Louisiana v. Callais · ¶70

As the Court has long held, the Fifteenth Amendment bars only state action “ `motivated by a discriminatory purpose.' ” Reno v. Bossier Parish School Bd., 520 U. S. 471, 481 (1997) (quoting Mobile, 446 U. S., at 62). So a law that seeks to enforce the Fifteenth Amendment by prohibiting mere disparate impact would fail to enforce a right that the Amendment secures. That is never “appropriate,” Katzen bach, 383 U. S., at 308, because Congress cannot “enforce a constitutional right by changing what the right is,” City of Boerne, 521 U. S., at 519.

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