NEW ORLEANS (Legal Newsline) – A Louisiana Native American tribe can proceed with one of the six arguments it made in court following the closure of a school in Terrebonne Parish.
The United Houma Nation sought to prevent the closure of Pointe-aux-Chenes Elementary School, which has a student body that is 70% Louisiana Native Americans and 30% Louisiana Cajuns. Ignoring expert testimony that insisted these groups needed the school to help preserve their heritages, the Terrebonne Parish School Board allegedly sold the school without offering the UHN the chance to purchase the school.
Defendants are also accused of hauling precious documents and school items out of the school to put in the trash.
New Orleans federal judge Carl Barbier tossed five of six claims made in UHN’s lawsuit but is allowing the argument that the defendants violated Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, which prohibits entities receiving federal financial assistant from discriminating on the basis of race, color or national origin.
“TPSB seemed to ignore community input,” Barbier wrote. “Further, Plaintiffs aver that PAC qualifies for federal Indian education funds, federal free lunch and migrant funds… Therefore, the court, in accepting all of Plaintiffs’ well-pleaded facts as true and drawing reasonable inferences in favor of Plaintiffs, finds Plaintiffs’ claims regarding the closure of PAC… plausible.”
Other claims, like the denial of a French Immersion School, were tossed for being filed after a one-year statute of limitations.