A panel of three US federal judges struck down a 2023 Alabama congressional map on Thursday, stating that the map was in violation of the Voting Rights Act (VRA) and the Fourteenth Amendment of the US Constitution.

The permanent injunction comes after a long process of appeals beginning back in 2021, when the plaintiffs, a group of Black voters and civil rights groups, sued Alabama over the state’s congressional map at the time. The plaintiffs stated that the map, which only included one majority-Black district despite the state’s 27 percent Black population, constituted racial gerrymandering intended to dilute the strength of Black votes.

A panel of three federal judges in 2022 and the Supreme Court in Allen v. Milligan in 2023 ruled that the 2021 plan was likely in violation of the VRA and Fourteenth Amendment. Yet, when the Alabama legislature unveiled its new 2023 congressional map, there was still only one majority-Black district. In response, a federal court instituted a court-made congressional map that Alabama was required to use, finding the 2023 Alabama plan also likely in violation of the VRA and Fourteenth Amendment.

In February 2025, the state of Alabama challenged this court-created map and sought to reinstate its 2023 map, despite the initial court ruling finding the plan in violation of the VRA. In response, a panel of three federal judges ruled in an over 500-page opinion that:

We cannot understand the 2023 Plan as anything other than an intentional effort to dilute Black Alabamians’ voting strength and evade the unambiguous requirements of court orders standing in the way. After we and the Supreme Court ruled that the 2021 Plan, with only one majority-Black district, likely had the unlawful discriminatory effect of diluting Black Alabamians’ votes, the Legislature deliberately enacted another Plan that it concedes lacks the second Black-opportunity district we said was required. This amounted to intentional racial discrimination in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection guarantee.

Since this lawsuit was brought under the VRA and the Fourteenth Amendment, it allows direct appeal to the Supreme Court.