Civil rights organizations filed a federal complaint against the Texas Education Agency because of its plan to replace HISD's democratically elected school board, claiming the move takes away the rights of voters of color to choose their school officials.
A crowd at Cesar Chavez High School chants against the state's takeover of the Houston school district on Friday, March 31, 2023., The Texas Tribune’s daily newsletter that keeps readers up to speed on the most essential Texas news.
The complaint was filed with the U.S. Department of Justice Friday morning, with a claim by the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas, the Houston NAACP, the League of United Latin American Citizens and the Greater Houston Coalition for Justice that the state’s takeover violates the Voting Rights Act and the U.S. Constitution.
The complaint says that the TEA could hold “indefinite power” over Houston ISD without any structures in place for voters to hold the agency and its appointed board members accountable. The takeover was set in motion in 2019 after Phillis Wheatley High School received failing grades in the TEA’s accountability rating system for five years in a row. A court injunction delayed any action from the TEA until this year.
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