Court Cases Education

WHAT:

SAN ANTONIO, TX – Dozens of counties in Texas are violating the federal Voting Rights Act by failing to provide bilingual voting information on their websites, including information on polling places, according to MALDEF (Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund).

BAKERSFIELD, CA – A California District Court of Appeal panel has refused to dismiss a lawsuit brought by a coalition of civil rights groups against Kern High School District (KHSD) over disciplinary policies that unlawfully target African American and Latino students. The court summarily denied KHSD’s extraordinary writ request to revisit the trial court’s denial of dismissal.

BERWYN, IL – A third-grade teacher who punished her students for speaking Spanish in her classroom has been reassigned just days after MALDEF contacted school officials about the incident.

DETROIT, MI – Yesterday, Judge Stephen J. Murphy of the U.S. District Court of the Eastern District of Michigan ruled that MALDEF’s lawsuit against Systems USA Inc. and Systems USA Consulting LLC for violating the Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) should proceed as a class action. MALDEF’s lawsuit alleges that the companies recruited and enticed computer programmers to travel from Mexico to the United States for nonexistent jobs, and systematically defrauded the federal government to obtain visas for those individuals by representing that the companies would be employing the programmers once they arrived in the United States.

SAN ANTONIO, TX – MALDEF (Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund) welcomes Texas House Speaker Joe Straus’ directive to his colleagues to review key aspects of Texas’ school finance system and to make recommendations that would improve its efficiency and educational quality.

BAKERSFIELD, CA – A ruling last week by the Kern County Superior Court denied the Kern High School District’s (KHSD) request to dismiss the discrimination lawsuit filed against it by Latino and Black students.

AUSTIN, TX – Today, in a disappointing blow to equal educational opportunity, the Texas Supreme Court reversed a 2014 trial court ruling that declared the current state school finance system constitutionally inadequate, unsuitable, and inequitable for Texas school children.

BAKERSFIELD, CA – On December 31, 2015, the Kern County Superior Court ruled that Latino and Black Plaintiffs may proceed against the Kern County Office of Education and Superintendent Christine Lizardi Frazier with their claims that the agency and Superintendent failed to take steps to ensure that students in the Kern High School District (KHSD) and alternative schools run by the Kern COE were not subjected to discrimination and denied equal educational opportunity. Parents and students enrolled in the Kern High School District and community activist organizations Dolores Huerta Foundation, National Brotherhood Association, and Faith in Action Kern County brought the action against the State as well as the Kern High School District and Kern County Office of Education; plaintiffs are represented by a coalition of civil rights legal advocates and pro bono counsel, including MALDEF, California Rural Legal Assistance, Inc., Equal Justice Society, and Greater Bakersfield Legal Assistance, Inc., and Wilson, Sonsini, Goodrich & Rosati.

TUCSON, AZ – On Friday of last week, a stipulation to provide Tucson Unified School District (TUSD) magnet schools needed support was filed in the historic desegregation case, Mendoza v. Tucson Unified School District. Under the court-adopted Unitary Status Plan (USP) developed by the parties and Special Master to resolve the 40-year old case, magnet schools are to strengthen their students’ academic achievement and increase integration. Following several magnet schools’ failure to meet integration benchmarks, MALDEF, together with co-counsel Lois D. Thompson, Partner at Proskauer Rose LLP, advanced a proposal to delay any recommendations of magnet status withdrawal and to have TUSD provide magnet schools with additional needed support, including financial support and the filling of teacher vacancies, to close the achievement gap between magnet schools’ white students and their Latino and African American students, and to improve recruitment of students.

BAKERSFIELD, CA – African American and Latino Plaintiffs suing Kern High School District and other state and county officials in a civil rights action were not surprised to hear that an expert, Dr. Jon Eyler, presented a report to the Kern High School District indicating that African American students are subject to double the rates of discipline as white students. The Discipline Analysis Report presented data about discipline and suspension rates Monday night at the Kern High School District board meeting.