Once again, the mainstream media is distorting the facts. Following the Justice Department’s recent dismissal of a decades-old desegregation case in Louisiana, critics rushed to frame the action as a rollback of civil rights or, worse, a return to racial segregation in schools. But the facts do not support this narrative.
In 1966, the U.S. Department of Justice filed a lawsuit to desegregate schools in Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana. The resulting federal consent decree mandated the dismantling of the district’s racially segregated school system.
By 1975, the court found the district had achieved integration. However, the case remained open for decades due to administrative oversight, including the death of the presiding judge, and no formal court action was ever taken to close it.
In April 2025, as part of a broader review of dormant cases, the DOJ under the Trump administration formally moved to dismiss the order.
According to a joint filing with Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill, there had been “zero action by the court, the parties or any third-party” in nearly 50 years.
The DOJ’s official press release, titled “Justice Department Dismisses Half Century Old Louisiana Consent Decree,” stated: “No longer will the Plaquemines Parish School Board have to devote precious local resources over an integration issue that ended two generations ago,” said Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon.
For the school district, remaining under the outdated court order meant compiling and submitting annual data to the DOJ on hiring practices, student discipline, and demographics. It imposed a bureaucratic burden on a small district with fewer than 4,000 students.
Local officials described the process as time-consuming and unnecessary, diverting limited staff and resources from more pressing educational needs.
For the DOJ, maintaining the inactive case consumed time and attention that could be better directed toward active civil rights enforcement.
Despite these facts, critics quickly claimed the dismissal would lead to “resegregation.”
Civil rights groups and commentators cited research suggesting that school districts released from federal oversight often become less racially diverse over time.
But this interpretation stretches the meaning of “segregation” beyond its legal and constitutional definition. And the fact that a school becomes less diverse does not meet the definition of segregated.
To be clear, there is no law, under Trump or any other administration, that allows public schools in the United States to reinstate racial segregation.
Segregation in public education was struck down in 1954 by the Supreme Court in Brown v. Board of Education and remains unconstitutional today.
Any attempt by a school district to segregate students by race would be swiftly challenged and overturned in court.
So, what does “resegregation” really mean in these criticisms? It does not refer to a return to legally mandated racial separation. Rather, it describes de facto racial imbalance, schools becoming predominantly one race not by law or policy, but due to residential patterns, school zoning, and economic factors.
If a mostly Black neighborhood feeds into a local school, that school may have a majority-Black student body, but that is not segregation under the law.
Some academic studies have found that districts released from federal desegregation orders sometimes see reduced racial diversity. But correlation does not equal causation.
These shifts often result from the end of court-ordered policies—such as busing, racial quotas, or transfer schemes—meant to artificially balance school demographics to match national racial ratios.
Without these mandates, schools tend to reflect the natural racial and economic makeup of their local neighborhoods. Ending a dormant desegregation order does not cause segregation; it simply acknowledges that the district is no longer violating the Constitution.
More than 130 school districts across the South remain under similar DOJ desegregation orders. The Trump administration has signaled interest in reviewing more of these long-dormant cases.
In sum, the DOJ’s action in Louisiana was a routine legal closure of a resolved case. It does not change the law, repeal civil rights protections, or allow racial discrimination in education. Misrepresenting legal housekeeping as racial backsliding only sows distrust and distracts from the real work of improving educational outcomes.
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