The Justice Department announced today
that it reached a settlement agreement with the Fort Payne City School District
in Alabama and private plaintiffs in a longstanding school desegregation
case. The parties filed a proposed
consent order in the federal district court in Birmingham, Ala.
If approved by the court, the proposed order
would declare the 3,100-student school district partially unitary in the areas
of extracurricular activities, school facilities and transportation, and would
dismiss the case in those areas. The
order would require the district to take additional steps to reach full
compliance, including ensuring that its student transfer practices do not
impede desegregation and taking measures to promote racial diversity in its
faculty and staff. The district may
seek full dismissal of the case upon compliance with the terms of the two-year
agreement. If approved, the U.S. will
monitor and enforce the district’s compliance with the order.
“We are pleased that the Fort Payne City school
district has demonstrated significant progress in complying with its
desegregation obligations and a willingness to take additional measures to
reach our mutual goal of ensuring equal educational opportunities for all
students,” said Thomas E. Perez, Assistant Attorney General for the Civil
Rights Division. “We look forward to
working with the district over the next two years to implement the measures
required by this order and bring this case to a close after so many years.”
This case is part of a statewide desegregation
lawsuit, Lee v. Macon County Board of Education, which was filed in 1963.
The enforcement of the Equal Protection Clause
of the U.S. Constitution and Title IV of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 that bars
race discrimination in public schools is a top priority of the Justice
Department’s Civil Rights Division. Additional information about the Civil
Rights Division of the Justice Department is available on its website at
www.justice.gov/crt.
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