When the Trump administration announced in April that it was dismissing the Department of Justice’s decades-long effort to desegregate the Plaquemines Parish School District in Louisiana, the state’s Republicans rejoiced.
“For years, federal judges have imposed unnecessary requirements that have cost our schools and our children tens of millions of dollars,” Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry said in a press release. “Educational decisions should be made at the most local level and not by unelected, activist federal judges.”
In 1966, the DOJ sued Plaquemines in order to force the school district to racially integrate its schools. The court order required the district to bus Black children to all-white schools and banned it from discriminating against students or teachers on the basis of race. It was just one of many court orders that came in the wake of Brown v. Board of Education, the 1954 Supreme Court case that found that racially segregated schools were unconstitutional.
Though nationwide desegregation efforts proved to be a boon for Black student success and didn’t harm white students, Republicans said the Louisiana order amounted to an imposition on local lawmakers and educators. The federal government now seemingly agrees, framing the 60-year-old mandate as a “historical wrong.”
