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High court won’t block Mississippi school disparity lawsuit

FILE - In this May 23, 2017, file photograph, Dorothy Haymer, of Yazoo City, speaks during a news conference, in Jackson, Miss. Haymer, an African American mother with children in public elementary school, is a plaintiff in a lawsuit filed on their behalf by the Southern Poverty Law Center. The U.S. Supreme Court said Thursday, April 8, 2021, that it will not get involved, for now, in the lawsuit that says the State of Mississippi allows grave disparities in funding between predominantly Black and predominantly white schools. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis, File)

JACKSON, Miss. — The U.S. Supreme Court says it will not get involved, for now, in a lawsuit that says Mississippi allows grave disparities in funding between schools.

Southern Poverty Law Center sued the state in 2017, saying Black children attend schools that are in worse condition and have lower academic performance than some wealthier, predominantly White schools.

A district court judge dismissed the lawsuit in 2019, but an appeals court revived it last year. The Supreme Court said Thursday it won’t get involved now, but there are other grounds for dismissal that are unresolved at the district court level.