All for One, or One for All

Adapted from an article published in The New Republic, March 1, 1993. For several years, the Voting Rights Act has been the least noticed, but perhaps most effective, of all federal civil-rights statutes. Recently, however, the act has dramatically entered public consciousness, catalyzed by two principal events: President Clinton's nomination, later withdrawn, of Professor Lani Guinier to head the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division, and the Supreme Court's decision in Shaw v. Reno. Shaw, decided in June, cast doubt on the constitutionality of designing election districts in certain ways to enhance minority representation.