Trump officials are vowing to end school desegregation orders. Some parents say they're still needed

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Source: ABC News/AP

June 8, 2025, 12:01 AM


FERRIDAY, La. -- Even at a glance, the differences are obvious. The walls of Ferriday High School are old and worn, surrounded by barbed wire. Just a few miles away, Vidalia High School is clean and bright, with a new library and a crisp blue “V” painted on orange brick. Ferriday High is 90% Black. Vidalia High is 62% white. For Black families, the contrast between the schools suggests “we’re not supposed to have the finer things,” said Brian Davis, a father in Ferriday. “It’s almost like our kids don’t deserve it,” he said.

The schools are part of Concordia Parish, which was ordered to desegregate 60 years ago and remains under a court-ordered plan to this day. Yet there’s growing momentum to release the district — and dozens of others — from decades-old orders that some call obsolete. In a remarkable reversal, the Justice Department said it plans to start unwinding court-ordered desegregation plans dating to the Civil Rights Movement. Officials started in April, when they lifted a 1960s order in Louisiana’s Plaquemines Parish. Harmeet Dhillon, who leads the department’s civil rights division, has said others will “bite the dust.”

It comes amid pressure from Republican Gov. Jeff Landry and his attorney general, who have called for all the state’s remaining orders to be lifted. They describe the orders as burdens on districts and relics of a time when Black students were still forbidden from some schools. The orders were always meant to be temporary — school systems can be released if they demonstrate they fully eradicated segregation. Decades later, that goal remains elusive, with stark racial imbalances persisting in many districts.

Civil rights groups say the orders are important to keep as tools to address the legacy of forced segregation — including disparities in student discipline, academic programs and teacher hiring. They point to cases like Concordia, where the decades-old order was used to stop a charter school from favoring white students in admissions.

Read more: https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/trump-officials-vowing-end-school-desegregation-orders-parents-122622161