This article doesn’t explicitly say it, but I can’t see any other ending at this point.
A federal court ruled last year that Spring Branch ISD violated the Voting Rights Act by diluting the Hispanic vote — but that decision could be reversed after a recent Supreme Court decision.
In the past few years, the district’s at-large trustee system has come under scrutiny after a lawsuit claimed it racially discriminated against the area’s Hispanic community by diluting minority voting power. The district has nearly twice as many Hispanic students as white students.
The district appealed the initial ruling that sided with the plaintiff. The case was put on hold to see how the Supreme Court would handle a similar case, Louisiana v. Callais, a lawsuit over possible discrimination in how the state draws its voting districts.
[…]
[Virginia] Elizondo, the plaintiff in the lawsuit against Spring Branch, said although she has a few concerns about how the Supreme Court’s ruling could affect her case, she feels strongly about being able to prove why the at-large system dilutes the Hispanic vote.
“I’m really curious to see how this is going to play out for all the cases that might be impacted,” Elizondo said. “If you look at our decision, I feel strongly that we still have a case.”
See here and here for some background on the Spring Branch ISD lawsuit, and here for more on the SCOTUS hatchet job on the Voting Rights Act. I assume it’s just a matter of time before the Fifth Circuit gets its grubby hands on this verdict, at which point it will vaporize. I appreciate Virginia Elizondo’s optimism, I just can’t get there myself. It’s going to take a lot of reform to get to where we need to be.
And the board just announced another northside closure (Northbrook Middle). Weird how that only seems to happen in the less affluent half of the district where none of the board members live.