White v. Mississippi State Board of Elections

Mississippi’s population is almost 40% Black. Yet in the 100 years that Mississippians have elected their Supreme Court, there have only been four Black justices to ever sit on that body, and never more than one at a time. It has been nearly 20 years since a Black jurist won election to the Court in a contested race. The reason for this extreme lack of Black representation is that the current Supreme Court district lines dilute the voting strength of Black Mississippians.

On April 25, 2022, the ACLU, ACLU of Mississippi, Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), and Simpson Thatcher & Bartlett LLP filed a lawsuit on behalf of individual Black civic leaders, including business and civic leader Dyamone White; Ty Pinkins, a 20-year Army veteran; educator Constance Slaughter Harvey-Burwell; and Mississippi Senate Minority Leader Derrick Simmons. Plaintiffs alleged that the current district plan is unlawful under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, for denying Black voters an opportunity to elect their preferred candidates.

Plaintiffs are seeking to have the districts redrawn so that Black voters have an equal opportunity to elect candidates of their choice. As it stands, none of the three Supreme Court districts are drawn with a Black voting age majority. But current District 1, which includes Jackson and part of the Mississippi Delta, could easily be redrawn, consistent with traditional principles, to give Black voters a full opportunity to elect candidates of choice. Especially in light of the high degree of racial polarization in voting in Mississippi, such a change is needed to ensure that Supreme Court elections comply with federal law and allow Black Mississippians a fair and equal opportunity to elect candidates of their choosing.

Trial was held August 2024 in the Northern District of Mississippi.

On August 19, 2025, the federal court ruled that Mississippi’s Supreme Court district lines must be redrawn to ensure Black voters have an equal opportunity to elect candidates of their choice. The State appealed the district court’s decision to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. That appeal was stayed pending cases before the U.S. Supreme Court involving Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, including State Board of Election Commissioners v. Mississippi State Conference of the NAACP and Louisiana v. Callais.

While the merits decision was on appeal, on December 19, 2025, the district court ruled that special elections in November 2026 are warranted. The court gave the Mississippi legislature until the conclusion of the 2026 legislative session to enact new districts for the Mississippi Supreme Court that remedy the Section 2 violation.

After the legislature took no action, the parties submitted remedial briefs and a remedial hearing was April 28, 2026 in Aberdeen, Mississippi.

On April 29, 2026, the day after the remedial hearing, the Supreme Court decided Louisiana v. Callais, altering the Section 2 legal standard. The parties subsequently moved in the Fifth Circuit to vacate the district court’s August 19, 2025 ruling and remand the merits to the district court for further consideration, and the motion was granted and the case was remanded to the district court in light of Callais.

On May 12, 2026, the district court ordered parties to confer and file a joint status report on the impact of Callais on proceedings going forward. The parties subsequently filed a joint report and individual proposals for how to move forward with the litigation. Plaintiffs continue to pursue a judgment in their favor and an order redrawing the Mississippi Supreme Court lines.