A new online hub for students looks to fight discrimination, censorship, and more in Texas

The American Civil Liberties Union’s Texas affiliate has launched a redesigned online Students’ Rights Hub to address major civil rights issues facing K-12 public school students in the state, including anti-LGBTQ+ policies, discriminatory dress codes, classroom censorship, and state-sponsored religion.

The website provides students, parents, educators, and community members with information and multimedia resources on each of these issues.

The ACLU of Texas also recently participated in back-to-school supply giveaways in Houston and San Antonio, where staff shared information about civil rights and spoke with families about their experiences at school.

“The heart of our education system is its students, and they deserve better than censorship and discrimination from state officials and special interest groups,” Caro Achar, engagement coordinator for free speech at the ACLU of Texas, said in a press release. “Texas students face unprecedented attacks on their freedom to express themselves and on their freedom to learn. It’s crucial that students, parents, educators, and advocates come together to create schools where every student is supported and treated with dignity. A safe and welcoming school environment isn’t just a goal — it’s a right. Together, we must demand the schools our students deserve.”

The state and individual school districts have threatened the rights of students, parents, and teachers in several ways. In Katy, a suburb of Houston, the school district has outed transgender students to their parents, in violation of the Texas Education Agency’s code of ethics. Some districts have barred trans students from using the school restrooms that correspond with their gender identity. The state has barred trans student athletes from competing under their gender identity in public schools and state colleges and universities.

Gov. Greg Abbott, a far-right Republican, has said he wants to “end” trans teachers. “In Lewisville, Texas, in the high school, recently, as in just a month ago, they had a high school teacher who was a man who would go to school dressed as a woman in a dress, high heels, and makeup,” he told the Young Conservatives of Texas at a meeting in April. “Now, what do you think is going through the mind of the students that’s in that classroom? Are they focusing on the subject that this person is trying to teach? I don’t know. What I do know are these two things. One is this person, a man, dressing as a woman, in a public high school in the state of Texas, he’s trying to normalize the concept that this type of behavior is OK. This type of behavior is not OK. And this is the type of behavior that we wanna make sure we end in the state of Texas.”

Classroom censorship is another major problem. Texas was the second-leading state in book bans from July 2022 to June 2023, with 625 books banned from school libraries; most of the banned or challenged books deal with LGBTQ+ or racial issues.

The state also passed the Texas Restricting Explicit and Adult-Designated Educational Resources (READER) Act in 2023, a section of which requires booksellers to review books for sexual content before marketing them to schools, and those deemed “sexually explicit” may not be sold to schools. A federal appeals court ruled in January that the law is likely unconstitutional and cannot be enforced while a lawsuit against it proceeds.

Texas is trying to bring state-sponsored religion into public schools as well. Last year it passed a bill allowing schools to hire unlicensed religious chaplains as counselors, although most school districts have not done so, according to the Texas branch of the American Federation of Teachers. Legislators also tried but failed to pass a law requiring teachers to display the Ten Commandments in classrooms, but Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick has vowed to bring the bill back.

On the plus side, the state last year passed the Texas CROWN Act, which stands for Creating a Respectful and Open World for Natural Hair. It prohibits schools from discriminating based on hair texture or protective hairstyles commonly or historically associated with race, such as afros, cornrows, braids, or locs. However, many school districts have policies that may violate the law. In July, the ACLU of Texas sent letters to 51 school districts alerting them that their dress code policies likely violate the CROWN Act. Since then, at least 11 districts have committed to updating their rules to be in compliance with the law.

The new resource hub provides information on all these issues.