Judge closes Vermilion school case
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The long-dormant school desegregation case in Vermilion Parish is officially over.
There has been little activity in the case since the 1970s, but the Justice Department has conducted reviews every few years to ensure the School Board remained in compliance with a 1974 consent decree to desegregate schools.
“It’s just kind of been an open file they’ve kept,” said attorney Woody Woodruff, who represents the School Board.
The file was officially closed this month by U.S. District Judge Richard Haik after Justice Department attorneys agreed the school system remains in compliance after more than 30 years.
After the 1974 consent decree, the School Board filed two detailed annual reports with figures on staffing, enrollment and facilities.There have been no filings in the case since the second report in 1976, but Woodruff said the Justice Department has occasionally requested data about the school system.
“Over the years, the Justice Department has periodically, but very sporadically, requested information to see how we are doing,” he said.
The Justice Department initiated a more extensive review in 2008, sending down an attorney who stayed for two days to visit schools and review records, Woodruff said.
“After that review, they felt we were meeting the desegregation standards,” Superintendent Randy Schexnayder said. “They felt we were very much integrated.”
The formal end to the desegregation case is not expected to have any practical effect on the school system, but the closure removes the possibility the Justice Department could someday reactivate the case and seek more oversight of school system decisions. “We don’t have to worry about that jurisdiction anymore,” Schexnayder said. “We are proud of the fact that it has come to this.”
Most school systems in the southern United States were sued in the 1960s and 1970s for operating segregated school systems.
Many of those cases have been resolved or remain in a suspended status similar to Vermilion Parish, but several remain active.
St. Landry and Evangeline parishes are both wrestling with active desegregation cases that have resulted in major reorganizations that include school closures.
Lafayette Parish settled its desegregation case in 2006 with a plan that closed three elementary schools and established a magnet school.
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