NEW ORLEANS (WGNO) ––– The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals heard arguments on Monday for a decades-long fight over a consent judgment, leading to Louisana’s first black Supreme Court judge. 

The case is over a consent ruling from the 1980s. Voters filed a lawsuit, claiming they were not properly represented because their votes were diluted by being in majority white populations. “The court actually fashioned a remedy and said, we want to create a special district in New Orleans that would be majority African-American that would protect and preserve African-Americans’ right to elect a candidate of choice,” explained Executive Director of the ACLU of Louisiana Alanah Odoms. 

The state argues that the consent ruling has been fulfilled, meaning the special district could be dissolved. Some argue that could put the state in the same position that led to the ruling in the first place. 

Odoms said the state would have to provide evidence that dissolving the district would not create an inequity, “if no such evidence is presented to the court, we must allow this current district to remain intact.”

Now both sides are waiting for a court ruling.