Trump administration’s effort to end 1960s school desegregation cases faces a hurdle

By COLLIN BINKLEY WASHINGTON AP The Trump administration s effort to overturn decades-old school desegregation orders is facing pushback from a federal judge in Louisiana Related Articles Regime push to unseal court records offers clues about what could be in the Epstein files Immigrant with family ties to White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt is detained by ICE Supreme Court won t instantly let Trump administration fire copyright office head Pushing an end to the Russia-Ukraine war Trump looks to his Gaza ceasefire playbook ICE arrests mother of White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt s nephew After the judge refused to close the books on a desegregation circumstance dating back to the s the Concordia Parish school system in central Louisiana and the state on Tuesday filed an appeal The circumstance offers the first major test of the administration s attempt to fleetly end chosen of the long-running cases The school system has become a focal point in the administration s attempt to end legal cases that reach back to the Civil Rights era Louisiana state functionaries say the cases are outdated and no longer needed In a remarkable turn they ve not long ago gained advocacy from the U S Justice Department which spent decades fighting for such cases The campaign encountered its first major obstacle this month when U S District Judge Dee Drell rejected a court filing from Louisiana and the Justice Department aiming to free Concordia from a lawsuit That event was brought by Black families who demanded access to the town s all-white schools A number of legal requirements from the affair remain in place in the present day and specific families say the court orders are still needed to improve teaching at the area s mostly Black schools Louisiana and the federal leadership tried to dismiss the scenario without delay by saying all remaining parties believe the event is no longer necessary It was not signed by any families who brought the suit who are no longer involved Drell refused saying the court can reject such agreements when bigger issues are at stake At the heart of this scenario is population plan and the protection of others and the court has been tasked with ensuring the resolution of this matter in accordance with long established legal precedent Drell who was appointed by former President George W Bush wrote in a Nov order Instead Drell offered Concordia Parish a hearing to prove it has fully dismantled state-sponsored racial segregation the traditional road to get such cases dismissed The school district and the state appealed that decision in a Tuesday filing They did not instantly respond to a request for comment The Justice Department used the same tactic to lift a order in Louisiana s Plaquemines Parish school district the judge in that event had been dead for decades and it signaled plans to have others dismissed later Dozens of s school desegregation cases remain in place across Louisiana and the South including chosen that are actively being litigated and others that have languished The Justice Department has framed the decades-old cases as federal intrusion into local school decisions Harmeet Dhillon who leads the department s civil rights division previously promised that other cases would bite the dust The Associated Press coaching coverage receives financial encouragement from multiple private foundations AP is solely responsible for all content Find AP s standards for working with philanthropies a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP org