With an enrollment of more than 30,000 students, DeSoto County is the largest school district in the state of Mississippi.
In 2015, the NAACP filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights, alleging that the school district has violated the Civil Rights Act by discriminating "against Black students on the basis of race through its discipline policies and practices fostering a school-to-prison pipeline and fueling racial disparities."
The suit asks the federal government to force the district to revise the vague code of conduct which allows for uneven punishments of minority students.
[5] The school district has a long history of violating federal mandates requiring civil rights reforms.
[6] In addition to the racial disparities in suspension rates, they suit also alleges that punishments differ widely for the same actions.