Alabama voters will be “racially gerrymandered” under a court-ordered redistricting map after the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected the state’s emergency stay to use a map drawn by the Republican state Legislature in July, state Attorney General Steve Marshall said.

“The State will now be encumbered with a racially gerrymandered, court-drawn map for the 2024 election cycle,” the attorney general, who argued for the stay, said in a statement.

While a three-judge federal court found a 2021 map drawn by the Legislature likely violated the Voting Rights Act and ordered a second majority-Black congressional district be drawn, Marshall said that proposal was “fair and reasonable.”

Marshall went on to claim that the new map drawn by lawmakers in July “took out the purported discrimination and applied neutral principles fully and faily,” even though the map did not include a second majority-Black district.

“It is now clear that none of the maps proposed by Republican supermajorities had any chance of success,” the attorney general said. “Treating voters as individuals would not do. Instead, our elected representatives and our voters must apparently be reduced to skin color alone.”

“No Alabamian—black, white, Republican, or Democrat—can look at the court-drawn maps that will soon be imposed on us and see anything other than the prioritization of race above all else,” Marshall continued. “Our communities, local economies, and basic geography will be cast aside in the radical pursuit of racial quotas. There simply is no other explanation for the absurd disfigurement.”

The attorney general claimed “left-wing activists” in Alabama and elsewhere are advancing a “racial agenda” that is “brazen and divisive.”

“There should be nothing more offensive to the people of our great state than to be sidelined in 2023 by a view of Alabama that is stuck in 1963,” Marshall said. “This racial agenda is pressed by left-wing activists, not just in Alabama, but in any Republican state where it might advantage Democrats. If this brazen and divisive commandeering is permitted without even a whisper of concern from other quarters, America’s congressional elections as we know them will never be the same. We will be grouped together by race alone, with counties and cities split down the middle—the same way that we were so wrongfully segregated once before.”

The three-judge court has not yet decided on a new redistricting map.

Marshall said his office “will continue our fight to defend the 2023 map, which was enacted by the people’s representatives, and which complies with both the Voting Rights Act and the Constitution’s promise that governments should be colorblind.”

“We will comply with the district court’s preliminary injunction order, while building our case for the 2023 map, which has yet to receive a full hearing,” he said. “We are confident that the Voting Rights Act does not require, and the Constitution does not allow, ‘separate but equal’ congressional districts.”

The dispute started in 2021 when the Legislature passed a new map, as it does after every census. Three groups, including Evan Milligan with Alabama Forward, filed separate lawsuits challenging map.

In January 2022, the three-judge court held a seven-day hearing and ruled that the 2021 map likely violated the Voting Rights Act. The U.S. Supreme Court affirmed that ruling in June 2023, sending the case back to the three-judge court.

The court gave the Legislature a chance to pass a new map, which lawmakers did in July. But the plaintiffs challenged that map, too. The judges held a hearing Aug. 14 and ruled Sept. 5 that the new map did not fix the likely Voting Rights Act violation.

The Milligan plaintiffs, who were represented by the NAACP Legal Defense Fund and others, issued a statement about the Supreme Court’s denial of the stay.

“It has been a long and frustrating battle holding the Alabama legislature accountable, but today it is a rewarding one,” they said. “Even after the highest court in the land sided with Black voters in June, our elected officials still chose power over people by outright defying multiple court orders, and the loud cries of their constituents to do the right thing.

“Despite these shameful efforts, the Supreme Court has once again agreed that Black Alabamians deserve a second opportunity district. This additional representation in Congress will undoubtedly change lives, especially for the hundreds of thousands of Alabamians residing in the Black Belt who suffer from lack of healthcare access, job opportunities, and crumbling infrastructure. We look forward to a new era in our state’s history, in which power is shared and Black voices are heard.”