A former Humble ISD Spanish teacher sued the district Thursday, alleging trustees and administrators violated the Voting Rights Act by holding all at-large elections for the school board.
The lawsuit, filed by Brewer Storefront, the advocacy arm of Dallas-based Brewer, Attorneys and Counselors, states that Humble ISD has a 70% minority student population, yet a majority white board. It also claims that the district has a geographically significant Hispanic population that would allow for at least one Hispanic-majority single member district to be drawn for increased representation. While the board does have two black trustees, the board does not have a Hispanic trustee.
The firm called the 48,000-student district’s elections system a “relic of the district’s past.”
“Even though Humble ISD’s population has significantly grown and diversified since 1919, the district’s political leadership has failed to adjust to these demographic or socio-economic changes,” the lawsuit reads. The district, spanning northern Harris and Montgomery counties is the sixth fastest growing district in Texas and began as a one-room schoolhouse.
The lawsuit comes after Brewer Storefront sent letters to 11 Texas school districts in March as part of a statewide initiative to secure voting rights among Texas’ minority populations. The firm sent letters of warning to Humble ISD, Lufkin ISD and Angleton ISDs, asking that the districts consider at least one single member district to allow for minority representation.
After the district decided to “‘refuse the opportunity to avoid litigation'” according to the law firm’s release, the plaintiff decided to propel the cause with legal action.
The founder of the firm, William Brewer, said the plaintiff was taking the action in May because “time is of the essence when people are being denied the right to fairly participate in the political process,” he said, adding that the board “indicated no meaningful willingness to bring the electoral system into compliance with the Voting Rights Act.”
See here for a Houston Landing story on how At Large-only school boards in the Houston area are failing to represent significant portions of their population. There’s a copy of the lawsuit in this Landing story, which adds more details.
Two Houston-area districts, Pearland ISD and Spring Branch ISD, currently face Voting Rights Act lawsuits for their at-large election system. Both of the lawsuits are held up in federal court, pending a decision on whether it’s legal for private citizens to bring Voting Rights Act lawsuits against governing bodies.
Earlier this year, a majority of Humble ISD trustees swiftly squashed Trustee Martina Lemond-Dixon’s proposal to discuss a voluntary switch to a hybrid single-member district election model, which could have delivered more diversity — and avoided the lawsuit filed today.
The lawsuit also states that the lack of Hispanic representation on Humble’s school board is to blame for the district’s “achievement gap” between white and minority students. State data shows that 66 percent of all-white students in the district met grade-level standards in all subjects in the 2022-23 school year, compared to 34 percent of Black students and 43 percent of Hispanic students.
“Experience tells us that one of the best ways to decrease the performance gaps … is to get parents from all parts of the community involved,” William Brewer, the attorney, told the Landing in late March.
Humble ISD also faced backlash last year when Humble ISD administrators confiscated Latino students’ Spanish National Honor Society stoles at graduation — which led Bautista to resign from her teaching position, the lawsuit states. The lawsuit alleges the instance was indicative of discrimination exacerbated by the district’s lack of Hispanic representation.
Thursday’s lawsuit comes during a rocky period in Humble ISD. In late April, a Title IX investigation found that former athletic director Troy Kite, who is married to Superintendent Elizabeth Fagan, created a “hostile” environment by routinely making sexual comments to colleagues.
The investigation temporarily threw Fagen’s job into jeopardy and exposed a divide among trustees, who have described the board’s relationship as “broken.”
See here for more on the Spring Branch ISD lawsuit. I missed the filing in Angleton ISD. There’s plenty more where these came from. I’ll keep an eye on them.