8 February 6 - 12, 2025 dallasobserver.com DALLAS OBSERVER Classified | MusiC | dish | Culture | unfair Park | Contents weakened, if not eradicated, and there’s no doubt this [SB17] will have the effect of weakening public education.” That “weakening” takes many forms. It may mean universities are less hospitable for many students, who in turn struggle with their health in ways that may have been pre- ventable. It can also mean talented people such as Bennett, the aspiring lawyer, decide to take their dollars and careers elsewhere. “I love Texas,” says the UTD professor who asked to remain anonymous. “I feel more comfortable living in Dallas. ... But the job? I don’t know about the job, long term.” What’s clear, at least to Wright and many others interviewed for this story, is that the current climate on campus is increasingly scary for many students. It’s also clear that the future looks even scarier. Terri Leo Wilson, a Republican state representative, has filed a bill that would eliminate in-state tuition for Texas students who don’t have legal documentation. And just a couple months ago, ahead of the new legislative session, the Texas Senate’s higher education subcommittee held a hearing examining public universities’ curriculums — specifically programs and certificates. The lawmakers were searching for more ways to snuff out what Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick has dubbed “discriminatory DEI policies.” On top of all of that, Wright and the six students also have the criminal charges to worry about. On that front, they’re not getting much help from their university. UTD’s faculty senate has twice voted in favor of asking the president to contact the Collin County District Attorney’s Office and request the charges be dropped. (After all, Wright reasons, the university requested the presence of state troopers on campus during last May’s protests.) The president has yet to make that call. “There’s a denial of that reality and a de- nial of the university’s role in that reality,” he says. “I hear things about how the university wants to ‘remain neutral,’ which doesn’t make sense in a situation they caused.” By his estimate, the professor has spent about 300 hours talking, guiding or otherwise “looking after” the students who are facing legal fallout after last year’s encampment. One student was dealing with homelessness. Others were coping with “a tremendous amount of anxiety and mental health problems” from the trauma incurred from a night in jail. Further still, some students’ careers were jeopardized by the university’s briefly withholding degrees, and others continue to be jeopardized by the ban preventing students from accessing essential university services. There are more hours of “looking after” still ahead, because Wright and his like- minded colleagues know someone has to check in on these students. For similar rea- sons, Monse Navarrete, the first-generation college student from Houston, has become an organizer with the immigrants’ rights or- ganization United We Dream. “Unfortunately, Texas seems to lay out the game plan for the rest of the country to follow,” she says. “But we have to keep reminding people we exist.” ▼ EDUCATION FAR-RIGHT AND UNDERCOVER IRVING ISD ADMINISTRATOR RESIGNS AFTER VIDEO GOES VIRAL. BY EMMA RUBY A n administrator from the Irving In- dependent School District resigned this week after a conversation filmed between himself and what appeared to be the prospective parent of a transgender student was posted online, eliciting conser- vative vitriol and resulting in Texas Gov. Greg Abbott calling for a criminal and civil investigation into the educator. The video is the latest produced by conservative watchdog group Accuracy in Media. The group’s website claims to use “investigative journalism and cultural activism to expose corruption and hold bad public policy actors accountable.” On the media bias tracking website AllSides, Accuracy in Media is identified as being right-leaning, the most conservative ranking on the scale. For months, representatives for the group have scheduled meetings with North Texas educators under the guise of parents looking to move to Texas from another state. They express concern over Texas’ various conservative education initiatives, such as the ban on DEI or transgender athletes; unbeknownst to the educators, they are being filmed throughout the conversation. In the most recently released video, which was reposted by the right-wing X account LibsOfTikTok and has been viewed 720,000 times, the posing parent asks Reny Lizardo, the district’s executive director of Campus Operations, if Irving ISD would allow her transgender daughter to join a girl’s sports team. “Could you legally change a gender on a birth certificate? I don’t know enough about the subject, is that possible?” Lizardo asks. “I believe in some places you can, yes,” the undercover AIM representative responds. “So, if you can get that done and you turn [in to] us a birth certificate that says this gender, that’s the gender we go with,” Liz- ardo responds. In what Accuracy In Media claims is the “gotcha” moment of the interview, Lizardo warns the woman that Texas’ conservative culture could lead to an uproar if other par- ents or students were to learn of her daugh- ters’ transgender identity. “It’s not illegal if you don’t get caught,” he says. According to Accuracy In Media, the video was filmed in December. The group’s president, Adam Guillette, returned to Ir- ving ISD several weeks later to confront Liz- ardo, who denied knowledge of the conversation. Abbott retweeted the video earlier this week and called for investigations into Liz- ardo’s conduct. “This Irving ISD Administrator should be fired on the spot,” Abbott wrote. “Has Ir- ving ISD and its employees been involved in a fraudulent breach of state laws & a cover up? We must get the facts.” Abbott’s tweet has been viewed nearly a million times. In a statement provided by Irving ISD to the Observer, the district said Lizardo’s statements were “obtained under false pre- tenses” and claimed that because AIM did not identify themselves as a media organiza- tion the interviews “constitute a breach of security.” The district added that the state- ments conveyed in the video do not repre- sent the views or policies of the district. “The footage has been edited and is an in- complete representation of the entire conver- sation, making it difficult to properly assess its probative value. Nevertheless, we want to reiterate that Irving ISD complies with all state and federal laws and all employees are expected to adhere to any and all legal and ethical standards,” the district said. “The in- dividual identified was acting outside of his role as it relates to legal and regulatory exper- tise. While the matter continues to be under investigation, the individual identified in the video has tendered his resignation.” The district said it accepted Lizardo’s resignation and emphasized that all Irving ISD student athletes are participating in the sport that correlates with the sex they were assigned at birth. Targeting Other Districts In 2024, Accuracy in Media collected simi- lar videos in Plano ISD, Mesquite ISD, Car- rollton-Farmers Branch ISD, McKinney ISD, Keller ISD, Saginaw ISD and Coppell ISD. Guillette displays the videos on a mo- bile billboard that drives around North Texas, exposing what he believes is evidence of a coordinated subversion of Texas’ stan- dards. Will Ragland, vice president of research, outreach and advocacy for the Center of American Progress, told the Observer last year that the billboard campaigns are “weak sauce” designed to “get parents riled up.” “It’s very intimidating for any teacher to have their face on a billboard with whatever campaign call to action that these people are trying to push,” Ragland said. “Intimidation is part of the tactics being deployed here, and across Project 2025, to make sure peo- ple fall in line.” Accuracy in Media’s arrival in North Texas coincides with the state Legislature’s rallying around school choice, a voucher system that would financially aid parents who choose to remove their students from public schools. Education experts have warned that the voucher program — which Abbott has marked as the top priority for the legislative session and could be voted on as soon as next week — will leave behind the state’s neediest children and destabilize Texas’ teacher retirement fund. But Accuracy in Media maintains that school choice is the only solution to fixing the “Marxist and woke agendas” of Texas’ educators. Last year, the Observer found a mistakenly filed tax return that lists the fi- nancial donations received by Accuracy in Media between May 2022 and April 2023. The contributions show the group receives funding from Project 2025 supporters and may have received a donation from a key benefactor behind the school choice initia- tive, Jeff Yaas of Pennsylvania. Despite Yaas’ name and office address being listed on the tax return under a whop- ping $1 million donation, AIM states the list- ing was an accounting error. It isn’t beyond the realm of believabil- ity that Yaas would be interested in sup- porting AIM’s school choice message, though. A major proponent for the pro- gram, Yass contributed $10 million to Texas Gov. Greg Abbott last year, despite the fact that the governor is not up for re- election. According to Philadelphia Maga- zine, Yass has also financially supported as many as 15 candidates across the state running for office who were signed off on by Abbott. After many of those seats were won by the Abbott-approved candidates, the gover- nor now appears to have the votes for school choices’ fast track. Unfair Park from p6 DonkeyHotey CC BY-SA 2.0. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s reaction to a social media post ignited a firestorm for the Irving ISD. >>p10
