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The U.S. Supreme Court further undercut the Voting Rights Act on Monday, blocking for now the creation of a second majority-Black congressional district in Alabama for the 2022 election.

The court’s action came on an emergency appeal from Alabama, which challenged a decision by a three-judge federal court panel that included two Trump appointees. The lower court concluded that under the Voting Rights Act, Alabama, a state with a population that is more than one-quarter Black, could reasonably, and therefore must, create two majority-Black districts.

The vote was 5-4, with Chief Justice John Roberts joining the court’s three liberals in dissent. All four would have refused to intervene now, thus allowing the 2022 election to go forward with the map approved by the lower court. In contrast, the five-justice majority decision means that for at least another election cycle, Alabama will have just a single majority-Black congressional district.

While the Supreme Court has said that outright racial gerrymanders are unconstitutional, it has long interpreted the Voting Rights Act as requiring race to be a major factor in redistricting under certain circumstances — namely when white voters vote as a bloc against Black candidates and when there is a large and compact enough majority-minority district or districts that can be drawn so that minorities have a good chance to elect the candidates of their choice.

In the case from Alabama, the state doesn’t dispute that there is bloc voting. But it contests the creation of a second majority-Black district, because it would divide the suburbs of Mobile. That argument was rejected by the lower court, which noted that the school districts in that area were divided in precisely the same way as the proposed second Black congressional district.

But the Supreme Court stopped the lower court’s order from going into effect.

Once again, the court’s action came in an unsigned order, without full briefing or argument, though the court will eventually hear arguments in the case, either later this term or, more likely, next fall.

“Accepting Alabama’s contentions would rewrite decades of this Court’s precedent about Section 2 of the VRA. For that reason, this Court goes badly wrong in granting a stay,” Justice Elena Kagan wrote in her dissent, joined by Justices Stephen Breyer and Sonia Sotomayor. “There may—or may not—be a basis for revising our VRA precedent in light of the modern districting technology that Alabama’s application highlights. But such a change can properly happen only after full briefing and argument—not based on the scanty review this Court gives matters on its shadow docket.”

Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who was in the majority, wrote a concurring opinion in which he said the “stay order does not make or signal any change to voting rights law. The stay order is not a ruling on the merits, but instead simply stays the District Court’s injunction pending a ruling on the merits.”

The court did not say when it will hear arguments in the case — and so the current map, which has only one majority-minority district, will remain in effect.

Ryan Ellingson