Justice Department Ends Oversight in School Desegregation Cases, Taking a Dangerous Step Back on Civil Rights

The Justice Department announced Thursday that it has ended its oversight of more than 50 school desegregation cases, a move that threatens to undo decades of civil rights protections. Department records show 57 desegregation orders have been dismissed since President Trump's second term began. Nearly 80 percent were in five Southern states: Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi and South Carolina. That is the same region where Jim Crow laws once kept students apart.

Officials are celebrating instead of expressing concern. Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall declared, "This is just the beginning," and vowed to continue "until every school district in Alabama is free from unnecessary consent decrees." Anyone who values equal education should be alarmed by that goal.

Civil rights advocates warn that these orders do much more than shape classroom demographics. The N.A.A.C.P. and others note that the orders require equal funding, access to high-quality facilities and fair representation in advanced placement programs. Removing them eliminates safeguards against quiet, systemic neglect of students of color.

The evidence suggests the problem is far from solved. House Democrats on the Education and Workforce Committee said, "Schools are just as segregated today as they were in the late 1960s," and warned the administration is "turning us back toward the Jim Crow era." A 2024 study found that segregation has been rising, partly because a 1991 Supreme Court ruling made it easier for districts to exit oversight. The same study found that segregation significantly worsens racial disparities in children's health. Loosening oversight further could speed up that trend.

The Justice Department describes the decrees as costly relics. Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon said the oversight "does not reflect the reality of those classrooms today." Yet the review was handled by just two lawyers, who examined the cases one at a time. As of last year, more than 130 school systems were under these orders.

Most troubling is the broader pattern. The dismissals are part of a sweeping effort to reorient civil rights enforcement. That effort includes executive orders targeting D.E.I. and dropped cases in education, employment, housing and trade. Seventy years after Brown v. Board of Education, the federal government is signaling that enforcing its promise is optional. Once that precedent is set, it will be hard to reverse.

Link: NY Times