On October 15, 2025, during oral arguments in Louisiana v. Callais, Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson stunned the country by likening minority voters’ lack of electoral access to the way Americans with disabilities are denied entry to buildings, even saying, “They’re disabled.” Conservative Americans should be furious, not merely offended — this is a rotten, paternalistic analogy coming from the highest court in the land and it lowers the dignity of millions of Black voters to a legal abstraction.
The case itself is straightforward on its face but seismic in consequence: Louisiana’s post-2020 map and a court-ordered second majority-Black district are being litigated under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, and the Court reargued the matter on October 15 as it considers whether race-conscious remedies are permissible. This isn’t abstract theory; it’s about whether courts and legislatures can ever draw districts with race as a central factor, and whether past disparities justify race-based fixes today.
Justice Jackson invoked the Americans with Disabilities Act as her “paradigmatic example,” arguing that Congress can require remedies for groups who lack “equal access” even when there was no malicious intent by those who built the system. That legal comparison may sound clever until you think about what it implies: that entire classes of Americans are effectively incapable of political self-determination unless the government corrals them into protected enclaves. Her analogy prompted pointed pushback in the courtroom about stereotyping and assuming the political views of people based on race.
Conservatives are right to call this out as patronizing and dangerous. Treating Black voters as if they were a monolithic, disabled group ignores individual agency, rewards identity politics, and invites government to sort citizens by race instead of treating them as equals under the law. The Court’s conservative majority signaled clear skepticism about turning race into a permanent mapmaking crutch, a concern that echoes across arguments from Justices wary of stereotyping and permanent racial remedies.
What’s at stake is massive: this fight could meaningfully limit how Section 2 is applied and reshape congressional maps across the country, with ripple effects in states from Louisiana to Arizona. A ruling that tightens or curtails race-based redistricting could change the partisan balance in the House and force Democrats to compete on ideas rather than relying on engineered majorities; the decision is expected in the Court’s next term, with observers pointing to a ruling by June 2026. Americans should understand the stakes and pay attention.
Patriots who believe in equal opportunity must reject both the cheap politics of victimhood and any judicial reasoning that treats Americans like dossiers of grievances. We can and should protect voting rights without surrendering to a worldview that makes race the master key to political power and strips individuals of responsibility and voice. This moment calls for conservatives to stand firm for liberty, equal protection, and respect for the dignity of every voter.
The lesson for every hardworking American is simple: don’t let elites—on the bench or in the bureaucracy—recast citizens as helpless blocks to be engineered for political outcomes. Demand judges interpret statutes and the Constitution, not rewrite them into tools of identity-based governance, and hold elected officials accountable for defending equal treatment under the law.
