High Court Won’t Block Mississippi School Disparity Lawsuit

by Emily Wagster Pettus – AP

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — The U.S. Supreme Court said Thursday it will not get involved, for now, in a lawsuit that says Mississippi allows grave disparities in funding between predominantly Black and predominantly white schools.

Southern Poverty Law Center sued the state in 2017 on behalf of low-income Black women who said their children and other Black children attended schools that were in worse condition and had lower academic performance than some wealthier, predominantly white schools.

U.S. District Judge William H. Barbour dismissed the suit in 2019. A three-judge panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals revived it in April 2020.

Mississippi officials, including Gov. Tate Reeves and state Superintendent of Education Carey Wright, asked the full appeals court to reconsider the ruling by the three-judge panel. The appeals court voted 9-8 in December to reject that request. The state then asked the Supreme Court to get involved.

Barbour — who died early this year — had said in 2019 that state officials were immune from being sued. The appeals court panel said sovereign immunity “is not limitless” and people may sue a state as long as the suit seeks changes going forward and not compensation for past practices.

The Supreme Court’s order Thursday said there are other grounds for dismissal of the lawsuit that has not been resolved at the district court level. The case has been reassigned to U.S. District Judge Henry T. Wingate.

One of the attorneys representing the families, Will Bardwell, said of Thursday’s decision: “It’s a very strong indication that the Supreme Court is going to allow the case to move forward.”