Feds ask court to end oversight of desegregation in Texas school district as 'demographic composition' shifts
White student population drops from 76% to less than 13%
Quick Summary
- Federal prosecutors seek to end over 50 years of court oversight of desegregation in the Garland Independent School District in Texas.
- The district's white enrollment has dropped to below 13%, prompting claims that desegregation policies are outdated.
- If approved, the motion would lift federal oversight of the district that has long offered public school choice.
Federal prosecutors are calling for an end to more than five decades of court oversight over a Texas school district’s half-century-old desegregation policies that the U.S. government says are outdated.
A motion filed in December by U.S. Attorney Ryan Raybould, representing the Justice Department in the Northern District of Texas, argues that the Garland Independent School District (Garland ISD) has long eliminated vestiges of its former segregation practices and that ongoing federal supervision is no longer justified.
The original 1970 order stemmed from the landmark “Brown vs. Board of Education” U.S. Supreme Court ruling in 1954 that ended school segregation. According to Garland ISD, "Elementary-aged students continued at Carver until 1970 when the school was finally closed."
The school district also implemented a freedom-of-choice plan that allows students to select their top three choices of public schools to attend, along with non-discrimination policies for faculty, transportation, and facilities. If approved, the declaration of unitary status would dismiss the case and lift federal jurisdiction.
According to a copy of the motion obtained by The Christian Post, prosecutors say district-wide white enrollment in Garland ISD now stands at approximately 13%, rendering certain "ethnicity band" requirements outdated. These bands, part of the plan modified in 1987 with involvement from the NAACP, limit white enrollment at individual schools to no more than 20 percentage points below or above the district average.
"Garland ISD eliminated its system of formal segregation many years ago, including by doing away with the former segregated Carver school, and the demographic composition of its schools today — with no school having a percentage of white students greater than 36%, according to the district’s latest report — indicates that there are also no remaining vestiges of any former discriminatory policies," the motion states.
The filing argues that federal supervision was designed as "a temporary measure to remedy past discrimination" and "not intended to operate in perpetuity." It also highlights dramatic demographic shifts since the 1970s, when the district was predominantly white — over 76% in 1987 — and the original oversight focused on discrimination against black students, including a "Bi-Racial Committee" of only black and white representatives.
As of Dec. 11, 2025, Garland ISD enrolled 50,930 students, using the following racial and ethnic breakdown: 12.83% White (6,533), 17.64% African American (8,983), 55.31% Hispanic (28,171), 10.31% Asian (5,249), and smaller percentages for other groups. White enrollment varies by school from a low of 1.12% at Bullock Elementary to a high of 35.81% at Keeley Elementary.
"The fact that district-wide white enrollment is now approximately 13% highlights the outdated nature of any 'ethnicity band' requiring each individual school to have a white population no more than 20 percentage points below or above this figure," the motion continues, pointing out the mathematical impossibility of achieving negative white enrollment percentages under the current rules.
Garland ISD, the only remaining Texas district still under such a court-ordered plan, is said to operate the nation's oldest school choice desegregation program, allowing students to select from any of its campuses or magnet programs while adhering to ethnicity guidelines.
While Texas has been subject to a federal court statewide desegregation order since 1971, all but nine school districts statewide were released from federal oversight following a Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling in 2010. As of January, there are at least six school districts under desegregation orders.
Last May, the DOJ ended a school desegregation order in Louisiana and referred to it as a “historical wrong,” The Associated Press reported. Also known as consent decrees, federal prosecutors opened several cases in the 1960s to ensure schools permanently eliminated segregation.
