WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration’s effort to overturn decades-old school desegregation orders is facing backlash from a federal judge in Louisiana.
After a judge refused to close the books on a desegregation case dating back to the 1960s, the Concordia Parish school system in central Louisiana and the state on Tuesday filed an appeal. The case offers the first major test of the government’s attempt to quickly end some of the long-running cases.
The school system has become a focal point in the administration’s attempt to end legal cases dating back to the Civil Rights era. Louisiana state officials say the cases are outdated and no longer needed. In a remarkable turn, they recently got support from the US Department of Justice, which has spent decades fighting such cases.
The campaign hit its first major hurdle this month when U.S. District Judge Dee Drell rejected a court filing from Louisiana and the Justice Department seeking to exonerate Concordia from a 1965 lawsuit. That case was brought by Black families who demanded access to all white schools in the city.
A number of legal requirements from the case remain in place today, and some families say the court orders are still needed to improve education in the area’s predominantly Black schools.
Louisiana and the federal government tried to dismiss the case immediately saying that all remaining parties believe the case is no longer necessary. It was not signed by any of the families that brought the case, which are no longer involved.
Drell refused, saying the court can reject such deals when larger issues are at stake.
“At the heart of this case is public policy and the protection of others, and the court has been charged with ensuring the resolution of this matter in accordance with long-established legal precedent,” Drell, who was appointed by former President George W. Bush, wrote in a Nov. 19 order.
Instead, Drell offered Concordia Parish a hearing to prove that it had fully dismantled state-sponsored racial segregation — the traditional route to dismissing such cases.
The school district and the state appealed that decision in a filing Tuesday. They did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The Justice Department used the same tactic to overturn a 1966 order in Louisiana’s Plaquemines Parish school district — the judge in that case had been dead for decades — and signaled plans to oust others later.
Dozens of school desegregation cases from the 1960s remain in place across Louisiana and the South, including some that are being actively litigated and others that have lingered.
The Justice Department framed the decades-old cases as federal intrusion into local school decisions. Harmeet Dhillon, who heads the department’s civil rights division, previously promised that other cases would “bite the dust.”
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