The district court is ORDERED to vacate its Memorandum Ruling and subsequent order scheduling evidentiary hearings. extinguished the controversy itself. The difference is between a case that continues and a case that is over. See Navy, 166 F.4th at 553-54.
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Carl E. Stewart, Circuit Judge, concurring in part and dissenting in part:
I concur with the dismissal of the direct appeal for lack of jurisdiction. However, for the following reasons, I respectfully dissent from the grant of mandamus relief.
I
This case has lasted for more than sixty years because Concordia Parish schools, which were formerly racially segregated, have not yet been declared unitary by a federal judge through the process set forth by Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483 (1954), Green v. County School Board of New Kent County, 391 U.S. 430 (1968), and their progeny. In 1965, the Private Plaintiffs brought suit alleging a policy, practice, custom, and usage of segregation in Concordia Parish schools. As the district court aptly explained, although the Supreme Court directed school districts to desegregate with
"all deliberate speed,"1"[i]t did not turn out that way." For the ensuing decades, school districts across the nation were tasked with "transition[ing] to a unitary, nonracial system of public education." Green, 391 U.S. at 436. Unitary status is achieved when a school district demonstrates that it has
"(1) complied in good faith with desegregation orders for a period of at least three years and (2) eliminated the vestiges of prior de jure segregation to the extent practicable." Borel v. Sch. Bd. Saint Martin Par., 44 F.4th 307, 314 (5th Cir. 2022) (citation omitted). Concordia Parish has not yet been declared unitary.
The district court dismissed the Private Plaintiffs' claims without prejudice in 2025. Thus, at this point, there are three parties remaining in this case: (1) Intervenor-Plaintiff the United States (the "Government");
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(2) Defendant, the School Board of Concordia Parish (the "School Board"); and (3) Intervenor Delta Charter Group, Inc.2On August 15, 2025, all three parties purported to "jointly and voluntarily stipulate to dismiss th[e] action with prejudice" pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 41(a)(1)(A)(ii). On November 19, 2025, the district court effectively rejected the stipulation, reasoning that it need not accept a stipulated dismissal, "particularly when the protection of others and/or judicial or public policies are at issue." The district court emphasized its lack of intent to prolong the litigation and acknowledged that it was the parties' wishes that the case come to an end as soon as possible. Thus, it subsequently scheduled an evidentiary hearing for January 9, 2026, and an additional hearing for February 5, 2026, to determine whether unitary status had been achieved such that dismissal was warranted. The School Board appealed the order setting an evidentiary hearing, and later filed a separate petition for a writ of mandamus asking this court to direct the district court to vacate its order setting the hearing and effectively bring this case to a close.
II
"A writ of mandamus is 'a drastic and extraordinary remedy reserved for really extraordinary cases.'" In re JPMorgan Chase & Co., 916 F.3d 494, 499 (5th Cir. 2019) (quoting In re Depuy Orthopedics, Inc., 870 F.3d 345, 350 (5th Cir. 2017)). As to the petition for writ of mandamus, the panel majority concludes that the School Board is entitled to mandamus relief because
(A) we lack jurisdiction to hear the appeal so there is no alternative adequate means of relief, (B) the district court was stripped of jurisdiction after the parties entered the 41(a)(1)(A)(ii) stipulation, and (C) relief is warranted
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because district courts have come to differing conclusions when presented with the same or similar situations. I disagree.
A
The first requirement for mandamus relief is that the petitioner has
"no other adequate means to attain the relief" sought. In re Ilton, Inc., 883 F.3d 553, 568 (5th Cir. 2018) (quoting Cheney v. U.S. Dist. Ct. for D.C., 542 U.S. 367, 380-81 (2004) (internal quotation marks omitted)). This means that the "error presented is truly irremediable on ordinary appeal."
JPMorgan Chase & Co., 916 F.3d at 499 (cleaned up). The panel majority reasons that this requirement is met because direct appeal is unavailable before the district court holds the evidentiary hearing. However, the error presented (if it is an error) is remediable on direct appeal—in due course. The panel majority concludes, and I agree, that we lack jurisdiction to hear the direct appeal of the order scheduling the evidentiary hearing. Ordinarily, that would mean the direct appeal is dismissed and the district court would proceed to determine whether the School Board has established evidence of unitary status. If at that time, the district court denied the School Board unitary status,3and continued on with this case, the dispute would then come within this court's jurisdiction as an
"[i]nterlocutory order[] . . . refusing to dissolve . . . [the] injunctions." 28 U.S.C. § 1292(a)(1). We would then have jurisdiction to consider whether the district court should have accepted the parties' joint stipulation to dismissal.
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But the School Board argues that it need not wait until the district court enters such an order. It argues that even if this court does not have jurisdiction, mandamus is appropriate because any relief would only become available after the evidentiary hearing on unitary status. But that reasoning is contrary to the purpose of mandamus relief.
"It is, of course, well settled, that the writ is not to be used as a substitute for appeal . . . even though hardship may result from delay and perhaps unnecessary trial." Schlagenhauf v. Holder, 379 U.S. 104, 110 (1964); In re Willy, 831 F.2d 545, 550 (5th Cir. 1987) ("Mandamus cannot be used as a substitute for appeal even when hardship may result from delay.") (holding that although an administrative law judge could not enforce its own discovery order, the party had to wait until after the administrative trial to address the discovery issue in their petition for review), aff'd sub nom. Willy v. Coastal Corp., 503 U.S. 131 (1992). Where a party seeks the same relief in their direct appeal and a petition for mandamus, the fact that a direct appeal is not available does not necessarily mean that there are no alternative means for relief. See ACL Co., LLC v. Espinoza, 32 F. App'x 128, *1 (5th Cir. 2002) (dismissing the direct appeal for lack of jurisdiction and denying the petition for mandamus relief because other relief was available through direct appeal). In this case, the panel majority grants mandamus relief to a party that has shown no more than mere inconvenience, allowing this extraordinary remedy to be used for precisely what it was not meant to be: a substitute for appeal. The only purported hardship the School Board cites is the district court's scheduling of an evidentiary hearing. But upon the parties' filing of the joint stipulation and its rejection of it, the district court moved with urgency to schedule a hearing to determine whether this case should be brought to a close. In the order that is the subject of the mandamus petition, the district court set dates for just fifty-one and seventy-eight days after the
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order. At no point did the parties move the district court to further accelerate or reschedule the hearing, nor did they cite—to this court or the district court—any harm that would result from holding an evidentiary hearing (e.g., some loss of funding, impact on the quality of education, loss of special education services, or other direct impact). Clearly, this is not a case where the district court has refused to rule or to do so in a timely manner. Moreover, the district court did not deny the parties relief at all but, at best, merely delayed relief so that the proper procedure could be employed to determine whether unitary status has been achieved. Nothing in the district court's ruling or order obstructs the parties from seeking relief, or evinces any intent to extend this litigation. As the district court explained:
We have no desire nor predilection to complicate this case longer. However, we believe we are obliged under Brown and its progeny to reach a conclusion based on the record, based on evidence such that we may be able to make specific findings as to the Green factors. . . .
In requiring these hearings, it is not the intention of the court to prolong the litigation any further, as the court understands the proposed Rule 41 stipulation represents the stated wish of the remaining parties to effect an end to this sixty-year-old case. That said, neither is it this court's wish to prolong things beyond that necessary to have a showing of unitary status on the record.
The district court read Brown and Green to require it to determine whether unitary status has been achieved before accepting a stipulated dismissal.4
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Notably, if the parties had proceeded with this case as instructed by the district court in November 2025, then by this time in July 2026, the hearings would have been long passed and the district court likely would have ruled.5 Instead, the School Board both appealed and filed a mandamus petition in our court—extending the very litigation it insists must end, while failing to cite any reason that the scheduled hearings would impose any hardship on the School Board or Concordia Parish schools.
In granting mandamus relief, the panel majority is, to my regret, usurping the time-honored power of the district court to manage its own docket, without any showing of hardship, thereby stretching the meaning and availability of mandamus relief to placate the parties in this crucial institutional case. See Saqui v. Pride Cent. Am., LLC, 595 F.3d 206, 211 (5th Cir. 2010) ("District court judges have broad discretion in managing their own dockets."). It is a mistake to allow the grant of mandamus relief in lieu of an appeal that indisputably would have been available after the scheduled evidentiary hearing, regardless of its outcome. The question is not whether an appeal could lie but merely when. The fact that the appeal would not ripen until several weeks or months after the parties desired is not the same as situations where an appeal, or another adequate means of relief, is truly unavailable. Alacrity is not the same as hardship.
In sum, the School Board attempts to circumvent the jurisdictional statutes to avoid the inconvenience of an evidentiary hearing, after which relief would be available if the parties wished to pursue that relief. The
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availability of that relief is sufficient alone to deny mandamus, but I continue on to the other two requirements for purposes of completeness.
B
The second requirement for mandamus relief is that the "right to issuance of the writ is clear and indisputable." In re Ilton, Inc., 883 F.3d at 568 (quoting Cheney, 542 U.S. at 380-81). This requirement is only met if there has been a "'clear abuse of discretion that produced patently erroneous results' or . . . 'there has been a usurpation of judicial power.'" JPMorgan Chase & Co., 916 F.3d at 500 (cleaned up) (quoting Will v. United States, 389 U.S. 90, 95 (1967)). A "showing that the district court misinterpreted the law, misapplied it to the facts, or otherwise engaged in an abuse of discretion"
is insufficient. Id. (quoting In re Lloyd's Reg. N. Am., Inc., 780 F.3d 283, 290 (5th Cir. 2015)). The panel majority reasons that this requirement is met because the mere fact of the parties' purported Rule 41(a)(1)(A)(ii) dismissal essentially opens and shuts this matter.
In my view, that argument proves too much. The panel majority is correct that Rule 41(a)(1)(A)(ii) dismissals are effective upon entry and do not require action on the part of the district court. See, e.g., Whittier v. Ocwen Loan Servicing, L.L.C., 128 F.4th 724, 726-27 (5th Cir. 2025) (per curiam). But those cases, and the panel majority, presume that the parties' purported stipulation of dismissal was effective. Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 41(a)(1)(A)(ii) provides for stipulated dismissals only "[s]ubject to Rules 23(e), 23.1(c), 23.2, and 66 and any applicable federal statute." Thus, a district court facing a purported stipulated dismissal may indeed need to take action to determine whether other Rules interfere with blanket acceptance that it has been deprived of all jurisdiction. Regardless of whether Rules 23(e), 23.1(c), 23.2, and 66 apply to these circumstances, they offer evidence that stipulated dismissals may be limited by certain circumstances such that
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a district court must take further action to determine the validity of the stipulated dismissal. And as the district court recognized, other federal courts have declined to permit voluntary dismissals where there are special interests at stake. See, e.g., Green v. Nevers, 111 F.3d 1295, 1301 (6th Cir. 1997) (holding that it need not accept the parties' voluntary stipulated dismissal under Rule 41(a) because a party to the case represented a minor, and the court "would have been remiss if it had not made an independent determination that the settlement was in the minor's best interest").
The hesitance to merely accept the parties' stipulation of dismissal is further supported by the Supreme Court's directions in Brown, Green, and their progeny as to who decides whether unitary status has been achieved and how. Rather than wait for the district court to determine whether unitary status has been achieved, as Supreme Court and Fifth Circuit case law instructs, the parties in this case have essentially decided amongst themselves that unitary status has either been achieved or is no longer necessary. And they now ask this court to encroach upon the district court's role by blessing their attempts to undermine its authority in this established legal process. I would reject their invitation.
Further, with due respect to the panel majority, if the right to the writ was indisputable, it would have been clear and readily apparent at the time this petition was filed on February 12, 2026. No matter how much case law is parsed in microscopic detail, the right requested is far from clear, let alone indisputable. Axiomatically, this petition is not presented on direct appeal. Were it so, the standards of review for that appeal would be in play for the panel. Instead, it is presented as a petition for mandamus relief, which is a
"drastic and extraordinary remedy." In re JPMorgan Chase & Co., 916 F.3d at 499 (emphasis added) (quoting In re Depuy Orthopedics, Inc., 870 F.3d at 350). Today, the panel majority renders a drastic and extraordinary order in a case
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that, to my eyes, does not warrant it—and in doing so, turns the second requirement for mandamus relief on its head.
At minimum, the significant questions raised as to this mandamus requirement establish that the School Board's entitlement to the writ is not clear and indisputable as is required to grant the extraordinary remedy of mandamus relief. See In re Ilton, Inc., 883 F.3d at 568. And of course, as discussed supra, it is far from clear and indisputable that this is not the only means through which the School Board can obtain relief in this case.
C
The third requirement for mandamus relief is that "the writ is appropriate under the circumstances." In re Ilton, Inc., 883 F.3d at 568 (quoting Cheney, 542 U.S. at 380-81). Because the first two requirements have not been met, it goes without saying that issuance of the writ is not appropriate here.
III
We are reminded that this is an institutional case, involving the desegregation of Concordia Parish Schools. It is particularly important in such cases—involving, for example, school desegregation, prison conditions, or hospitals—to give deference to the district court that has been superintending the case for years or decades, before we take mandamus relief from our appellate toolbox and use it to restrict or undermine the authority of district courts. These cases involve numerous individuals, core constitutional rights, and are definitionally complex. This court should heed the fact that the district court was cautious about accepting the stipulation of dismissal, particularly where the Government's litigation posture and strategy has changed abruptly and measurably from the previous decades in the case. The district court is uniquely situated and aware of the
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circumstances surrounding that pivotal change. To my eyes, it is a stretch to conclude inferentially or otherwise that the district court here is blocking a standard settlement that parties are willing to make, as we could see in other contexts. There is more here than meets the eye.
Our precedent does not provide that delay is tantamount to denial for the purpose of mandamus relief, nor does it permit parties to short-circuit our appellate process by petitioning for mandamus where an appeal does not yet lie. The School Board comes to our appellate court first to appeal, and second to ask our three appellate judges to assist them in bypassing the district court proceedings—despite the fact that they provide no binding case law providing that mandamus relief is warranted under these specific circumstances, or that a Rule 41(a) stipulation of dismissal can be used in this manner. The School Board requests that we take an extraordinary action using an extraordinary vehicle to give them relief that they are not indisputably entitled to. It is not within the sound purview of an appellate court to acquiesce to such a request.
IV
In sum, it is a mistake for this court to allow mandamus to act as a substitute for an appeal. Likewise, it is a square misstep for this court to clip the wings of a seasoned district court judge, with his arms firmly around this decades-old institutional case, who is familiar with the complex legal history, Concordia Parish schools, the relevant geography, the parties in this case, and the Government's recently-changed posture and strategy. Therefore, I respectfully dissent from the grant of mandamus relief.