NEW ORLEANS (AP) — A federal appeals court on Tuesday ended more than 60 years of federal oversight of a Louisiana school system that had been ordered to eradicate segregation.
The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals lifted a decades-old desegregation mandate for the Concordia Parish School Board, handing a victory to President Donald Trump’s administration, which has pushed to end the court-ordered plans. The school system has been a focal point in the administration’s attempt to end legal cases dating to the Civil Rights era.
The U.S. Justice Department spent decades fighting for such cases but reversed course under Trump. Officials in his administration have framed the remaining segregation orders as federal intrusion into local school systems. Louisiana officials agree they're no longer needed and describe them as relics of a time when Black students were once forbidden from attending some schools.
“The good people of Concordia Parish elected their school board to govern their schools — not unelected federal judges,” Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill said in announcing the ruling. “Today’s decision puts that authority back where it belongs."
Members of the Concordia Parish School Board did not immediately respond Tuesday to emails seeking comment.
Families who brought the suit are no longer involved.
The Concordia Parish case dates to 1965, when the area was segregated and home to a violent offshoot of the Ku Klux Klan. Black families in Ferriday, a town on the central-eastern border of Louisiana, sued for access to all-white schools, and the federal government intervened. As the district integrated its schools, many white families fled Ferriday.
The district’s schools came to reflect the demographics of their surrounding areas. Ferriday is still mostly Black and low-income, while neighboring Vidalia is mostly white and takes in tax revenue from a hydroelectric plant.
Some parents and civil rights groups have argued that desegregation orders remain important tools to address vestiges of segregation such as racial disparities in student discipline, academic programs and teacher hiring.
The Concordia Parish order was used to force a mostly white charter school that opened in 2013 to prioritize Black students and create a more integrated student body.