In what looks like a resurgence of a Jim Crow atmosphere, a predominantly white city near Birmingham, Alabama (Gardendale, Alabama) is seceding from its mostly black school district.

According to the Washington Post, a federal judge ruled that the white city could do so; however, NAACP Legal Defense Fund lawyers are appealing this decision.

While Gardendale officials believe that their students would benefit from a smaller school system, the black lawyers argue — on behalf of Alabama's black schoolchildren — that this decision would undermine their students’ civil rights.

The Gardendale seccession will leave the district with a much smaller and much poorer tax base, meaning less money for the remaining public schools.

U.S. District Court Judge Madeline Haikala, who presided over the case, did believe that the request came from a place of racial discrimination, but ruled that the seceding should move forward anyway, as she felt forcing Gardendale to remain would result in reprisals harmful to the district's black students.

The NAACP LDF wrote that Haikala’s decision “conveys a powerful message to other municipalities that they may be permitted to secede in the future even if their secession is motivated by intentional racial discrimination in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment.”

The organization also argues that Haikala's verdict is unconstitutional based on legal precedents. In 1972, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that smaller school districts could not break away from larger school districts in ways that violated 1960s desegregation laws.

Gardendale isn't completely happy with Haikala's decision, either.

Though Gardendale will be allowed to operate its own elementary schools within its boundaries in fall 2017, Haikala confirmed that they will have to prove that they haven't abandoned their desegregation efforts in order to incorporate separate middle and high schools as well.

In order to prove that they are following federal desegregation laws, Gardendale must increasing the number of black transfer students accepted to its schools and must also appoint a black member to their all-white city school board.

“The board will demonstrate on appeal that no one’s civil rights have ever been endangered by Gardendale’s separation efforts,” said Glendale’s school board. “With its own case on appeal, the board hopes that ultimately it can deliver what our community has worked so hard for: a school system operated by an accountable and locally-appointed board of education.”

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