Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson caused a stir during a Supreme Court hearing over the Voting Rights Act when she compared Black Americans to people with physical disabilities.

The case, Louisiana v. Callais, centers on whether the state’s new congressional map — which includes two majority-Black districts — violates the Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause or the 15th Amendment. Plaintiffs in the case claim the map was drawn based on race, amounting to unconstitutional gerrymandering.

During questioning, Justice Jackson tried to draw a parallel between race-based voting protections and disability laws.

“So going back to this discriminatory intent point, I guess I’m thinking of it, of the fact that remedial action absent discriminatory intent is really not a new idea in the civil rights laws. And my kind of paradigmatic example of this is something like the ADA [Americans with Disabilities Act],” Jackson said.

She continued by comparing access to buildings under the ADA to access to the voting system.

“Congress passed the Americans with Disabilities Act against the backdrop of a world that was generally not accessible to people with disabilities. And so it was discriminatory in effect because these folks were not able to access these buildings,” she said.

“It didn’t matter whether the person who built the building or the person who owned the building intended for them to be exclusionary; that’s irrelevant. Congress said, the facilities have to be made equally open to people with disabilities if readily possible. I guess I don’t understand why that’s not what’s happening here.”

She went further, directly likening racial inequality to disability.

“The idea in Section 2 is that we are responding to current-day manifestations of past and present decisions that disadvantage minorities and make it so that they don’t have equal access to the voting system. Right? They’re disabled,” Jackson said.

“In fact, we use the word ‘disabled’ in [Milliken v. Bradley]. We say that’s a way in which these processes are not equally open. So I don’t understand why it matters whether the state intended to do that. What Congress is saying is if it is happening … you gotta fix it.”

Attorney Edward Greim, representing the plaintiffs, pushed back.

“The difference is that the remedy under the ADA and other anti-discrimination laws is not stereotype,” Greim said.

Jackson replied, “It’s not race-based. I take your point. I take your point. But you’re saying then that if the problem of no access is about race, it’s just too bad because you can’t have a remedy that relates to race.”

“Absolutely not, your honor,” Greim responded.

“It’s not whether it relates to race,” he continued. “It’s whether the remedy that relates to race involves stereotyping voters and making assumptions about their politics and their views and their thoughts based on their race and that’s the problem. It doesn’t exist in those other civil rights statutes.”

The exchange quickly spread across legal and political circles, as Jackson’s remarks appeared to equate racial identity with disability — something even progressive commentators found unusual.

The case itself could reshape how Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act is applied across the country. Critics argue that racial redistricting forces states to divide voters based on skin color rather than fair representation, while defenders claim it prevents discrimination at the ballot box.

Justice Jackson’s remarks, however, shifted focus away from the legal questions and toward a growing concern over how race is framed in federal law — and how far left-wing judges are willing to go to defend it.