How the Roberts Court Echoes Plessy v. Ferguson in Gutting the Voting Rights Act

The Supreme Court’s decision last month to strike down a key provision of the 1965 Voting Rights Act did more than weaken a landmark civil rights law—it resurrected the same flawed reasoning that once upheld Jim Crow segregation under Plessy v. Ferguson.

In a sweeping analysis, legal historians and scholars argue that the Roberts Court has borrowed from the Supreme Court’s darkest era, deploying judicial supremacy and a willful blindness to racial inequality that defined the late 19th century. The parallels between the Court’s 2023 ruling in Louisiana v. Callais and the 1896 decision in Plessy reveal a disturbing continuity in how the judiciary has historically undermined racial justice.

The Roberts Court’s ‘Neoconfederate’ Turn

Legal experts describe the current Supreme Court as a neoconfederate court, one that repeatedly invokes the tactics and ideologies of the 1880s and 1890s. During that period, the Court systematically dismantled Reconstruction-era protections, refusing to recognize the systemic nature of racial discrimination. Today, the Roberts Court appears to follow the same playbook, prioritizing judicial deference over substantive equality.

In Plessy v. Ferguson, the Court upheld Louisiana’s law mandating racial segregation in railcars, enshrining the doctrine of “separate but equal”. Writing for the 7-1 majority, Justice Henry Brown argued that the law was race-neutral and did not imply inferiority. “If this be so, it is not by reason of anything found in the act, but solely because the colored race chooses to put that construction upon it,” Brown wrote.

“The real meaning of such legislation” is that the “colored citizens are so inferior and degraded that they cannot be allowed to sit in the public coaches occupied by white citizens.”

— Justice John Marshall Harlan, dissenting in Plessy v. Ferguson

Harlan’s lone dissent exposed the fallacy of the majority’s reasoning, arguing that segregation laws were inherently unequal in a white supremacist society. Yet the Court deferred to the legislature, accepting at face value the supposed “comfort and preservation of public peace” as justification for racial separation.

From Plessy to Louisiana v. Callais: A Century of Judicial Deference

More than a century after Plessy, the Supreme Court’s recent decision in Louisiana v. Callais (2023) reveals a strikingly similar pattern of judicial reasoning. In that case, the Court struck down a provision of the Voting Rights Act, effectively gutting federal oversight of discriminatory voting laws. The decision came despite Louisiana’s Black population making up nearly one-third of the state, yet holding a majority only in one of six congressional districts.

The Court’s majority opinion, authored by Justice Samuel Alito, echoed the Plessy Court’s deference to legislative intent, ignoring the well-documented history of racial discrimination in voting rights. Legal scholars argue that the decision reflects a broader trend of the Roberts Court to prioritize procedural formalities over substantive equality, much like the late 19th-century Court did in Plessy.

Judicial Supremacy and the Blindness to Reality

Both the Plessy and Louisiana v. Callais decisions share a common flaw: a refusal to acknowledge the lived reality of racial inequality. The Plessy majority insisted that segregation laws were neutral, while the Callais majority ignored the disproportionate impact of Louisiana’s congressional map on Black voters. In each case, the Court deferred to legislative intent without examining the discriminatory consequences.

Justice Harlan’s warning in Plessy—that segregation laws would “stamp the colored race with a badge of inferiority”—was ignored by his contemporaries. Today, legal scholars warn that the Roberts Court’s rulings risk repeating history, undermining the hard-won progress of the Second Reconstruction and the civil rights movement.