The Supreme Court just threw out Louisiana’s redrawn congressional map in a huge blow to the Voting Rights Act, an essential pillar of the civil rights movement.In a 6-3 decision along ideological lines, the Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that Louisiana’s redrawn congressional map, which was redrawn with considerations of race thanks to a group of Black voters who had challenged the state’s original version, was unconstitutional. “Because the Voting Rights Act did not require Louisiana to create an additional majority-minority district, no compelling interest justified the State’s use of race in creating SB8, and that map is an unconstitutional racial gerrymander,” the court wrote in its decision for Louisiana v. Callais. Justice Samuel Alito delivered the majority decision, joined by the five other conservative justices, while Justice Elena Kagan filed her dissent, joined by the other two liberal justices.Following the 2020 census, Louisiana’s state legislature drew a new voting map, which produced one majority Black district. A group of Black voters sued, arguing that the map had violated Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, which prohibits discrimination based on race. A federal district court sided with the voters, and the conservative U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit upheld the decision, ordering the state to draw a new map. A new map was created that had two congressional districts that were majority Black. But then, a group of voters who described themselves as “non-African-American” challenged the new congressional map, arguing that because it had been drawn to consider race, it was unconstitutional gerrymandering, in violation of the Equal Protections Clause of the U.S. Constitution. While a panel of federal judges initially blocked Louisiana from using the new map, the Supreme Court paused that decision, allowing the state to temporarily use it. The Supreme Court’s decision will not only affect election results in conservative-led Louisiana for years to come, but it has severely undermined the ability of voters to challenge discrimination under the Voting Rights Act, which prohibits “discrimination against the minority group, such as unusually large election districts,” according to a 1982 report from the the Senate Committee on the Judiciary. This story has been updated.