A federal judge closed a long-running school desegregation case in DeSoto Parish on Monday, less than a week after the U.S. Department of Justice, the Louisiana attorney general, and the DeSoto Parish School Board asked the court to dismiss the case and release the schools from federal oversight.
It is the second decades-old desegregation case in Louisiana brought to a swift end by the Trump administration and state Attorney General Liz Murrill, who last year had a case in Plaquemines Parish dating back to the 1960s dismissed. Murrill and Gov. Jeff Landry, both Republicans, have vowed to fight for other remaining desegregation orders to be lifted, with Landry assuring school systems last year that 鈥渢here is an end in sight.鈥�
About a dozen Louisiana school districts remain under longstanding desegregation orders, which often require them to submit regular compliance reports and seek court approval for changes, such as school closures or new attendance zones, that could affect schools鈥� racial balance. Historically, the Justice Department has monitored districts鈥� compliance with the orders and, in some cases, opposed efforts by Louisiana school boards to have the cases dismissed.
But the federal government has done an about-face since President Donald Trump returned to office last year, pressing courts to wind down several of the cases. State and federal officials say the desegregation orders are no longer necessary because the school districts long ago stopped discriminating against students by race, adding that the ongoing oversight drains school resources and undermines local control.
鈥淭he school boards are deprived of their ability to actually govern when a federal judge is supervising an old consent decree,鈥� Murrill said Tuesday. 鈥淚鈥檓 grateful to the Trump administration鈥檚 Department of Justice for being willing to really look at this and join us in ending cases that need to be ended.鈥�
Civil rights groups have opposed efforts to lift the remaining orders, arguing that persistent racial disparities in some Louisiana schools鈥攊n areas such as student discipline, building quality, and access to advanced courses鈥攕uggest the indirect effects of past segregation have not been fully addressed. They argue that courts should examine the present-day conditions in each school district before agreeing to dismiss the cases.
鈥淓ven when the parties jointly move to say there鈥檚 no more discrimination, the court has its own obligation to look at its orders and say, 鈥楧id they comply with everything they鈥檙e supposed to do?鈥欌�� said Deuel Ross, litigation director at the Legal Defense Fund, a New York-based nonprofit representing the plaintiffs in several of the Louisiana desegregation cases, but not DeSoto Parish.
Swift end to an old case
Until this week, DeSoto Parish Schools, a small district south of Shreveport, had operated under desegregation orders for nearly 60 years.
The U.S. Department of Justice sued the school board in 1967 for maintaining racially segregated schools for more than a decade after the U.S. Supreme Court outlawed the practice in its 1954 ruling in Brown v. Board of Education. The orders required the district to eliminate any 鈥渧estiges of segregation,鈥� including in how students are assigned to schools and where new schools are constructed.
The Justice Department and the Shreveport-based federal court overseeing the case have closely monitored the district鈥檚 actions over the years, including when it shut down a historically Black high school in 2013 and when some families were allegedly sending their children to schools outside of their attendance zones, according to court documents. As recently as 2024, Justice Department officials toured all nine of DeSoto Parish鈥檚 schools and interviewed administrators.
About 40% of the district鈥檚 students are Black and 50% are white, but most schools don鈥檛 reflect that diversity, according to state enrollment data. Three schools in Mansfield are around 90% Black, while schools in North DeSoto are majority white. District officials have said the school enrollments reflect where families live, not district policies.
Last June, the DeSoto Parish School Board brought on Murrill鈥檚 office as co-counsel in hopes the state would pursue a quick resolution to the case as it had in Plaquemines Parish. At the time, Superintendent Clay Corley said the federal monitoring created extra work for the district, which had to produce annual compliance reports.
鈥淚t鈥檚 a stack of stuff, a box full of data we send every year,鈥� he told the news station KTBS, adding that 鈥渆verything has to be blessed鈥� by federal officials. Corley did not respond to a request for comment Tuesday.
On Dec. 30, the Justice Department, Murrill鈥檚 office, and the school board鈥檚 private attorneys filed a joint motion asking U.S. District Court Judge S. Maurice Hicks Jr. to dismiss the case. Hicks, who was nominated by former President George W. Bush, granted the motion on Jan. 5.
In less than a week, without any public hearing or fanfare, the nearly six-decade-old case was closed.
