One of the surprising aspects of the American electoral system is that while regular gerrymandering is frowned upon, racial gerrymandering is actually required by law. Meaning that if you redraw a congressional district to benefit your political party, you might get criticized for it, but that’s about all. Under certain circumstances, however, if you redraw a state’s congressional districts and don’t go out of your way to give more weight to minorities, then that is actually illegal. Essentially, states have to consider race when apportioning their congressional districts.

At least, they have to for now—because it looks like the U.S. Supreme Court is poised to change this soon.

Let’s go through the details together.