(CNN) School officials in Mississippi named a white student the salutatorian of a recently integrated high school over a black student with better grades "to prevent white flight," according to a new federal lawsuit.

Olecia James, who is African American, says she earned a higher cumulative quality point average -- which takes into account a student's grade point average and the points awarded for the rigor of the courses they take -- than the white salutatorian.

But, the lawsuit alleges, Cleveland School District officials named a white student with a lower average the first salutatorian of Cleveland Central High School's inaugural graduating class in 2018 -- discriminating against her in violation of the 14th Amendment.

Cleveland Central High School was created in 2017 after the Mississippi Delta district settled a 52-year-old lawsuit demanding that it desegregate its schools. The settlement consolidated the predominantly black East Side High and the racially mixed Cleveland High.

The lawsuit filed in late April against the Cleveland School District and several administrators claims that the choice of salutatorian was driven by anxieties about the consolidation. "The defendants, in light of the newly formed consolidated Cleveland Central High School and in their angst to prevent white flight, named W.M., a white male student, as salutatorian of the inaugural class of Cleveland Central High School in 2018, a position he had not earned, and in doing so, discriminated against Olecia James, a black female who had earned the position," the lawsuit said.

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