Jackson Federation of Teachers v. Fitch (Judge Wingate)

What happened

Teachers, students and advocacy groups sued in Jackson Federation of Teachers v. Fitch, No. 3:25-cv-00417, to challenge Mississippi's ban on diversity, equity and inclusion programs in public schools and universities. On July 20, 2025, Judge Henry T. Wingate entered a temporary restraining order blocking the law.

Mississippi Today reported that the order listed as parties organizations that were not in the case, including the Mississippi Library Association and Delta Sigma Theta Sorority Inc. It also contained quotations that did not appear in the complaint or in the legislation, and it cited a 1974 case that appeared not to exist. The Attorney General's office moved to clarify or correct the order, and the plaintiffs did not oppose.

What the court did

Judge Wingate replaced the order with a corrected version, which he dated July 20, and the original was removed from the public docket. According to the ABA Journal, he initially described the problems as clerical errors.

In a letter to Senator Chuck Grassley dated October 21, 2025, Judge Wingate stated that a law clerk had used Perplexity "as a foundational drafting assistant to synthesize publicly available information on the docket," and that the July 20 order was an early draft that should not have been docketed. He wrote: "The root cause of the errors identified in Defendant's unopposed motion to clarify/correct was a lapse in human oversight." He reported that drafts now receive independent review by a second law clerk, that every cited case is printed from Westlaw and attached to the final draft, and that the errant order was preserved under records retention rules. His letter gives July 23, 2025 as the date of the corrected order.

Where it stands

Judge Wingate later entered a preliminary injunction, and Mississippi appealed to the 5th Circuit, No. 25-60496. The State asked the court both to vacate the injunction and to reassign the case to a different district judge. At oral argument on August 31, 2026, before Judges Jerry Smith, Catharina Haynes and Kurt Engelhardt, Deputy Solicitor General Anthony M. Shults argued that the injunction "relied on the legal reasoning in the flawed TRO, which we think is very concerning." Judge Smith asked counsel defending the injunction, "Don't you think that's a pretty serious matter?" No decision had issued as of September 11, 2026.

The obligation it engaged

The use described in the judge's letter is a system asked to summarize a record. Its output then became the draft of a court order. That engaged Clause 2 of the Expert Record Standard, non-delegation, and Clause 3, independent authority. Parties, quotations and statutory text entered the order without being compared with the docket and the statute they purported to describe. The remedial steps the judge reported, a second reviewer and a printed copy of every case attached to the draft, are a working form of Clause 4: nothing is adopted until it has been checked against its source.

The appeal shows a second consequence. Once a system's error appears in a signed document, the other side may argue that the later work built on it is tainted as well. An expert whose early draft rested on unverified output faces the same argument at deposition.

Sources

• U.S. Senate (Sen. Grassley) · October 21, 2025
  Wingate to Grassley re judiciary use of AI
• Mississippi Today · July 28, 2025
  Attorneys baffled by federal court order with factual errors
• ABA Journal · September 1, 2026
  Judge's release of order with AI errors is 'pretty serious matter,' 5th Circuit says
• Mississippi Today · September 1, 2026
  Federal appeals court weighs Mississippi DEI ban. AG wants judge replaced after use of AI for flawed order

What could not be confirmed

The original July 20, 2025 order was not opened; its contents are taken from Mississippi Today. The exact date of the preliminary injunction was not confirmed from the docket. The ABA Journal article date is approximate (published the day after the argument). Reporting described the argument as held on Monday; August 31, 2026 was a Monday.