Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal called on the Obama administration last week to drop its legal intervention over the state’s private school voucher program, saying the effort was “cynical, immoral, and hypocritical.”
Gov. Jindal was significantly stepping up the pressure on the U.S. Department of Justice to withdraw a motion it filed Aug. 22 in a longstanding statewide desegregation case in Louisiana. The federal government is seeking to enjoin the state from issuing vouchers to students who attend public schools still under federal court supervision for desegregation unless the state gets the approval of the court overseeing the relevant desegregation plan.
The Justice Department said this month that it is concerned with the voucher program’s effects on racial balance in schools in some of the 34 Louisiana school districts still under court-supervised desegregation plans, and it is seeking to ensure the voucher program is implemented in a way that is consistent with those plans.