Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

Top Stories

Louisiana’s high court a racial gerrymander, federal suit alleges, and part of a larger trend

Louisiana’s high court a racial gerrymander, federal suit alleges, and part of a larger trend

Louisiana's high court has only had two black justices in the 105 years voters have been electing people to the court.

Louisiana Supreme Court

The maps drawn for the election of the Louisiana Supreme Court are discriminatory against black voters, a civil rights group alleges in a new federal lawsuit.

The racial gerrymandering lawsuit was filed in Baton Rouge on Tuesday, the day before the release of a stark new report finding that the makeup of state supreme courts nationwide does not come close to reflecting the racial diversity of the country.

The plaintiffs in the Louisiana case, the state NAACP and two black voters, say only two African Americans have served on the state's highest court since the election of those justices began 105 years ago. One is on the bench now (there are seven seats), a time when the black population of the state is 32 percent, the second highest percentage of any state.

The suit asks the court to toss out the state judicial map as a violation of the Voting Rights Act, the 1965 law designed to ensure minorities can fully exercise their franchise, and to order the boundaries redrawn before the next election.


Wednesday's report from the Brennan Center for Justice, a liberal democracy reform advocacy group, looked at the 1,600 people who have served on state high courts since 1960. Among the findings:

  • 13 states have not had a Supreme Court justice of color.
  • 24 states do not now have a justice of color.
  • People of color make up nearly 40 percent of the nation's population but hold only 15 percent of state Supreme Court seats.
  • White men are in almost half the state Supreme Court seats but make up less than one-third of the population.

The Louisiana suit alleges that if the seven judicial districts were drawn fairly, two would be majority-black. Now just one is.

In 1992, after the districts were redrawn in the wake of an earlier suit, Revius Ortique was elected the first black justice in state history. Two years later he reached the mandatory retirement age of 70 and was replaced by Bernette Joshua Johnson, who is also black. She is now chief justice.

The suit claims the maps violate the Voting Rights Act prohibition against any practice that results in the "denial or abridgement of the right of any citizen of the United States to vote on account of race or color."

One of the authors of the Brennan report, Alicia Bannon, said there is a cost when the diversity of the judiciary does not match that of the communities it serves.

"Our judicial system loses credibility with the public when the judges making the rulings don't reflect the diversity of the people affected by those rulings," she said. "Our courts can't function without the p

Read More

MAGA says no to Trump & Kennedy’s junk science

U.S. President Donald Trump answers questions after making an announcement on“ significant medical and scientific findings for America’ s children” in the Roosevelt Room of the White House on Sept. 22, 2025, in Washington, D.C. Federal health officials suggested a link between the use of acetaminophen during pregnancy as a risk for autism, although many health...

(Getty Images)

MAGA says no to Trump & Kennedy’s junk science

President Trump stood at the White House podium, addressing a room full of reporters.

“First, effective immediately, the FDA will be notifying physicians that the use of…ah-said-a…well…let’s see how we say that.”

Keep ReadingShow less
On Live Facial Recognition in the City: We Are Not Guinea Pigs, and We Are Not Disposable

New Orleans fights a facial recognition ordinance as residents warn of privacy risks, mass surveillance, and threats to immigrant communities.

Getty Images, PhanuwatNandee

On Live Facial Recognition in the City: We Are Not Guinea Pigs, and We Are Not Disposable

Every day, I ride my bike down my block in Milan, a tight-knit residential neighborhood in central New Orleans. And every day, a surveillance camera follows me down the block.

Despite the rosy rhetoric of pro-surveillance politicians and facial recognition vendors, that camera doesn’t make me safer. In fact, it puts everyone in New Orleans at risk.

Keep ReadingShow less
An illustration of two people holding legal documents.
llustration by Olivia Abeyta for palabra

Proof of Citizenship, No Proof of Safety

Claudia, an immigrant from Chile who lives in suburban Maryland right outside Washington, D.C., watched closely as the Trump administration ramped up its mass deportation campaign during the spring (Claudia, not her real name, asked to be identified by a pseudonym because she is afraid of federal immigration agents).

She went online and watched countless videos of masked, heavily armed Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents breaking the car windows of immigrants to wrestle them out of their cars, and detaining people at their workplaces, like restaurants, car washes, and agricultural fields. Many of her friends told her about ICE sweeps in heavily Latino apartment complexes near her home.

Keep ReadingShow less
Protest sign, We the people.
Protests have been sparked across the country over the last few weeks.
Gene Gallin on Unsplash

Why Constitution Day Should Spark a Movement for a New Convention in 2037

Sept. 17 marked Constitution Day, grounded in a federal law commemorating the signing of the U.S. Constitution on Sept. 17, 1787. As explained by the courts of Maryland, “By law, all educational institutions receiving federal funding must observe Constitution Day. It is an opportunity to celebrate and discuss our Constitution and system of government.”

This week also marked the release of an important new book by the historian Jill Lepore: “We the People: A History of the U.S. Constitution” (as reviewed in the New York Times in a public link). Here’s an overview of her conclusions from the publisher:

Keep ReadingShow less