Jackson, Miss. — In September 2003, Mississippi child protection workers removed a 3-year-old girl from her home in Forrest County. She weighed 22 pounds. Over the next three months the state moved her through five homes, one of them with a convicted rapist living in it, and she later showed signs of sexual abuse. Records show the agency never investigated, WLOX reported. Twenty-three years later, Mississippi is asking a federal judge to end the oversight her case created, while its own court monitor says the state meets 22 of 107 child-safety standards.
The child the lawsuit is named for
She is the named plaintiff in Olivia Y. v. Barbour, filed in 2004 on behalf of six children in Mississippi foster care. Her account is one of 13 children’s stories laid out in the federal complaint. The complaint says the state’s Division of Family and Children’s Services failed to recognize that she was severely malnourished and never gave her a medical exam when she entered care, and that her health got worse in state custody.
Rebecca Powers, a former WLOX reporter who covered the case and now serves as a Harrison County supervisor, told the station the lawsuit happened because “an overloaded case worker lost her file.” Powers said the girl was sent out of the county and not heard from again until she was brought in with a 107-degree fever and sexually transmitted diseases, at three or four years old.
Twenty-two years of second chances
The state settled in 2007 and agreed to a reform plan in 2008 that gave it five years to fix its foster care system. It did not. The deal was renegotiated, extended again in 2016 and rewritten in 2018. In 2021, both sides agreed the agency did not have the capacity to comply, and U.S. District Judge Sul Ozerden, now the court’s chief judge, paused the requirements. That rebuilding period ran until 2025, and monitor reports found children in state custody kept suffering abuse and neglect at high rates, Mississippi Today reported. The exit terms never changed: hit the agreed standards for 12 straight months and the oversight ends.
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The monitor’s report, published July 29, covered most of 2025. It found the Mississippi Department of Child Protection Services met 22 of 107 applicable measures. Children in care were abused or neglected at more than twice the acceptable rate. Children were placed in unlicensed settings or with relatives before background checks were finished. By the agency’s own count, caseworkers made fewer than half of their required visits. The monitor found 22 children under 10 living in group facilities who should not have been there, and maltreatment investigations were finished on time only about half the time against a 90% standard. The agency counted 25 to 30 cases of maltreatment in care; the monitor found at least 18 more it had missed.
The state’s answer: the standards were ‘aspirational’
Gov. Tate Reeves and Commissioner Andrea Sanders, represented by Attorney General Lynn Fitch’s office and the law firm Baker Donelson, moved to dismiss the case on May 11. WLOX found the first exhibit attached to Sanders’ affidavit was a monitor report from 2015, before the current agency existed, and that the state left out more recent reports. Fitch’s office says the case has cost Mississippi more than $25 million in legal fees.
In a Sept. 22 filing, the state’s lawyers argued the monitor’s findings do not amount to constitutional violations and called the required safety measures “aspirational.” They asked Ozerden to end oversight or hold an evidentiary hearing. Marcia Lowry of A Better Childhood, the children’s lead lawyer since 2004, told Mississippi Today the 2018 agreement is a contract the state signed knowing it would be measured against it.
“One out of 10 is not reasonable.”
Zoey Tether, former Mississippi foster youth placed in at least 10 homes, to Mississippi Today
Where the system failed
Money was never the missing piece. State funding for CPS rose from about $111.8 million in fiscal 2022 to more than $140.8 million projected for fiscal 2027, according to the attorney general. Yet the agency met fewer standards in 2025 than in the monitor’s last full report. The problem the 2003 case exposed was an agency that removed a child, lost track of her and answered to no one. Self-reported numbers that the monitor had to correct do not change that.
Parents caught in Mississippi’s youth courts are not allowed to call their service plans aspirational. A missed visit or an unfinished requirement can be used against them in court. The agency that took this child, and signed a plan of its own to keep children like her safe, is asking for a standard no family is ever given. FAN has documented the same pattern across the country in its coverage of foster care system problems.
What’s next
Ozerden will decide whether to dismiss the case or hold a hearing. As of Oct. 27, no ruling had been reported. Lowry has said her team is ready for a hearing. A new state data system called Pathways, which Lowry negotiated as a more reliable way to track outcomes, was scheduled to go live this fall, but she warned it may not happen if the case is dismissed. Fitch’s office has said it does not comment on active litigation.
Key facts
- Olivia Y. v. Barbour was filed in 2004 for six Mississippi foster children; the named plaintiff entered custody in 2003 at age 3, weighing 22 pounds.
- She was moved through five homes in three months, one with a convicted rapist, and records show CPS never investigated.
- The July 2026 monitor report found the state met 22 of 107 safety measures.
- Children in care were abused or neglected at more than twice the acceptable rate, and the agency missed at least 18 maltreatment cases.
- The state calls the agreed measures “aspirational” and wants oversight ended.
- Mississippi says the case has cost more than $25 million in legal fees.
- Chief U.S. District Judge Sul Ozerden has not ruled.
Sources
- WLOX — Is Mississippi’s CPS fixed? State seeks to end federal oversight (2026-05-26)
- Mississippi Today — Mississippi foster care system fails to meet dozens of safety requirements, new report says (2026-08-04)
- Mississippi Today — Lawyers for Mississippi say foster care system doesn’t violate U.S. Constitution, again ask to end federal oversight (2026-09-23)
- Mississippi Today — Mississippi asks judge to dismiss Olivia Y. lawsuit after decades of federal monitoring of foster care (2026-05-11)
- WLOX — Mississippi seeks to end federal oversight of child welfare system (2026-05-12)
- Darkhorse Press — Mississippi seeks end to federal oversight in long-running child welfare lawsuit (2026-05-11)
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