HOUSTON – The Texas State Conference of NAACP Branches announces its participation as a plaintiff in a federal lawsuit alongside the National NAACP and multiple state branches including Lubbock, Texas, South Carolina, and Maryland chapters.
This legal action challenges President Trump’s recent Executive Order that seeks to dismantle the Department of Education, which the NAACP contends significantly exceeds presidential authority and threatens educational equality across the nation.
“The dismantling of this vital agency will have devastating consequences for students of color and their families,” said Gary L. Bledsoe, President of the Texas State Conference of NAACP. “This Executive Order undermines academic success, eliminates crucial family educational support systems, and removes an independent entity that enforces federal constitutional and statutory rights in education.”
The lawsuit highlights Texas’s documented history of educational discrimination against African-Americans and Latinos.
Past federal interventions through the Department of Education have secured critical reforms, including the Texas Plan, which mandated substantial state funding to address historical discrimination, and the recent resolution of discrimination complaints in Southlake where students boldly videoed themselves using the N-Word and then posted online.
The School Board and District leadership were powerless to fight the forces that were protecting the students who did this. In Slaton we had talented young African-American scholar who was abused by the use of the N-Word who left the district after she was the subject of discipline for continuing to proceed with her cry for help.
Sadly, the Texas Legislature heard these matters but failed to pass legislation that would protect these students. The United States Department of Education then provided protection to the students in Southlake and are now considering complaints which would allow them to do the same in Slaton and Lubbock.
Currently, the Texas NAACP has a pending complaint regarding the University of Texas’s use of a racially discriminatory school song that has a history tied to blackface minstral performances. Additionally, as described above the Lubbock NAACP has two outstanding complaints against school districts in Slaton and Lubbock for failing to protect African-American students from persistent racial bullying and harassment.
“The Office of Civil Rights provides a free, confidential forum for addressing educational discrimination,” Bledsoe explained. “Its elimination would leave countless Texans without recourse against hostility and harassment in educational settings that are supposed to serve all students.”
Lubbock NAACP President Milton Lee went to the School Boards in Slaton and Lubbock and sought relief but they did nothing, so their only recourse was OCR.
The press release notes that legislative attempts to strengthen state-level protections, including a bill filed by Senator Jose Menendez and Representative Ron Reynolds last session, have been unsuccessful.
“This Executive Order represents a dangerous regression in civil rights protection reminiscent of the Compromise of 1877, which abandoned federal protection of African-Americans in the South,” Bledsoe concluded. “We will vigorously oppose this unconstitutional overreach and defend every student’s right to
equal educational opportunity.”
