Law & Justice – Dispatches from Dallas

87 days to dismantle democracy

I’ve been wanting to write about the Mahmoud Khalil matter because it touches on both immigration law and the Trump push to force the judiciary to fall into line under him. Another case with the same features broke over the weekend; the crisis Trump wanted to provoke is here. The administration removed a group of Venezuelans (I’ve seen numbers between 170 and 270) to a private jail in El Salvador in apparent defiance of a judge’s order to turn the planes they were on around and bring them back.

On the immigration side, the administration is relying on the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, best known in the last century as the basis for Japanese internment. The Venezuelans are alleged to be members of the Tren de Aragua gang, which the administration says is invading the United States. None of the Venezuelans have been convicted of any crime, and while I’m describing them as Venezuelans, nobody knows who they are. Some of them might be American citizens.

On the constitutional crisis side, the administration just ignored an order from a federal judge. Usually when a party to a case disobeys a judge, they have plausible deniability: they interpret the order differently, they didn’t get it in time, etc. I know from working for an immigration lawyer that executive branch offices usually obey direct orders from a judge. If the executive branch says “We didn’t obey you! How are you going to enforce that?” we have a constitutional crisis.

Hitler dismantled German democracy in 53 days. We’re on day 87 of Trump II. Our democracy isn’t gone, but this is a big step toward disappearing it, along with those “Venezuelans”.

Sources:

BBC: US deports hundreds of Venezuelans despite court order.
NY Times: With Deportations, Trump Steps Closer to Showdown With Judicial Branch.
Washington Post: Deportation flights landed after judge said planes should turn around.
Civil Discourse with Joyce Vance: The Week Ahead – March 16, 2025.
Law Dork: Why trying to understand what the Trump admin did in response to the TRO matters.
Letters from an American: March 16, 2025.

School District Saturday – 2025 02 15

There is regularly a lot of news about the school districts here in North Texas, which is because just as Texas is the national laboratory for bad government, North Texas is one of the state laboratories for terrible school district decisions. So I’m going to try to round up what’s going on with our local districts and what’s going on statewide (and nationally, if needed) that will affect our local schools.

First, another piece of the Keller ISD puzzle from the Star-Telegram: Fort Worth City Council calls for zoning changes to 23 Keller ISD properties. Looks like they think some of the properties might be sold off for parts when the district breaks up, so they’re going to prevent that by zoning them all as community facilities (not commercial, industrial, or residential).
Second: our state government at work: KHOU: Yes, there is a lawsuit that could eliminate Section 504. This lawsuit is Texas v Becerra, which seeks to remove protections for gender dysphoria, but as a part of its arguments says Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, which protects folks with disabilities from discrimination, is unconstitutional. More on this case from the Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund, who are understandably unhappy.
Fort Worth Report: Fact brief: Did the Texas Lottery start as a way to help fund public schools?. The answer, which I am old enough to remember, is yes. Apparently people on social media think it was supposed to fund all of our public school needs, which is of course not true.
Texas Tribune: With vouchers fast-tracked, other Texas public education issues to watch this session. What we need to talk to our legislators about.
Texas Observer: Molly Ivins on School Vouchers (1997). We have been having this fight for a long time. Also, I still miss Molly.
Texas Tribune: In quest to infuse more religion into Texas schools, advocates say courts are now on their side. One of the bills to get more religion in school is from Sen Phil King (R-Weatherford), from just west of Fort Worth.
KERA: Majority of Texas school districts aren’t in compliance with armed security requirement. This was last session’s unfunded mandate placed on schools.
DMN: More North Texas teachers under investigation for alleged cheating and Star-Telegram: State identifies more teachers from North Texas districts in certification investigation. This is ongoing fallout from the big fake certification scandal in Houston. We’ll be hearing more about this for a while.
Dallas Observer: Every Texas School District Book Ban. This is about the PEN America report discussed in this Guardian article: Multi-level barrage of US book bans is ‘unprecedented’, says PEN America.
Fort Worth Report: Fort Worth ISD trustees discuss possibly closing as many as 25 schools to rightsize district and What are Fort Worth ISD’s school closure options? Here’s what’s on the table. Also, from the Star-Telegram: Fort Worth ISD gathers community feedback with school closure decisions on the horizon. Demographics and funding are a merciless pair.
Fort Worth Report: Northwest ISD cuts student programs as $16M deficit forces staff reduction, larger classes. At the same time, the Lege continues to want to send more money to private schools.
‘It Doesn’t Make Any Sense’: More Local Schools Proposed for Closure. This time it’s Carrolton-Farmers Branch ISD. Three of the four schools slated for closure are Title I schools, with 40% of kids qualifying for free/reduced lunches. Also more Black and brown kids.
Arlington charter school principal, 2 others charged in connection to child sex abuse. The two other adults are staff members at Newman International Academy High School in Arlington; one had the relationship with the child and the other two covered it up.
AP: DOGE cuts $900 million from agency that tracks American students’ academic progress. “Some of the biggest contracts were for long-term studies that track students’ learning from kindergarten through high school, a study evaluating strategies for teaching elementary school reading, and research on the effectiveness of supports for youth with disabilities, according to list of cuts obtained by The Associated Press.” Your tax dollars are not at work.
Fort Worth Report: Feds file lawsuit against maker of AI-powered weapons screener used in Mansfield ISD. Mansfield ISD stands behind the screening devices after spending about $2.3 million to put them in across 49 campuses in the fall.
KERA: Texas AG Paxton investigating two more school districts over trans athlete policies. One of the two districts is Richardson ISD, where I’m zoned. (The other is Hutto ISD near Austin.) I would like to think the Attorney General of the State of Texas has better things to do with his time than panty patrol on teenaged girls, but apparently not. Previously in the Dallas Observer: Ken Paxton Bullies Dallas, Irving ISDs Over Transgender Youths in Sports.
DMN: North Texas schools rebounding from pandemic learning loss, new rankings show. This is the Children at Risk (private) ranking since the TEA rankings are still in court.
KERA: Grand Prairie ISD approves separation agreement with former superintendent. I still have no idea who Jorge Arredondo pissed off within the first two months of his job as superintendent there, but whoever it was had the pull to get him out. That said, the agreement here is keeping all the details under wraps, so if he did something heinous, nobody will know.
Star-Telegram: With eyes on the future, Fort Worth Country Day unveils new $25M lower school. Fort Worth Country Day was, when I was in high school at St. John’s School in Houston, one of the schools in the same prep league. This is how the other half lives and where your voucher money is likely to go. I don’t begrudge more middle class kids getting into schools like Fort Worth Country Day–it’ll do both the rich kids and the less-rich kids some good–but at the same time, we need to fund our public schools fully before we consider putting extra money into private schools, most of which are not of the caliber of Fort Worth Country Day.

Public Domain Day

One of my favorite things about the new year is Public Domain Day, when works come out of copyright and into the public domain. This year, in the United States, works from 1929 join the public doman, as do sound recordings from 1924. Duke University School of Law has a web page celebrating Public Domain Day each year that lists some of the works that will be free of copyright in the US. This year, the list includes The Skeleton Dance (the first Silly Symphony Cartoon), The Cup (John Steinbeck’s first novel), Pandora’s Box (a silent film starring Louise Brooks), The Cocoanuts (the first Marx Brothers feature film), Singing in the Rain (the song), An American in Paris (the song), Ravel’s Bolero, and George Gershwin’s recording of Rhapsody in Blue.

The Standard eBooks project has already put out twenty free ebooks from 1925’s new public domain works, including books you read in high school like Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury, and Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms. Not on their list, but on mine to read, is Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own, which also is now in the public domain in the US.