Public schools in Louisiana may not deny admission or exclude students because of protected traits, and students may not be assigned to schools for segregation purposes except with board approval or when parents or guardians request or authorize the assignment.
§111. Discrimination in public schools prohibited; pupil assignment; religious educational institutions A.(1) No person shall be refused admission into or be excluded from any public school in the state of Louisiana on account of race, creed, color, disability, as defined in R.S. 51:2232, national origin, military status, or natural, protective, or cultural hairstyle. (2) "Natural, protective, or cultural hairstyle" shall include but is not limited to afros, dreadlocks, twists, locs, braids, cornrow braids, Bantu knots, curls, and hair styled to protect hair texture or for cultural significance. B. Except with the express approval of a board of education or school board having jurisdiction, a majority of the members of such board having been elected, no student shall be assigned or compelled to attend any school on account of race, creed, color or national origin, or for the purpose of achieving equality in attendance or increased attendance or reduced attendance, at any school, of persons of one or more particular races, creeds, colors, national origins, or military status, and no school district, school zone, or attendance unit, by whatever name known, shall be established, reorganized, or maintained for any such purpose, provided that nothing contained in this Section shall prevent the assignment of a pupil in the manner requested or authorized by his parents or guardian, and provided further that nothing in this Act shall be deemed to affect, in any way, the right of a religious or denominational educational institution to select its pupils exclusively or primarily from members of such religion or denomination or from giving preference to such selection to such members or to make such selection to its pupils as is calculated to promote the religious principle for which it is established. Added by Acts 1970, Ex. Sess., No. 1, §§1, 2; Acts 1993, No. 820, §3; Acts 2022, No. 529, §1; Acts 2025, No. 100, §1.