On February 10, 1969, the United States Department of Justice filed this school desegregation lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana. The Department of Justice sued to enjoin the operation of a racially segregated school system in Catahoula Parish, Louisiana.

The presiding judge when the case was filed was Judge Edwin Ford Hunter Jr. On June 24, 1969, Judge Hunter granted the Department of Justice’s motion for a preliminary injunction to create a unitary school system in Catahoula Parish. Just a month before, on May 28, 1969, the Fifth Circuit had decided Hall v. St. Helena Parish School Bd., 417 F.2d 801 (5th Cir. 1969), an opinion aggregating 38 separate school desegregation cases. In its opinion, the Fifth Circuit explained (in accordance with its prior opinion in U.S. v. Jefferson County Board of education, 380 F.2d 385 (5th Cir. en banc 1967), and the Supreme Court's opinion in Green v. School Bd. of New Kent County, 391 U.S. 430 (1968)), that the constitutional duty to desegregated was not satisfied by ineffective plans that purported to desegregate merely by offering students “freedom of choice” about where to attend school. For more information on

In the aftermath of this major 5th Circuit holding, the school desegregation cases in the Western District of Louisiana were all consolidated for some purposes. Judge Dawkins ordered Catahoula and twenty-eight other parishes to submit new desegregation plans to the District Court. See Conley v. Lake Charles, 303 F.Supp. 394 (1969). The District Court officially approved the parish’s desegregation plan on July 29, 1969.

While Catahoula Parish has been consistently filing periodic reports with the District Court, the case has been fairly quiet overall since the segregation plan was approved in 1969. In August 23, 1993, the District Court granted a Motion by Catahoula Parish to implement a new Student Enrollment and Transfer Policy. On July 7, 1994, the desegregation plan was amended again, allowing Catahoula Parish to close one high school and consolidate two middle schools into one. Also on July 7, 1994, the District Court dismissed the motion of “Save Our Schools,” who sued to become Intervenor Plaintiffs in order to keep the parish from integrating the schools. The District Court also granted Catahoula’s motion to close an elementary school and reassign the students on August 7, 1995. Since then the District Court has made orders consolidating another school and making it so that students who transfer (or are reassigned) under “majority-to-minority” provisions gain athletic eligibility at their new schools right away. Catahoula Parish continues to file with the District Court.

Available Opinions
Conley v. Lake Charles, 303 F.Supp. 394 (1969)
Hall v. St. Helena Parish School Bd., 417 F.2d 801 (1969)


Alaael-Deen Shilleh - 04/30/2017


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