Civil rights legislation sparked powerful backlash that's still shaping American politics

A tidal wave of anti-civil rights litigation, led by a well-funded man, Edward Blum, flooded the court system. Blum sought to undermine the Voting Rights Act’s supervision of local elections and undo racial quotas in higher education and employment.

Blum, a legal strategist affiliated with the conservative American Enterprise Institute, helped engineer these now-famous test cases – Bush v. Vera (1996), Fisher v. University of Texas (2013) and Shelby v. Holder (2015). He also orchestrated two pending cases at the court that could reshape the consideration of race in college admissions, Students for Fair Admissions Inc. v. President & Fellows of Harvard College and Students for Fair Admissions Inc. v. University of North Carolina.

These cases, at their core, attacked the rights revolution of the 1960s – or rights that privilege minorities. The argument?

These protections are obsolete because Jim Crow segregation, especially its overt violence and sanctioned segregation, is dead.

Nearly 30 years of Republican or divided control of Congress and, to a lesser degree, the executive office gave rise to increasingly conservative Supreme Court nominations that have not just turned the court red; they all but ensured favorable outcomes for conservative litigation.

These include the Shelby and Merrill cases and, more recently, litigation that seeks to remove racial considerations from college admissions.

In the Shelby case, the court held that the unprecedented number of African Americans in Alabama – and national – politics meant not merely that racism was gone, it meant that the Voting Rights Act is no longer relevant.

These cases, however, have all but ignored the uptick in conservatives’ claims of voter fraud and political machinations at polling stations in predominantly minority voting districts.

In fact, the rise of voter fraud allegations and contested election results is a new iteration of old, and ostensibly less violent, racism.

The Voting Rights Act was not only effective; Washington was also, initially, committed to its implementation. The political will to maintain minority voting rights has struggled to keep pace with the continuity of racist trends in American politics.

The work of protecting minority voting rights remains unfinished.

This article is republished from The Conversation, an independent nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts. If you found it interesting, you could subscribe to our weekly newsletter.

Julian Maxwell Hayter does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.