The Louisiana Independent School Association (1970-1992), more commonly known as LISA, was an athletic association created to offer interscholastic sports at all-white

segregation academies Segregation academies are private schools in the Southern United States that were founded in the mid-20th century by white parents to avoid having their children attend desegregated public schools. They were founded between 1954, when the U.S. ...

in the state of

Louisiana Louisiana , group=pronunciation (French: ''La Louisiane'') is a state in the Deep South and South Central regions of the United States. It is the 20th-smallest by area and the 25th most populous of the 50 U.S. states. Louisiana is borde ...

. The organization is no longer in existence. In its ruling on ''Brumfield v. Dodd'' (1975), the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana described LISA as "an organization of private schools which publicly maintains a racist policy and has advised its members openly how to discourage black enrollment."

History

The organization was founded amid a wave of new private schools that were being opened in response to most Louisiana public schools being desegregated in the 1969-70 or 1970-71 school year. Its public-school equivalent was the

Louisiana High School Athletic Association The Louisiana High School Athletic Association (LHSAA) is the agency that regulates and promotes the interscholastic athletic competitions of all high schools in the state of Louisiana. Organization LHSAA was founded in Baton Rouge, Louisiana in ...

. Its charter meeting was held in April 1970; it launched that fall with 20 member schools, a number that increased to 54 by the following school year.Louisiana Football Magazine, 1988, p. 131
/ref> LISA's logo, reflecting its segregated origins, featured the

Confederate battle flag The flags of the Confederate States of America have a history of three successive designs during the American Civil War. The flags were known as the "Stars and Bars", used from 1861 to 1863; the "Stainless Banner", used from 1863 to 1865; and ...

. No Black athlete played in a LISA all-star game until 1991. By the 1980s, as segregation academies closed or moved to the LHSAA, membership declined. In October 1991, LISA's members voted unanimously to merge into the equivalent association in

Mississippi Mississippi () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States, bordered to the north by Tennessee; to the east by Alabama; to the south by the Gulf of Mexico; to the southwest by Louisiana; and to the northwest by Arkansas. Miss ...

, the

Mississippi Private School Association The Midsouth Association of Independent Schools (MAIS) is a consortium of schools in Mississippi, Tennessee, Louisiana and Arkansas. It is responsible for accreditation of its member private schools as well as governing athletic competition for its ...

(now the

Midsouth Association of Independent Schools The Midsouth Association of Independent Schools (MAIS) is a consortium of schools in Mississippi, Tennessee, Louisiana and Arkansas. It is responsible for accreditation of its member private schools as well as governing athletic competition for its ...

. LISA held its last competition in 1992 and ceased to exist as a corporate entity on November 17, 1997.

Organization

Schools competed in two divisions, A and AA, according to enrollment, with districts arranged by geography and traditional rivalries. Postseason all-star games were held in football and basketball. LISA’s competitive sports programs included

baseball Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each, taking turns batting and fielding. The game occurs over the course of several plays, with each play generally beginning when a player on the fielding tea ...

softball Softball is a game similar to baseball played with a larger ball on a smaller field. Softball is played competitively at club levels, the college level, and the professional level. The game was first created in 1887 in Chicago by George Hanc ...

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular Basketball court, court, compete with the primary objective of #Shooting, shooting a basketball (ball), basketball (appr ...

, cross country,

track and field Track and field is a sport that includes athletic contests based on running, jumping, and throwing skills. The name is derived from where the sport takes place, a running track and a grass field for the throwing and some of the jumping events ...

, and

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...

Former Member Schools

References

{{reflist High school sports in Louisiana High school sports associations in the United States Segregation academies in Louisiana Private and independent school organizations in the United States