When the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on the landmark Voting Rights Act case of Louisiana v. Callais this April, it opened the door to new legal challenges over race and redistricting, including the latest lawsuit against Denver Public Schools. 

Last week, the Public Interest Legal Foundation sued DPS over a redistricting map adopted by the school board in April 2024, alleging the board unconstitutionally drew its lines with racial intent. 

The 15th Amendment prohibits the denial or abridgment of voting rights on the basis of race. As the Supreme Court ruled, Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act (VRA) was enacted to enforce the amendment’s prohibition against “intentional racial discrimination.” 

“The upshot of Callais,” law professor Josh Blackman wrote on The Volokh Conspiracy blog, “is that the government can no longer adopt ‘benign’ classifications to ‘help’ racial minorities.” In reality, “all classifications are zero-sum games and to help one race is to hurt another race.” 

When the DPS board considered three final redistricting scenarios, a 5-2 majority chose Map C — a map its own staff analysis found was best at nothing. 

Staff found Map A balanced the populations the best, and Map B — which the community survey favored — had the least racial impact. Yet the board chose Map C anyway, for reasons quoted in the filing. 

Michelle Quattlebaum, then representing District 4, spoke of “confronting the legacy of oppression rooted in White supremacy.” 

“Our students being represented by people who look like them is really important,” then-member Scott Esserman said, asserting Map C was the one that “potentially enshrines representation in what has been traditional representation.” 

Then-President Carrie Olson was concerned about “gentrification, with communities of color being pushed out.” She made clear that “we can’t stop where people move and who lives there, but we can, for the next seven years (until the next census) make sure those cultural icons are preserved.” 

“I can’t imagine that the passing of the Voting Rights Act in 1964 imagined the level of gentrification across our communities,” Esserman argued — misdating the 1965 law even as he deliberately read into it something he admitted was never contemplated. 

Yet even in 2024, the Supreme Court had never mandated drawing district lines for a racial group too small to form a majority. On every map considered, District 4 was around 19% Black. Federal law never required keeping the historically Black neighborhoods of Five Points and Whittier there. 

Nevertheless, the board chose Map C with the express goal of retaining Black representation for District 4 — and race-based policies are subject to strict scrutiny. 

In Callais, the court made it abundantly clear that the 15th Amendment prohibits “present-day intentional racial discrimination regarding voting,” holding that historical discrimination and the “ongoing ‘effects of societal discrimination’” carry “much less weight” in justifying race-based mapmaking. What matters most are “current data” and “current political conditions” that “shed light on current intentional discrimination.” 

Olson’s assertion that we can’t stop where people move but can hold the lines against it “for the next seven years” clearly shows they weren’t remedying present-day discrimination, which Callais still permits. Rather, they sought to preserve historical conditions where circumstances had already changed. 

Section 2 of the VRA imposes liability only when the evidence indicates district lines were “intentionally” drawn to “afford minority voters less opportunity because of their race,” the court ruled. 

The record shows DPS did the opposite — intentionally drawing lines to afford one racial group more opportunity at another’s expense. It treated redistricting as a Black-versus-Brown contest — not even White-versus-minority. 

Directors Xóchitl Gaytán and Marlene De La Rosa backed Map B, preferred by the Latino Education Coalition. “It speaks to the concerns of our communities, our communities of color, the Black and Brown voices and how they get diluted, right?” Gaytán said.  

Callais left room for mapmakers to consider partisanship, even when race is used as a proxy for political leanings. But in a one-party city with a nonpartisan board, there wasn’t a partisan excuse to hide behind. Redistricting became a zero-sum game over which community’s map would win — decided by race alone, exactly what Callais forbids. 

Boardhawk’s Alexis Menocal Harrigan called it out in real time. “The common theme among Map C supporters was that it kept historically Black communities in a district historically held by Black board members,” she wrote, lamenting the “blatant disregard” for the community survey. 

Let’s be clear: Gentrification is a valid concern. Racial representation has value. But those race-centered concerns aren’t allowed to drive redistricting. 

Assuming plaintiffs Susan Moore and Valdamar Archuleta establish standing, there’s a great deal of merit to the case. A win would bar Map C and force a new map without racial criteria. 

The national, conservative Public Interest Legal Foundation often takes dubious positions on mail ballots and other election issues. But in this case, with local attorney William Perry Pendley of counsel, PILF appears on solid ground. DPS has yet to comment, but the school board’s own words are already on the record. 

As Menocal Harrigan put it: “I doubt I would be writing about this topic if the board and community members who pushed so strongly for Five Points and Whittier to be included in Map C pushed just as hard for Black students to be reading at grade level.” 

If only. 

Jimmy Sengenberger is an investigative journalist, public speaker, and longtime local talk-radio host. Reach Jimmy online at Jimmysengenberger.com or on X (formerly Twitter) @SengCenter.