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Thursday, January 10, 2013

Irving ISD Gamed Census Numbers to Keep Latinos Off School Board, Lawsuit Claims - Dallas - News - Unfair Park

Irving ISD Gamed Census Numbers to Keep Latinos Off School Board, Lawsuit Claims - Dallas - News - Unfair Park:


Irving ISD Gamed Census Numbers to Keep Latinos Off School Board, Lawsuit Claims

Categories: Legal Battles
Irving-ISD-Board-of-Trustees.jpg
A, shall we say, less-than-diverse Irving ISD board of trustees
Irving Independent School District is playing games with 2010 census numbers that should handily introduce a Hispanic voice into the all-white school board, a failed Latino school-board candidate claims in federal court.
Manuel Benavidez, a retired American Airlines employee, who made unsuccessful runs for the school board in 2000 and 2005, says the district may be violating the federal Voting Rights Act. His electoral losses, he claims, had more to do with Irving ISD's at-large districts than his unpopularity as a candidate. When he first filed suit against the district back in 2008, Irving ISD's school-board members all could have conceivably lived on the same street. This, he argued, was not equal