Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill
BATON ROUGE – Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill has announced the state, the United States Department of Justice and the Bossier Parish School Board have jointly asked a federal to enter final judgment ending federal court oversight of the Bossier Parish School District, dismissing a school desegregation case that has been pending since 1964.
The joint motion, filed June 12 in United States District Court for the Western District of Louisiana, asks the court to dissolve all remaining injunctions, terminate federal supervision and dismiss the case with prejudice after finding that the Bossier Parish School Board has fully complied with the court’s orders for decades.
“The Supreme Court has repeatedly recognized that federal court supervision of local school systems is intended to be temporary,” Murrill said. “The record demonstrates sustained compliance by the Bossier Parish School Board.
“It is long past due to return power back to the people of Bossier Parish and to their elected representatives on the School Board.”
The litigation began in 1964 when a federal court entered its original desegregation order. The new motion notes that there has been no contested litigation between the parties for more than two decades and that the Department of Justice has never objected to the School Board’s compliance efforts during recent years of monitoring.
“I’d like to thank the Trump administration, Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche and Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon at the Department of Justice for their hard work and commitment to ending these cases in Louisiana and returning control of our schools to our local communities,” Murrill said.
If granted, the court’s final judgment would formally conclude one of Louisiana’s longest-running school desegregation cases and end all remaining federal oversight of the Bossier Parish School District.
There is currently no timetable for when the District Judge S. Maurice Hicks Jr. will rule on the joint motion.
U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana case number 5:64-cv-10687
