Leflore County School District has come out from under the 1990 consent decree that changed the racial makeup of the schools and brought the district into compliance with the federal court order to desegregate.
The move came quietly back in March, according to U.S. District Court records. The Leflore County School Board didn't make an announcement.
"We asked our attorney to look into it," School Board President Jeanette Brown said in a telephone interview this morning, "and that's what happened."
U.S. District Court Chief Judge Glen H. Davidson signed an agreed order of dismissal Feb. 23 between the school district and the U.S. Department of Justice.
The order states that the Justice Department reviewed the school district in November 2003 to see if the district complied with federal law and desegregation orders in the case, U.S. vs. Leflore County School District, et al.
Based on that review, the order said, "the district has fulfilled its affirmative desegregation obligations under the Fourteenth Amendment and applicable federal law, entitling the District to a declaration of unitary status."
When asked why the school district chose to come out from under the decree, Brown said, "No particular reason. We weren't having any problems anyway."
Brown became president of the school board in August, nearly five months after the legal move. Claiborne Davis was president at the time. He couldn't be reached for comment.
Attorney Willie Perkins of Greenwood, who represents the school board, didn't return calls from the Commonwealth.
In 1990, the Justice Department and Leflore County School Board entered into a consent decree with a plan that would effectively maintain desegregation in the district's schools.
The county district had operated under a court order, established in 1966, but a spot check by the Justice Department in the spring of 1988 found violations of the desegregation mandates.
According to court records, the investigation revealed a number of white students who lived outside of the East Elementary School attendance zone were attending the school, which had a predominately white enrollment at the time.
The investigation also revealed that white students who lived in the county were allowed to attend Greenwood High School and that the district maintained "inferior facilities" at predominantly black schools.
The school district implemented a desegregation plan that paired East with predominately black Claudine Brown Elementary. This fall, both East and Brown have enrollments that are more than 96 percent black - roughly the districtwide average.
In 2003, the Justice Department revealed that the district had met its desegregation goals.
The original school desegregation lawsuit was filed on Aug. 1, 1966, by the U.S. Department of Justice. Attorneys for the Justice Department at that time argued that the Leflore County School District operated an unconstitutional dual public school system on the basis of race. Less than a month later, the court issued a preliminary injunction barring the school district from assigning students to school on the basis of race. The order also required the school district to submit a desegregation plan that met federal requirements.
In 1970, the courts divided the school district into attendance areas and required the district to assign students to the school in the attendance areas where they lived.
The order also prohibited the school district from consenting to transfers to the Greenwood Public School District, which, the Justice Department argued, would reduce desegregation in schools in either district.
In 1978, the Justice Department went back to court to prevent Leflore County School District from granting transfers of white students to attend Greenwood High School. At the same time, the 1978 order prohibited Greenwood High School from taking high school students who lived in the county district and outside the city district.
