MS town ordered to desegregate schools as 5 decade battle draws to a close

[cali]

A federal court has ordered a town in Mississippi to desegregate its high schools and middle schools, ending a five-decade-long legal battle over integrating black and white students.

The United States District Court for the Northern District of Mississippi ordered the Cleveland School District to consolidate the schools after rejecting two alternatives proposed by the school district, saying they were unconstitutional.

“This victory creates new opportunities for the children of Cleveland to learn, play and thrive together,” said Vanita Gupta, the head of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, in a statement published on Monday.

The court’s ruling means the district’s middle school and high school programs will be combined for the first time in their more than century-long history.

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http://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/05/18/us/cleveland-mississippi-school-district-desegregate.html?smid=fb-nytimes&smtyp=cur&_r=0&referer=http://m.facebook.com

[desmiller]

1. Finally.... some good news from this no good state of mine.

oh yeah.....


hey cali

[Initech]

2. Segregation - in the words of Mr Mackie from South Park:

"It might be best if you just let it go, mmmmmkay?"

[KamaAina]

3. Don't they have segregation academies there?

Every other town in Mississippi has all-white private schools known as "segregation academies". Thus, the public schools are all black and predictably underfunded.

Believe it or not, at least one segregation academy has integrated -- with a black football player, of course. :eyees:

[Spider Jerusalem]

4. No, they draw school catchment area boundary lines in such a way...

that the schools end up being segregated (because of housing segregation, which persists de facto despite not being enforcable de jure; go to just about anywhere in the small-town South and you'll find there's a "black part of town", "across the tracks", etc...which is the reason for things like busing, or in this case, consolidation).