A federal judge's decision this week to end a decades‑old desegregation order in DeSoto Parish has intensified a fight in Louisiana over whether Washington should still oversee how local schools handle race.
The DeSoto Parish case, first filed in 1967, was dismissed after the U.S. Department of Justice, the Louisiana attorney general, and the parish school board jointly asked the court to close it, arguing there had been no active disputes for years and federal supervision was no longer needed.
It is the second such case in Louisiana to be quickly lifted, following the Trump administration's move last year to end a 1966 desegregation order in Plaquemines Parish. The DeSoto district serves roughly 5,000 students.
State Officials Prioritize Local Control Over Federal Oversight
Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill and other state leaders say removing the orders restores local control to school boards and relieves districts of costly reporting and court‑approval requirements for decisions like school construction, attendance zones, and closures, according to ABC News.
They argue that Louisiana "got its act together decades ago" and that keeping long‑inactive cases open is a "historical wrong." School officials note that paperwork demands can burden smaller districts and that federal officials visit annually to request data on hiring and discipline practices.
Civil rights advocates strongly disagree. They warn that ending oversight without a full review of current conditions risks allowing schools to resegregate, pointing to research showing Louisiana's public schools have grown more racially separated over the past three decades.
Latino students are currently more segregated in Louisiana schools than they have been since 1968, with only 7.2% of Hispanic students attending traditional public schools, according to state data, The Guardian reported.
Groups such as the NAACP Legal Defense Fund say many Louisiana districts still show racial gaps in discipline, facilities, and access to advanced classes, signs that the harms of past segregation have not been fully addressed.
Courts Split on How to Handle Dismissals
The Justice Department traditionally required school systems to prove they had eliminated segregation "root and branch" before desegregation cases could be closed.
In Plaquemines Parish, however, federal officials and the state instead used a joint dismissal, avoiding a detailed court review and prompting critics to call the move a dangerous shortcut. This method signals contempt for communities of color, according to legal experts.
Not every judge has agreed to the new approach. In Concordia Parish, a federal judge recently refused to dismiss another 1960s‑era case and instead offered the district a hearing to prove it has fully dismantled segregation, forcing the state and district to appeal.
About a dozen Louisiana school systems remain under desegregation orders. What happens in the next few cases will help decide whether the state's schools are chiefly governed by local officials or by federal civil‑rights promises made more than half a century ago, as per Edweek.
