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 all vestiges of 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 the administration, which has pushed to end the court-ordered plans.
Background
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.
Some parents and civil rights groups have argued that desegregation orders remain important tools to address racial disparities in student discipline, academic programs, and teacher hiring. The Concordia Parish order was used to stop a charter school that opened in 2013 from favoring white students in admissions.
Louisiana officials agree that the orders are 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.
Original reporting: KTBS 3 (Shreveport) — read the source article.
