Justice Department Files Motion to Ensure That Mississippi School District Complies with Desegregation Orders
WASHINGTON – The Department of Justice announced that it has asked the federal court overseeing a longstanding desegregation case against the school district in Cleveland, Miss., to enforce the previously-entered desegregation orders governing the district and compel the district’s compliance with federal law. In a motion filed with the court today, the United States alleges that the school district has failed to dismantle the vestiges of segregation in its schools, and that schools that were racially segregated by law in 1969, when the district was originally ordered to desegregate, remain so today. Prior to 1969, schools on the west side of the railroad tracks that run through Cleveland were white schools segregated by law. More than forty years later, these schools maintain their character and reputation as white schools with a student body and faculty that are disproportionately white. Similarly, schools on the east side of the railroad tracks – originally black schools...