Advocacy groups came out on top after the Supreme Court declined to review their preliminary victory in their fight against allegedly racist industrial zoning practices in Louisiana.
Without explanation, the justices on Monday indicated that they would not revisit an appellate court’s finding that Inclusive Louisiana and two other groups have legal standing to pursue their challenge against St. James Parish, part of a stretch of the Mississippi River often called “Cancer Alley” because of the many petrochemical plants located in the area.
The advocacy groups must still present their claims to a federal district court in Louisiana, but the Supreme Court’s order — for now, at least — removes a threshold issue that could have tanked their lawsuit before it began.
Filed in 2023, the groups’ lawsuit makes the case that St. James Parish illegally concentrated industrial development into two districts populated mostly by Black residents. A few months after the case was filed, a federal judge in Louisiana dismissed the claims, finding that the challengers lacked standing and had missed various statutes of limitations.
