May 2nd, 2025 Story by: Publisher
In a move that has reignited the national debate over school integration, the U.S. Department of Justice has formally ended a 1966 desegregation order for the Plaquemines Parish School District in Louisiana. The decision, announced this week, marks a significant shift in federal oversight of civil rights-era mandates and is expected to prompt similar actions across the South.
A Dormant Case Revived
The desegregation order in Plaquemines Parish was issued during a period of intense federal efforts to dismantle racially segregated school systems following the landmark 1954 Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education. Although the district was declared integrated in 1975, the case remained open due to administrative oversights, including the death of the presiding judge and a lack of subsequent court action. Justice Department officials, including Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon, characterized the prolonged existence of the order as a “historical wrong” that needed correction.
Superintendent Shelley Ritz of Plaquemines Parish noted that, despite the case’s dormancy, the district continued to submit annual reports to the Justice Department as recently as 2023. She described the process as burdensome for a district serving fewer than 4,000 students.
The end of the 1966 legal agreement with Plaquemines Parish schools announced Tuesday shows the Trump administration is “getting America refocused on our bright future,” Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon said.
“Given that this case has been stayed for a half-century with zero action by the court, the parties, or any third party, the parties are satisfied that the United States’ claims have been fully resolved,” according to a joint filing from the Justice Department and the office of Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill.
Background: Desegregation orders involve a range of instructions
More than 130 school systems are under Justice Department desegregation orders, according to records in a court filing this year. The vast majority are in Alabama, Georgia, and Mississippi, with smaller numbers in states like Florida, Louisiana, and South Carolina. Some other districts remain under separate desegregation agreements with the Education Department.
The orders can include a range of remedies, from busing requirements to district policies allowing students in predominately Black schools to transfer to predominately white ones. The agreements are between the school district and the U.S. government, but other parties can ask the court to intervene when signs of segregation resurface.
In 2020, the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund invoked a consent decree in Alabama’s Leeds school district when it stopped offering school meals during the COVID-19 pandemic. The civil rights group said it disproportionately hurt Black students, in violation of the desegregation order. The district agreed to resume meals.
Last year, a Louisiana school board closed a predominately Black elementary school near a petrochemical facility after the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund said it disproportionately exposed Black students to health risks. The board made the decision after the group filed a motion invoking a decades-old desegregation order at St. John the Baptist Parish.
Plaquemines Superintendent Shelley Ritz said Justice Department officials still visited every year as recently as 2023 and requested data on topics including hiring and discipline. She said the paperwork was a burden for her district of fewer than 4,000 students.
“It was hours of compiling the data,” she said.
Louisiana “got its act together decades ago,” said Leo Terrell, senior counsel to the Civil Rights Division at the Justice Department, in a statement. He said the dismissal corrects a historical wrong, adding it’s “past time to acknowledge how far we have come.”
A Broader Federal Shift
The termination of the Plaquemines Parish order is part of a broader initiative by the Trump administration to review and potentially lift longstanding desegregation mandates. Currently, over 130 school districts, primarily in the South, remain under federal desegregation orders. Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill has expressed support for ending these orders, arguing they impose unnecessary administrative burdens on schools that have long since integrated.
However, civil rights advocates warn that such actions could undermine decades of progress toward educational equity. Johnathan Smith, a former official in the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, cautioned that many districts under court orders are more segregated now than they were in the 1950s. He emphasized that the absence of active enforcement does not equate to the resolution of segregation issues.
The Risk of Resegregation
Inside the Justice Department, officials appointed by President Donald Trump have expressed a desire to withdraw from other desegregation orders they see as an unnecessary burden on schools, according to a person familiar with the issue who was granted anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.
Research supports concerns about the potential for resegregation following the lifting of federal oversight. A study by Stanford University’s Center for Education Policy Analysis found that nearly half of the school districts released from desegregation orders since 1990 have experienced a steady increase in racial segregation. The study attributes this trend to policy decisions, such as the expansion of school choice programs, rather than demographic shifts.
In Charlotte, North Carolina, once hailed for its successful integration efforts, the end of court-ordered busing has led to a resegregation of schools. The Charlotte-Mecklenburg School District, which was a model for integration in the 1970s, is now considered the most segregated district in the state.
Legal and Social Implications
The Trump administration called the Plaquemines case an example of administrative neglect. The district in the Mississippi River Delta Basin in southeast Louisiana was found to have integrated in 1975, but the case was to stay under the court’s watch for another year. The judge died the same year, and the court record “appears to be lost to time,” according to a court filing.
The Justice Department’s decision has sparked legal and social concerns. Halley Potter, a senior fellow at The Century Foundation, noted that schools often resegregate rapidly after being released from court oversight, leading to new civil rights challenges. Robert Westley, a professor at Tulane University Law School, argued that ending these orders signals a retreat from the federal government’s commitment to addressing racial discrimination in education.
Raymond Pierce, president of the Southern Education Foundation, warned that the move represents a disregard for educational opportunities for marginalized communities and could face significant legal challenges from civil rights groups.
Source: Stanford GSE / AP News
