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VIDALIA, La. — After the Concordia Parish School Board has voted down a consent decree from the United States Department of Justice that would have changed the way schools are districted in the parish, many including school district officials, are asking what will happen next.

That is what Superintendent Toyua Bachus said when contacted this week.

“I just want to know what’s next,” she said. “Right now, we’re waiting; Waiting on the district judge to schedule a hearing — waiting on a new administration to take office and see what effect, if any, it will have. Some feel with a new president coming in, it’ll all go away. That is not the belief of our lawyers, who’ve dealt with cases such as this before. They feel it will go to court. I’m hoping by next week we’ll have a realistic timeline of when that could happen.”

With the backing of Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill, the school board unanimously voted down the DOJ proposal on Dec. 17, which would have moved students from Vidalia schools into Ferriday to create a balance of students by race.

Bachus said there had been misconceptions from parish residents that she as superintendent had come up with the desegregation proposal and that she had supported it.

Murrill clarified that these consent proposals are heavily driven by the DOJ, with some private plaintiffs like the NAACP, “but the DOJ is involved in all of it and has a lot of influence.”

During a public forum, locals expressed concern for the disruption of community-based schools, increasing commute times and transportation costs and spreading children of the family out across the district.

After the school board’s rejection of the proposal, Murrill said the next thing to take place would be a status hearing in front of Judge Dee D. Drell of the United States District Court for the Western District of Louisiana Alexandria Division about the agreement that was proposed.

“But right now, there is no agreement” between the school district and the court to end the desegregation case, Murrill said. “The judge will probably have a status conference. I don’t know if that’s scheduled or not, I’d have to go check on that.”

Murrill, while stating she has an immense level of respect for Drell, cited several issues she has with the desegregation consent order, one being its timing.

“I respect Judge Drell immensely. I’ve litigated cases in front of him. I know that he has nothing but the best intentions,” she said. “This has been a fast-moving train, and I believe it needs to slow down.”

Her office has been directly involved with similar cases against St. John Parish, St. Mary’s Parish and St. Martin Parish. Murrill said each of the pending desegregation cases in Louisiana are 30 or more years old.
The challenges the school board faces now, such as competing with larger communities for staff and faculty, are “completely unrelated to the vestiges of discrimination that originally motivated” the 1960s lawsuit, she said.

In each case, there are a lot of similar legal questions that Murrill related to continuing jurisdiction over old cases that were dormant for decades.

Rather than modify the existing orders for the parishes to desegregate with a clear explanation of why, Murrill said the DOJ has put more orders and restrictions on districts that are already strained for cash and resources for children.

“As a matter of law, we are negotiating against ourselves,” she said. “It makes it makes no sense to me.”

Murrill said her overarching concern and the reason she decided to step in is that the case has the potential to turn into a long expensive process that could bankrupt small rural districts like Concordia Parish and “beat them into submission.” The goal, as stated in the consent decree, should be to bring these cases to a close so that elected officials can resume their responsibility to the people and perform the duties they were elected to do, she said.

That is one of the reasons Murrill offered to help without it costing the district, she said. To create “a fair playing field.”

“It’s not just a local matter of concern. It’s a state matter of concern,” she said. “I want to make sure that (these school districts) aren’t making their decisions because of their fear that they’re just going to be financially bankrupted by the litigation when they have limited resources available for children. … The judge’s duty is to move these things toward dismissal. I am pressing for them to do that,” she said.

Murrill added she trusts Drell “means well and will do what is right.”

She added the Trump administration has “a very different view about the role of the federal government in local affairs.”

“They’re going to be more respectful of our concerns,” she said of the reason she advocates for a pause on the decision-making until the Trump administration takes office. “Education historically has always been something that has been fundamentally local. … We know from past experience that the new administration has a different approach to federal, state and local concerns, issues and consent decrees than the Biden administration. My objective is to preserve local control for elected officials who were elected for this purpose.”

Murrill added her experience is that increasing federal control of local school business often “creates more problems than it solves.”