It’s nearing two years since the U.S. Department of Education received a complaint about alleged racial discrimination at a Lafayette Parish school, but it’s unclear whether a resolution is in sight.

Repeated inquiries to the department’s Office of Civil Rights have yielded the same response in recent months — the matter remains under investigation, no details can be released about an ongoing inquiry and there is no timetable for when the case might be closed.

It’s been 20 months since the U.S. Department of Education Office of Civil Rights began investigating a discrimination complaint involving Acadian Middle School.(Photo Credit: Paul Kieu, The Advertiser)

Earlier this year, District Planning Administrator Sandra Billeaudeau said the school system had sent several requested documents to federal authorities, but had yet to receive any kind of response.

The complaint was filed with the Office of Civil Rights in February 2014, and came to light in Lafayette a couple of months later.
Federal officials have said the case centers on “whether the LPSS discriminated against the student on the basis of his race (Black) by treating the student differently than similarly situated white students” and “whether the LPSS discriminates against Black students on the basis of race with respect to the administration of exclusory discipline.”
Documents obtained by The Daily Advertiser through a public records request show that the investigation centered on a student who was in sixth grade at Acadian Middle School at the time of the complaint.
Although it isn’t exactly clear why the Lafayette Parish investigation is taking so long, national media outlets have reported the Office of Civil Rights is handling more complaints than ever.
In March, The Washington Post reported the Department of Education was asking to hire 200 more investigators for the civil rights division, and that nearly 10,000 complaints were received by the office in the most recent fiscal year.
The Office of Civil Rights employees 554 people, according to The Washington Post.