In a complaint filed Friday with the Eastern District of Louisiana, the parents argue the school closure is arbitrary, discriminatory on the basis of race, language, and national origin, and thus unlawful.
- Four current Pointe-aux-Chênes Elementary students protest the school’s closure outside the Terrebonne Parish School Board with Pointe-au-Chien Tribal elders Donald and Theresa Dardar on March 16, 2021.
Will McGrew, CEO & Editor in Chief, Télé-LouisianeTwelve parents of current Pointe-aux-Chênes Elementary students, all of whom are Native American and members of the Pointe-au-Chien Indian Tribe filed a lawsuit against Terrebonne Parish School Board, its president Gregory Harding, and its superintendent Phillip Martin in Federal Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana alleging illegal racial, linguistic, and national origin discrimination under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, the 14th Amendment of the Constitution, and Article 1: Section 3 and Article 12: Section 4 of the Louisiana Constitution, failure to adhere to the requirements of Louisiana’s Immersion School Choice Act, and violation of the State’s public trust doctrine in causing environmental endangerment of a coastal community
The parents, represented by francophone lawyers Louis Koerner of New Orleans and Jimmy Domengeaux of Lafayette, asked the court for urgent injunctive relief to prevent the closure and sale of the school for the 2021-22 school year. Koerner and Domengeaux likewise represent parent Anne Ogden in her ongoing litigation at St. Tammany Parish School Board for its three-time failure to follow the requirements of the State’s Immersion School Choice Act to open a French Immersion program. Domengeaux is the son of James Domengeaux, former U.S. Representative and founder of CODOFIL, the state agency for the promotion of French.
The legal filing constitutes a serious escalation of the efforts of the Pointe-au-Chien Tribe and the Pointe-aux-Chênes bayou community as well as their allies to fight back against the most recent chapter in what they argue is a long pattern and practice of racial and linguistic discrimination against Louisiana-French-speaking Native American and Cajun students in the area. The news coincides with the final few weeks of school at Pointe-aux-Chênes Elementary where teachers have been instructed to prioritize packing boxes at the expense of teaching students according to a community member with direct knowledge of the school’s operations.
Movers are expected at the school on or before June 21, 2021, according to the same community member and two additional sources. All three individuals chose to speak anonymously for fear of retaliation from School Board officials dead-set on closing and selling the school regardless of community backlash—and despite any clear rationale behind the decision. The plaintiffs and their lawyers fear that an expedited sale may be in the works to generate quick cash this summer from what the parents view as an irresponsible sale of an indispensable community pillar.
The absence of any documented financial or other justification is a central focus of the legal arguments made by PAC parents in their emergency filing to prevent the closure and sale of the school in federal court. The plaintiffs point to the integration era and specifically the case Hall v. St. Helena Parish School Board decided by the Eastern District to argue that although the School Board has the general authority to close and consolidate schools, in exercising that power it must do so neutrally, impartially, and without bias. As the court ruled in 1961 in a decision affirmed by the Supreme Court, “absent a reasonable basis for so classifying, a state cannot close the public schools in one area while, at the same time, it maintains schools elsewhere with public funds.”
- Parent Samantha Boudreaux holds a sign to Save PAC at the protest against the closure and sale of the school on April 1, 2021.
In the case of Pointe-aux-Chênes Elementary, the School Board’s burden of proof is even higher under existing federal jurisprudence in the view of the PAC Elementary parents and their lawyers as Native students were denied access to the school for decades by the School Board until a federal court order forced integration. As in the case of the Helena Parish precedent and dozens of other integration lawsuits, they say it is on the School Board to clearly demonstrate its closure decision does not represent further discrimination against the majority-native students population—a difficult proposition given the complaint’s evidence of discriminatory intent and impact.
Specifically, the complaint details evidence of intentional racial discrimination behind the school closure decision by looking to the few rationales publicly provided by School Board members, asserting, “[one] school board member, Vice President Maybelle Trahan, specifically cited the racial composition of the school as a motivation. In particular, she expressed that she had felt socially isolated as a result of attending the school as a child [but] ignored the success of students who have attended PAC Elementary School [and] that PAC Elementary today is a racially integrated school with a critical mass of both white Cajun and Native American students proportionally reflective of the surrounding community.”
Furthering the point, the complaint later concludes: “While consolidating schools to achieve racial integration is a legitimate objective of local school boards, targeting an already-integrated school like PAC Elementary for its majority-Native racial composition (consistent with the composition of its surrounding community) constitutes illegal racial discrimination, particularly when the most segregated majority-white schools under TPSB’s supervision have mostly not been consolidated for the purpose of desegregation.”
Beyond intentional discrimination, the parents believe the clear disparate impacts inflicted by the decision on PAC Elementary’s students are sufficient evidence to enforce an injunction on the closure and sale of the school. As the complaint outlines, the closure of the school displaces PAC’s students, disrupts their learning, particularly for disabled students, deprives their majority-Native bayou town of a community school, and concentrates a large population of students at Montegut Elementary, a school that they allege has inferior facilities vis-à-vis PAC Elementary.
Linguistic discrimination is the second major focus of the complaint—as it is prohibited by the 14th amendement of the US Constitution and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act as well as by the particularly strong protections for linguistic and cultural rights added to the the Louisiana Constitution of 1974 to compensate for historic de facto and de jure discrimination against Louisiana French speakers. With that historical context, the parents—whose first language and/or parents’ first language is Louisiana French—say the denial of two state-sanctioned requests for French immersion and the subsequent closure of the school with its majority of French-speaking families represents discrimination against speakers of Indian, Cajun, or other dialects of Louisiana French—of particular national origins.
- CODOFIL Executive Director Peggy Feehan and La Fondation Louisiane Founder and Chair William Arceneaux and Vice Chair Philippe Gustin during a day of French-language legislative advocacy, including around PAC Elementary, April 21, 2021.
Community members are particularly frustrated that the School Board refuses to accept financial or other support from the community, the State, or allies to keep the School open. Indeed, after State Representative and Speaker Pro Tempore Tanner Magee spearheaded an effort to allocate $1 million in the state budget to reopen PAC as a French immersion school, Pointe-au-Chien Tribal Council Member Geneva Leboeuf and PAC Elementary mom and plaintiff Shana Rae Dardar said the School Board President and Superintendent have still avoided and thwarted efforts to keep the school open without sharing any financial analysis conducted by the School Board justifying the decision. Parents argue the School Board’s position to reject this funding is indefensible to taxpayers as the funding means that the Legislature has exceptionally provided over 70% of PAC Elementary’s $1.4 million annual budget, representing a significant infusion of resources and thereby freeing up funds for other uses by the School and the District.
Télé-Louisiane is working with the Pointe-au-Chien Tribe, the broader Pointe-aux-Chênes community, and relevant public, private, and community partners to ensure the linguistic and cultural rights of French-speaking communities in Terrebonne Parish are protected. Contact us at info@telelouisiane.com to share information that may be helpful to this effort.