Ray Delgadillo | Wikipedia
Sergio Lira became acquainted with Humble ISD last spring, after 20 students in the Houston-area school district were prevented from wearing their colorful Spanish National Honor Society sashes during their graduation ceremony. Most of the impacted students from Summer Creek High School are Hispanic, and the slight prompted a public apology from the Humble ISD superintendent and accusations of discrimination as well as racial and cultural insensitivity.
Lira, a former Houston ISD trustee who now is the president of a local council for the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), said at the time Humble ISD could have avoided such a snafu if it had more ethnic diversity among its leadership. There are no Latino trustees on the school board for Humble ISD, where about 38% of the nearly 50,000 students are Hispanic.
“They’re not very inclusive. They’re more exclusive in their ideology. They almost come across as anti-immigrant,” Lira said Tuesday. “Of course they won’t say it publicly, but just the arrogance, their demeanor, their tone. I’ve been to Humble ISD board meetings to speak on the sashes. You don’t feel a welcoming, just, ‘We’ re in power. We’re here to stay. We’re going to do what we’re going to do.'”
Now, two months after Humble ISD trustees narrowly rejected a proposal to hold a public hearing and consider transitioning their elected board from seven at-large positions to two at-large seats with five single-member districts – which would be drawn geographically to ensure all parts of the district would have representation – the district is being threatened with legal action if it does not take that step. Humble ISD, Angleton ISD to the south of Houston and nine other districts across Texas were sent warning letters by Brewer Storefront, which is affiliated with a New York- and Dallas-based law firm and has brought Voting Rights Act challenges against several school districts and municipalities in the state over the makeup of their governing bodies and how their leaders are elected.
As part of its “Texas Voting Rights Initiative,” Brewer Storefront said in a March 8 news release it had analyzed demographics and voting systems across the state and determined each of the 11 school districts could be violating Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 , which prohibits voting practices that discriminate on the basis of race, color or membership in a language minority group. In many cases, the group asked the districts to voluntarily move away from at-large board positions and create single-member districts that would result in more election opportunities for Latinos, African Americans and Asian Americans, along with moving their election cycles from May to November in an attempt to promote better voter turnout.
Brewer Storefront, which has created legal challenges that prompted similar changes at five school districts in the Dallas area, said a lack of diversity and equitable geographic representation on school boards can result in disenfranchised voters, underfunding and achievement gaps for both schools and their individual students . Students of color accounted for nearly 75% of all students enrolled in Texas public schools last year, with more than half of all students being Hispanic, according to Brewer Storefront.
“We urge these school districts to take proactive steps in adopting election systems that comply with the Voting Rights Act and create districts that give voters of color a fair opportunity to participate in the electoral process,” said attorney William A. Brewer III, chairman of the Brewer Storefront. “We believe our political institutions work best when they give all voters an opportunity to elect candidates of their choosing.”
Brewer Storefront asked the 11 school districts that received warning letters – which are located in the Amarillo, Dallas, Houston and San Antonio areas – to respond by March 15. All but Angleton ISD and Humble ISD had responded as of Monday, according to a representative of Brewer Storefront.
In need of change?
Both Angleton ISD and Humble ISD have seven at-large positions on their school boards, and each has five white trustees and two Black trustees. According to the letters they received from Brewer Storefront, Angleton ISD could create at least one opportunity district for Hispanic voters, while Humble ISD could create at least four opportunity districts for minority voters, including one that is majority Hispanic.
Angleton ISD, where about 64% of the 6,700-plus students are non-white, acknowledged receiving the letter in a Monday statement to Houston Public Media, adding that it had been referred to the district’s legal representatives and the district “will not comment on issues that may lead to possible litigation.” Humble ISD said the district does not respond to “threatened ligation.”
Martina Lemon Dixon, an African-American Humble ISD trustee who asked the district to consider transitioning to a single-member district, did not respond to a Monday email seeking comment. Her motion failed by a margin of 4-3 during the Jan. 9 meetings, with fellow African Americans Marques Holmes and Robert Sitton also voting in support of the idea.
Duncan Klussmann, a former Spring Branch ISD superintendent who now is an assistant professor of education at the University of Houston, said shifting from at-large school board positions to single-member districts based on geography has become a statewide trend as suburban areas become more diverse. He also said districts with at-large election systems are seeing more and more legal challenges under the Voting Rights Act.
Brewer Storefront suede Pearland ISD over its at-large voting system in 2019, and Spring Branch ISD has been similarly challenged in recent years. Those lawsuits are currently in a holding pattern, according to Klussmann, who said a November ruling by the federal Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals, related to a case challenging the makeup of a statehouse voting map in Arkansas, found that individual voters and groups could not sue to protect their rights under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act.
Klussmann said the 2-1 decision by a split panel means only the United States Attorney General can file such lawsuits, which the UH professor said would dramatically change how the Voting Rights Act has been enforced over the decades. The matter likely will go before the US Supreme Court, Klussmann said, adding that legal challenges in the meantime might not be resolved.
“I don’t think judges are going to move forward with these cases until they get some direction out of the US Supreme Court,” Klussmann said.
Still, Lira said he’s glad organizations such as Brewer Storefront are calling out Texas school districts that could have more equitable and reflective representation on their boards. He called it a “common, prevalent and pervasive problem.”
He also said public scrutiny, along with legal challenges, is often the only means that can prompt change.
“Some people may frown on organizations that fight and advocate for change,” Lira said. “But keep in mind, the great leaders, if it were not for the Civil Rights movement, the Voting Rights Act movement, the women’s suffrage movement, the LGBTQ movement, people out there advocating and filing lawsuits for equitable change, we would still be possible be in the dark ages. And I commend all of those who have the courage to stand up and speak up against an inequitable and often times racist system.”