The U.S. Supreme Court has declined to take up a Louisiana parish’s request to review a lower court decision that revived a discrimination lawsuit brought by local advocates.
St. James Parish had petitioned the Courtto review an August ruling by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, which found that community groups had standing to sue over alleged racial discrimination in the parish’s land use practices. A federal district court had previously dismissed the case for lack of standing, but the Fifth Circuit reversed that decision in April, concluding the plaintiffs had sufficiently alleged they were “racially classified and denied equal treatment.”
The lawsuit—filed in 2023 by Inclusive Louisiana and RISE St. James—accuses parish officials of using zoning and land use decisions to concentrate high-emission industrial facilities in predominantly Black neighborhoods along the 85-mile stretch of the Mississippi River known as “Cancer Alley.”
More than 200 petrochemical and manufacturing plants operate in the corridor, which the Environmental Protection Agency has linked to elevated rates of cancer and other serious illnesses.
The case is St. James Parish v. Inclusive Louisiana, No. 25-195.
For more information, please visit Rise St. James Louisiana.