DOJ Dismisses Civil Rights-Era La. School Desegregation Case

The Department of Justice has dismissed a Louisiana school desegregation case after more than 50 years, saying it "righted a historical wrong" by "freeing" the Plaquemines Parish School Board of federal oversight.

According to The Associated Press, the 1966 legal agreement with Plaquemines Parish schools was part of a wave of cases the Justice Department opened in the 1960s after Congress authorized the department to pursue schools that resisted desegregation efforts.

The district sits in the Mississippi River Delta Basin in southeast Louisiana, approximately 66 miles from New Orleans.

Although it was determined that racial integration was achieved in 1975, the case was ordered to stay under the court's watch for another year. The judge reportedly died in the meantime, and the court record "appears to be lost to time," a court filing 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.

Calling the case a "prime example of neglect by past administrations," Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon said the Trump administration is "getting America refocused on our bright future."

"No longer will the Plaquemines Parish School Board have to devote precious local resources over an integration issue that ended two generations ago," she said in a statement.

Murrill said she intends to ask the Department of Justice to close other remaining desegregation cases in her state, but it was not immediately clear which school districts would be affected.

In a statement, Leo Terrell, senior counsel to the Civil Rights Division at the Justice Department, said that "Louisiana got its act together decades ago," adding that it's "past time to acknowledge how far we have come."

"America is back, and this Department of Justice is making sure the Civil Rights Division is correcting wrongs from the past and working for all Americans," Terrell said.

However, according to an Axios review of federal data, racial segregation in schools nationwide has increased significantly over the last 30 years.

Citing federal data examined by the UCLA Civil Rights Project and the Educational Opportunity Project at Stanford University tool, Axios found that school districts began to resegregate in the years after Generation X left public schools. Today, they are at 1960s segregation levels, according to the outlet.

Axios noted that the resegregation of America's public schools has accompanied the rise of the school choice movement and charter schools.

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