Serwer, Adam. "The Supreme Court Is Helping Republicans Rig Elections." The Atlantic. Last modified October 22, 2020. Accessed January 12, 2021. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/10/dont-let-supreme-court-choose-its-own-electorate/616808/.

“The Effects of Shelby County v. Holder." Brennan Center for Justice. Last modified October 2, 2019. Accessed January 12, 2021. https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/policy-solutions/effects-shelby-county-v-holder.

"Virginia Election Officials Purging Almost 40000 Voters." The Washington Post. Last modified October 18, 2013. Accessed January 11, 2021. https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/govbeat/wp/2013/10/17/virginia-election-officias-purging-almost-40000-voters/.