U.S. 5th Circuit ended 1965 Concordia Parish school desegregation order, backing DOJ campaign to lift decrees

On July 14, 2026, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, sitting in New Orleans, ended more than 60 years of federal desegregation oversight of Louisiana's Concordia Parish School Board, upholding the dissolution of a consent decree that originated with a 1965 lawsuit. The order dated to an era when the Ferriday area was segregated and home to a violent offshoot of the Ku Klux Klan; Black families had sued for access to all-white schools, and the federal government intervened.

The ruling handed a victory to the Trump administration, whose Justice Department reversed decades of federal practice and pushed to terminate Civil Rights-era desegregation orders, framing them as federal intrusion into local schools. In Louisiana the decrees have been dismantled with the cooperation of Attorney General Liz Murrill, who has used "joint stipulated dismissals" that do not require proof that segregation has been eradicated. Announcing the ruling, Murrill said the decision "puts that authority back where it belongs," with the elected school board rather than unelected federal judges.

Civil-rights groups and some parents have argued the orders remain necessary tools against lingering vestiges of segregation, including racial disparities in student discipline, academic programs, and teacher hiring. The Concordia Parish decree had been used as recently as 2013 to require a mostly white charter school to prioritize Black students and build a more integrated enrollment. The families who originally brought the suit are no longer involved in the case.