Civil Rights

On April 29, 2026, the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 that proving racial discrimination in redistricting now requires evidence of intentional bigotry, a standard courts have long recognized as nearly impossible to meet. Justice Kagan called it rendering the Voting Rights Act “all but a dead letter.” Eight days later, Tennessee eliminated its only Black-majority congressional district.

Alabama’s prisons have a homicide rate 600% above the national average. The DOJ Civil Rights Division has lost 70-75% of its attorneys. 2,086 Confederate memorials remain on public land. South Carolina is banning QR codes on monuments that would let you read the history the statue leaves out.

This page covers what is being dismantled, who is doing it, and what you can do.

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Redistricting

The Supreme Court’s Louisiana v. Callais ruling rewrote the rules for challenging racial gerrymandering. Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act used to protect minority voters from maps that diluted their political power, even without proof of racist intent. The Court now requires plaintiffs to prove intentional discrimination. They must show that the people who drew the map did so because of race, not just that the map has racially discriminatory effects.

States moved fast. Tennessee eliminated its only Black-majority district in 8 days, carving Memphis’s 9th Congressional District into three white-majority, Republican-leaning pieces. The NAACP sued hours later.

Alabama’s map was vacated during active elections. Georgia called a special session for June 17. Louisiana lost the second Black-majority district the case was about.

States that lost or redrew maps after the Callais ruling

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Criminal justice

Alabama is the only state facing two systemwide federal lawsuits over unconstitutional prison conditions. The prison homicide rate is more than 600% above the national average. From 2010 to 2019, prison homicides increased tenfold.

The state has spent over $57 million on legal costs, with $42 million going to a single law firm defending the prison system. Settlement payments to victims totaled $4.4 million. The state spends 10 times more defending the system than compensating the people it harms.

Mississippi’s Parchman had at least 42 homicides over the last decade. Local prosecutors filed charges in only 16 of them. Eight convictions. Two came only after news coverage.

Louisiana reversed bipartisan criminal justice reforms in 2024. Governor Landry eliminated parole for anyone convicted after August 1, 2024, and required prisoners to serve 85% of their sentences. The reforms he reversed had cut the nonviolent prison population by 55% and the overall population by 26% between 2017 and 2021.

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Voting discrimination

Restrictive voting laws do not affect all voters equally. The data shows they hit Black, Latino, and Asian voters hardest.

Mail ballot rejection rates by race after Texas SB 1 took effect

In Georgia, drop boxes fell 77% in the eight counties with the highest Black and Latino populations. Black mail-ballot use dropped from 29% to 5% between 2020 and 2024. In Washington state, audits found Black voters’ ballots were 400% more likely to be rejected.

After the Supreme Court’s 2013 Shelby County decision ended preclearance, the Brennan Center found purge rates in previously covered counties were 40% higher than elsewhere. Georgia’s Secretary of State purged 471,000 registrations in 2025. The NAACP estimated over 200,000 voter challenges were filed in Georgia in 2024 alone.

A Brennan Center study found the damage lasts. Voters whose ballots were rejected under Texas SB 1 were measurably less likely to vote two years later. A rejected application led to a 16 percentage point decrease in turnout in the next general election.

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Historical memory

2,086 Confederate memorials remain on public land across the United States, including 685 monuments. Only 2 were removed in 2024, down from 73 in 2021. Alabama alone has 175.

South Carolina’s Senate voted to expand the Heritage Act, the 26-year-old law that protects Confederate monuments. The expansion bans QR codes or informational plaques that provide historical context about the people the statues honor. It extends protections to all memorials on public property and allows private groups to sue to enforce the ban.

The pattern: protect the monument, ban the context. A person walking by a statue of a Confederate general cannot scan a code to learn that the statue was erected during Jim Crow to intimidate Black residents. The law does not protect history. It protects a specific version of it.

A Trump executive order, “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History,” seeks to halt removals and restore toppled statues. The National Park Service announced plans to restore a statue of Confederate General Albert Pike.

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Federal accountability

The DOJ Civil Rights Division has lost 70-75% of its attorneys since January 2025. Trial attorneys in the Criminal Section dropped from roughly 40 to no more than 13. Over 200 departed employees signed a letter calling it a “coordinated effort” to undermine career staff.

Hate crimes reached 11,679 incidents in 2024 — the second-highest year on record. Anti-Black crimes remain three times the next category. Race-based hate crimes are up 87% over the past decade.

That climb tracks a climate, not a coincidence. When officials and media figures repeatedly cast a group as a threat, they make attacks on it more likely, a dynamic known as stochastic terrorism, demonization that raises the odds someone acts on it unprompted.

The office that is supposed to investigate and prosecute these cases has lost three-quarters of its lawyers.

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Protect yourself right now

1. Check your voter registration and your district. Maps are being redrawn. Verify your registration and confirm your current congressional district at vote.org. If your state held a special redistricting session, your district may have changed.

2. Know your rights during a voter challenge. If someone challenges your registration at the polls, you have the right to cast a provisional ballot. Do not leave. The NAACP Legal Defense Fund has state-specific voter protection guides.

3. Contact your representatives about the Voting Rights Act. The John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act would restore the preclearance protections the Supreme Court has gutted. Send a letter or call your senators.

4. Follow the prison cases. Alabama’s DOJ trial and Mississippi’s Parchman oversight fight are the two most consequential prison conditions cases in the country. The Equal Justice Initiative and the Marshall Project track developments.

5. Ask your local officials about Confederate monuments. If your city or county has a Confederate memorial, ask your council member whether they support adding historical context — or whether your state’s heritage law prevents it. Show up at the meeting.

6. Support organizations doing this work. The NAACP Legal Defense Fund, Brennan Center for Justice, Campaign Legal Center, Equal Justice Initiative, and SPLC are on the front lines. They need funding and public pressure to sustain their cases.