Justice Department Terminates Some School Desegregation Cases Without Asking Court to Ensure Past Discrimination Has Ended, Watchdog Group Says

The Justice Department moved to terminate more than a dozen decades-old school desegregation cases without asking the court first to review whether the district successfully ended its past discriminatory practices, a watchdog group has found.

A new analysis released by Red Line for Civil Rights, an oversight project of Democracy Forward run by former DOJ attorneys, reviewed a list of more than 50 school desegregation cases that the Justice Department recently announced it had dismissed.

The review found that since President Trump took office in January 2025, the Justice Department has supported the dismissal of cases in at least 56 school districts, either by formally withdrawing or not opposing motions to end them.

In at least 18 of those cases, the Justice Department supported dismissals without first asking the federal court overseeing the case to determine whether the school district had achieved “unitary status.”

That term, defined by the Supreme Court, means the school district has eliminated the vestiges of past discrimination that were the subject of the cases. The six core areas that are typically reviewed by courts are student assignment, faculty assignment, staff assignment, transportation, facilities and extracurricular activities, though other areas can also be considered.

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