DeSoto Parish schools in northwest Louisiana will operate without an ongoing federal desegregation mandate after a federal judge approved a joint motion by Louisiana officials and the U.S. Justice Department to dismiss a decades-old case, according to court filings and statements reported by The Associated Press.
Federal Judge S. Maurice Hicks Jr., appointed by former President George W. Bush, approved the motion Monday, closing out the 1967 lawsuit that had produced a 1970 court order governing the district’s obligations related to segregation. The district serves about 5,000 students, AP reported, and the desegregation order required the school system to eliminate segregation and submit regular progress reports for years afterward.
Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill said the dismissal ended ongoing legal disputes and lifted restrictions she described as unnecessary. In a statement, Murrill thanked President Donald Trump and Attorney General Pam Bondi for helping “us to finally end some of these cases,” adding that “DeSoto Parish has its school system back.” She said that for the last 10 years “there have been no disputes among the parties, yet the consent decree remained.”
In the motion for dismissal, Louisiana and Trump officials argued the court supervision was no longer needed because the parties were no longer adverse. They wrote in a Dec. 30 court filing that the case had been pending for more than a half-century, but that “there has been no dispute among the parties since 2014,” and they said the parties were therefore no longer in an active controversy.
The case traces to 1967, when the Justice Department sued DeSoto Parish to end a racially segregated school system. AP said the resulting 1970 order required the district to eliminate segregation and provide regular progress reports, and that the order was modified several times over the decades even as activity in recent years had been limited.
AP reported that Louisiana Republicans have argued that court orders like these place an unfair burden on school districts, including the need for court approval for certain changes. With such oversight, districts often face constraints on building new schools, adjusting attendance boundaries, or making policy changes that affect matters covered by the order, according to the report.
In describing the district’s continued compliance, AP said DeSoto Parish had proceeded with changes over the years, including new attendance zones in 2014 that remain in place today. The district also filed status reports showing the racial breakdown of students and teachers, along with data on student transfers, and its last report was filed in October.
Civil rights groups, however, said the court supervision still serves a purpose because the effects of racial discrimination can persist even after formal segregation changes. The AP report also described the continuing litigation landscape as the Justice Department seeks to unwind other school desegregation orders: Louisiana and Trump officials had previously dismissed a 1966 order in Plaquemines Parish, where the lawsuit had been idle for decades after the judge overseeing it died in the 1970s.
The AP report said an effort to end a 1960s desegregation order in Concordia Parish schools has faced pushback in federal court. In that case, a judge rejected a motion to dismiss, saying Concordia must first demonstrate it has fully ended segregation; state and federal officials are appealing, and the suit was originally brought by Black families seeking access to the town’s all-white schools.