A federal appeals court has stayed the first move toward restarting large-scale, court-ordered racial desegregation of the Shelby County Schools system.

The ruling from the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati specifically stays the appointment of a special master to oversee the formation of a plan to meet the guidelines set by U.S. District Court Judge Bernice Donald in a July court order. The move comes just before the Saturday deadline Donald set for all sides in the 45-year desegregation lawsuit to agree on who would serve as special master.

Donald denied a stay of the court order in March. But in a Thursday ruling posted on the Federal Court Web site Friday, Appeals Court Judge William W. Schwarzer granted the stay pending the outcome of the appeal of the larger case, which could take years. Schwarzer is a District Judge from the Northern District of California who heard the appeal of the ruling by designation.

The stay applies not only to the special master’s position but also to Donald’s requirement that each individual county school reflect the racial balance within 15 percentage points of the school system as a whole.

All sides in the Robinson v. Shelby County Board of Education case agreed last year to end the lawsuit and seek unitary status for the school system. But Donald instead ruled in July that the school system had not achieved unitary status in extracurricular activities as well as student and faculty assignments because of the differing racial composition of individual schools.