Complaint eyes racial climate at school
When in-person classes resumed last fall, white students at a Houston-area high school wore masks with the Confederate flag to show support for then-President Donald Trump.
Following the 2020 election, graffiti proclaiming “Black Lives Don’t Matter” appeared on a wall in a student bathroom, where it remained until early February. That same month, administrators removed posters of Vice President Kamala Harris and former First Lady Michelle Obama days after they were put up to mark Black History Month, with one administrator saying they needed to be replaced with more unifying messages.
The alleged incidents were
among several described in a new court filing that’s part of a federal lawsuit challenging the Barbers Hill ISD’s hair and grooming policy. The suit alleges escalating racial tension in the district and its high school east of Houston “for reasons both related and unrelated to the facts underlying” the suit.
The amended complaint, which was filed March 9, comes months after a federal judge in Houston granted a preliminary injunction to Kaden Bradford, a junior at Barbers Hill High School in Mont Belvieu, permitting his return to class and participation in band without cutting his locks.
Bradford and his cousin, De’Andre Arnold, who are Black, drew national attention — and support — last year when they were told to cut their hair or face in-school suspensions. Talk show host Ellen DeGeneres interviewed Arnold, who was later invited to attend the 92nd Annual Academy Awards show by a celebrity couple that produced an Oscar-nominated short film about a Black father learning to style his daughter’s hair. Arnold has since graduated.
The district had no comment on the allegations in the amended complaint, a spokeswoman said Wednesday, as administrators were reviewing the filing after being out for spring break last week.
“Since we were out, no one in our office was made aware of the updates. Our counsel is reviewing, as we are, so we do not have any comment at this time,” spokeswoman Jami Navarre wrote in an e-mail.
The recent incidents are concerning to lawyers representing Bradford and
Arnold, who were contacted by parents, said Michaele N. Turnage Young, one of the lawyers representing the young men.
The posters, which had been put up by the school’s student council, featured inspirational quotes from prominent and accomplished Black figures.
The Michelle Obama poster said: “Don’t be afraid. Be focused. Be determined. Be hopeful. Be empowered. When they go low, we go high.”
And the Kamala Harris poster said: “Our Unity is our strength & our diversity is our power. We reject the myth of us vs. them. We are in this together.”
The complaint alleges that the district’s superintendent, Dr. Greg Poole, explained he had directed the removal of the posters to replace them with more positive messages.
Poole, who is named as one of the defendants in the complaint, did not return an e-mail seeking comment.
Young said she only knew of those two posters being removed.
In a statement to ABC 13, which reported on the posters and graffiti last month, district officials said the posters “were viewed as combative and divisive.”
“The posters in question contained political rhetoric from conventions and speeches from the campaign trail with the emphasis being on those political issues that still divide our county,” administrators told the news station.
Meanwhile, the graffiti in the bathroom, which appeared shortly after Election Day, was not removed until February, Young said.
Additionally, the complaint alleges school administrators increased enforcement of its hair policy after its alleged discriminatory conduct appeared in local news reports.
After Arnold was interviewed about the impact of the policy on him, school administrators issued 91 disciplinary referrals over nine days due to violations of its hair policy, according to the suit. Attorneys alleged the district “attempted to cover up its misdeeds by immediately enforcing the hair policy against non-Black students who had previously been allowed to flout the hair policy without consequence.”
“In those nine days alone, Barbers Hill High School eclipsed the total number of disciplinary referrals for hair violations issued during the entirety of each of the three prior school years,” lawyers wrote in the complaint.
“It all raises concerns,” Young said, “whether the school district is providing a healthy school climate.”
The team of lawyers sent a letter to district leaders outlining steps to improve conditions at the school, including two with a Friday deadline: Post a statement from the superintendent at each school declaring no tolerance for harassment, among other declarations and encouragements, and retain an independent consultant to review the district’s practices and policies regarding racial harassment within the next 120 days.
“Recent events at Barbers Hill High School compound our concerns about the welfare of BHISD students,” said Janai Nelson, associate director-counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, in a statement. “We hope that the district takes swift and decisive action to improve the school climate.”