by Meredith Kolodner, The Hechinger Report
December 19, 2025
LUBBOCK, Texas — The assembly of the native NAACP chapter started with a prayer — after which the litany of injustices got here pouring out.
A Black highschool soccer participant was known as a “b—h-ass” n-word throughout a sport by white gamers in September with no consequence, his mother stated. A Black 12-year-old boy, falsely accused final December of touching a white lady’s breast, was threatened and interrogated by a police officer in school with out his dad and mom and sentenced to a disciplinary various college for a month, his grandfather recounted. A Black honors scholar was wrongly accused by a white trainer of getting a vape (it was a pencil sharpener) and sentenced to the choice college for a month this fall, her mother stated.
“They’re breaking folks,” stated Phyllis Gant, a longtime chief of the NAACP chapter on this northwest Texas metropolis, referring to native colleges’ therapy of Black kids. “It’s simply open season on our college students.”
Simply final 12 months, there was hope that the racial local weather at Lubbock-area colleges would possibly enhance. The federal authorities had launched civil rights investigations after a number of alleged incidents of racial bullying shocked the group and made nationwide headlines. In fall 2024, a decision appeared to be in sight: An investigator from the Division of Training’s Workplace for Civil Rights was planning to go to the world, group members stated, for what they hoped could be a last spherical of interviews earlier than the company put in place a set of protections negotiated with the Lubbock-Cooper college district.
Then the 2024 presidential election occurred — and the go to didn’t. In March, the Trump administration closed seven of the Training Division’s 12 regional civil rights enforcement workplaces, together with the one in Dallas, which had been investigating complaints about Lubbock. Emails from the lawyer representing the households to the federal investigator bounced again — like tons of of different OCR staff, she had been terminated.
Since then, race relations at school districts in and round Lubbock have taken a flip for the more severe, many dad and mom and educators say. Black residents — who make up about 8 p.c of Lubbock County — didn’t count on the federal authorities to carry a halt to racist incidents, however the potential of an settlement between the federal government and college districts offered a way of accountability. Now, dad and mom and college students say racial epithets are extra frequent in public, and Black lecturers worry drawing consideration to themselves. Gant says the NAACP chapter fields frequent calls from dad and mom searching for assist in addressing racial incidents they not hassle to report back to the Training Division.
Since President Donald Trump took workplace, the company has not publicly introduced a single investigation into racial discrimination in opposition to Black college students, as a substitute prioritizing investigations into alleged anti-white discrimination, antisemitism complaints and insurance policies relating to transgender college students.
All informed this 12 months, the Training Division below Trump has dismissed hundreds of civil rights investigations. In the course of the first six months of this 12 months, OCR required colleges to make adjustments and comply with federal monitoring in simply 59 circumstances, in contrast with 336 throughout the identical interval final 12 months, a Washington Put up evaluation discovered.
“In a lot of our communities the place folks really feel remoted and like they didn’t have anybody to show to, OCR mattered and gave folks a way of hope,” stated Paige Duggins-Clay, a lawyer on the Intercultural Growth Analysis Affiliation, an schooling coverage and authorized advocacy group that helped file a number of the OCR complaints in opposition to Lubbock colleges. “And it issues that they’ve primarily destroyed it.”
In an e mail, Julie Hartman, press secretary for authorized affairs for the Division of Training, wrote, “These complaints of racial bullying have been filed in 2022 and 2023, that means that the Biden Administration had extra time to analyze this than the Trump Administration has even been in workplace. The Trump Administration’s OCR will proceed vigorously imposing the legislation to uphold all Individuals’ civil rights.” She didn’t reply to a query about whether or not the company had opened any investigations into discrimination in opposition to Black college students.
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Some white residents have seen the change too. Lubbock County, situated on the backside of the Panhandle, is dwelling to greater than 1 / 4 million folks. It’s the city seat for a sprawling county that encompasses a number of suburban and rural college districts and hosts Texas Tech College at its heart.
Tracey Benefield — who has two kids in Hutchinson Center Faculty within the Lubbock Impartial Faculty District, which borders the Lubbock-Cooper district — is from a household that has lived within the space for generations. She says her son has witnessed a number of incidents of racial bullying over the previous 12 months.
“My son was strolling down the corridor together with his pal who’s Black, and a few child shoulder-checked him and known as him the n-word. That’s been considered one of many,” she stated. “Issues have completely gotten worse. The attitudes have at all times been there, however folks performing on their attitudes is totally totally different.” Lubbock district officers didn’t instantly reply to questions on Benefield’s assertions.
She thinks OCR’s retreat, amongst different adjustments inside the federal authorities, has had an impression. “Persons are extra emboldened,” she stated. “Individuals have at all times had racist concepts, however now there’s no penalties for being racist.”
Previous to Trump’s election, the considerations of oldsters and civil rights teams have been fairly totally different: Many have been annoyed that Workplace for Civil Rights circumstances might linger for years as overworked investigators tracked down particulars and testimonies. Some have been beginning to advocate for extra OCR employees and speedier resolutions. The outcry from residents, together with the media consideration, prompted the Lubbock-Cooper and close by Slaton college districts — the place Black college students make up about 3 p.c and 5 p.c of the scholar our bodies, respectively — to undertake insurance policies of necessary in-school suspension for college kids caught making racial slurs and spurred coaching for employees.
However for a lot of, the adjustments weren’t coming rapidly sufficient.
In 2022, Tracy Kemp’s eldest son, Brady, then an eighth grader, was considered one of 9 Black college students whose photos have been placed on an Instagram web page known as “LBMS Monkeys,” which stood for “Laura Bush Center Faculty Monkeys.” (Brady is being referred to by his nickname and his final identify is being withheld to guard his privateness.) Kemp was a part of a gaggle of oldsters within the Lubbock-Cooper college district who filed OCR complaints that August over what they stated was a poisonous racial ambiance that subjected their kids to repeated racial bullying. White college students would generally play whipping noises on their telephones when Black college students walked by means of the halls, in line with the complaints. Regardless of a college district investigation that included reaching out to the FBI, these accountable have been by no means caught.
Lubbock-Cooper officers stated through e mail that they “responded swiftly and appropriately” to the 2022 incident at Laura Bush Center Faculty. “Efforts of the district to make sure all college students really feel valued, supported, and a way of belonging have contributed to the optimistic, nurturing atmosphere our campuses attempt to keep up,” wrote Sadie Alderson, the district’s govt director of public info.
Kemp stayed within the Lubbock-Cooper district for one more 12 months, however despite the fact that the web page was taken down, the taunting and bullying didn’t let up, she says. Her center son was in sixth grade at LBMS that 12 months and was known as racial epithets on the college bus and within the hallways. (His identify is being withheld to guard his privateness.) When Brady, who had graduated from the center college and began at Lubbock-Cooper Excessive Faculty, tried to start out a Black Scholar Union there, she says, a white scholar ripped the web page with signatures from his pocket book. Kemp says the principal informed her there was nothing he might do. The ultimate straw got here at some point when the ninth grader didn’t stand for the Pledge of Allegiance. The trainer informed him he was a felony who was breaking the legislation, Kemp says, and the harassment began up once more, this time on Snapchat, with the identical language because the “monkeys” Instagram web page.
In July 2023, Kemp moved together with her household to New Mexico and commuted 75 miles every approach till she discovered a job nearer to her new dwelling. Leaving Lubbock-Cooper, she stated, was life-changing for her youngsters’ psychological well being.
“In eighth grade, you are going by means of puberty, you are studying about your self, you are rising and you’ve got all these totally different emotions. And now you add into the combination, ‘These folks do not like me due to my colour’ — that is a complete totally different sort of facet to should cope with,” stated Kemp. “And on the flip facet of that, I additionally should encourage my baby that not each white individual feels this manner, as a result of I do not wish to train my baby hate both.”
Brady, now a twelfth grader, additionally says he’s glad the household moved. “Actually, it is loads simpler,” he stated. “There’s no arguments, there’s nothing to fret about, actually. I simply deal with college greater than something.”
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Others who’ve stayed say they’ve paid a worth. Final December, Ja’Maury, a then-12-year-old whose final identify is being withheld to guard his privateness, discovered of rumors that he’d touched a white lady’s breast throughout college. He went straight to directors on the college, Commander William C. McCool Academy, to inform them the reality. However the assistant principal believed the lady’s story and radioed a police officer, who interrogated him and threatened him with jail except he confessed, in line with Ja’Maury and his grandfather, Mike Anzley. Alone in a room of adults, Ja’Maury broke down and admitted to one thing he says by no means occurred.
“He was yelling and threatening to ship me to juvie if I didn’t say I did it. I used to be scared,” Ja’Maury recalled in an interview. “It was a white individual’s phrase in opposition to a Black individual’s phrase.”
Ja’Maury was assigned 30 days at Precedence Intervention Academy, Lubbock Impartial Faculty District’s detention college, the place kids are despatched for offenses decided to be too extreme for in-school suspension. Consistently anxious, he reverted to sleeping in his grandfather’s mattress like he did as a toddler. On the detention college, he stated, he was so afraid of defying adults that he twice moist his pants quite than problem a trainer who stated he couldn’t depart class to make use of the toilet.
“He had by no means been in bother earlier than,” stated Anzley. He’d at all times taught Ja’Maury to belief adults, and stated he was devastated by the adults at McCool betraying that belief. “I needed to make him distinguish proper from improper in a complete new approach.”
Anzley filed a proper grievance with the district and, in line with a replica of the findings shared with The Hechinger Report, directors agreed to wipe the incident from his self-discipline file, difficulty a proper apology and supply coaching in self-discipline and due course of to each McCool directors and the officer who interrogated him.
McCool directors didn’t reply to requests for remark. Amanda Castro-Crist, govt director of communications and group relations for Lubbock ISD, wrote in an e mail that the district couldn’t focus on particular person college students due to federal legal guidelines defending scholar privateness, however that it “is proud to serve a various scholar physique.”
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Gant, the 62-year-old NAACP chief, says that rising up in Lubbock she by no means skilled the type of racism she sees now. An accountant who runs her personal enterprise, she bought concerned in group activism about 20 years in the past after enduring identification theft and a expensive, time-consuming effort to clear her identify. “I’m a robust, faith-based girl,” stated Gant. “Who else will somebody name? Who will go to their conferences free of charge, include the info and the analysis and never make them really feel like they owe something?”
Gant famous adjustments the districts have made within the wake of the OCR investigation and mum or dad activism, together with the brand new suspension insurance policies. Directors in Lubbock-Cooper generally even proactively contact her a couple of mum or dad concern, she stated. In Lubbock ISD, Gant credit the director of scholar and mum or dad decision, Brian Ellyson, with listening to oldsters and serving to them resolve conflicts in a principled method.
Ellyson was considered one of two Lubbock college officers on the September NAACP assembly, held in an unbiased dwelling heart on the south facet of city equidistant between Laura Bush Center Faculty and McCool Academy. Mother or father after mum or dad described their kids’s mistreatment.
Leshai Whitfield stated her son was despatched to a detention college after a trainer complained that he’d pushed her; she stated her son was solely making an attempt to go away the classroom due to a struggle between two different college students. Naquelia Edwards stated her son has been repeatedly known as the n-word and disciplined for fights whereas white college students went unpunished. Jessika Ogden, mom of the eleventh grade honors scholar who was wrongly accused of getting a vape, stated she believes her daughter was racially profiled. She filed a grievance in opposition to Lubbock Impartial Faculty District’s Coronado Excessive Faculty to maintain her daughter from being despatched to the district’s detention college, which she says she finally received. However her daughter missed college whereas the case was being resolved, Ogden stated, as she refused to ship her to the detention college. “Had I not fought for my daughter, she would have suffered that punishment, lacking extra class, extra credit,” Ogden stated.
In interviews, greater than a dozen Black highschool college students in Lubbock stated they repeatedly heard different college students use the n-word. “Slurs occur on a regular basis – it don’t matter what time of day it’s,” stated a tenth grader from Coronado Excessive Faculty, whose identify is being withheld to guard her privateness.
Gant says the absence of an precise settlement between the federal authorities and any of the districts means the atmosphere in colleges hasn’t essentially modified. These agreements include trainer coaching, information assortment and penalties for failing to conform. In-school suspension for racist habits might maintain a few of it in test, however the adjustments are beauty, she and fogeys say.
Emails obtained by The Hechinger Report by means of public information requests present that Kulsoom Naqvi, the OCR investigator based mostly within the Dallas workplace, carried out employees surveys, information requests and a number of other rounds of interviews all through a lot of 2024, however the work got here to a halt that fall. Naqvi, who just isn’t technically separated from the Training Division due to ongoing litigation over the mass firings on the Training Division, stated she couldn’t touch upon the case.
“Given the tempo that issues have been transferring, I felt assured that we have been going to get a decision earlier than the tip of the 12 months,” stated Duggins-Clay, the lawyer who helped file a number of the complaints. “Had the election not occurred, we’d have gotten to a negotiated decision.”
Alderson, the spokesperson for Lubbock-Cooper, stated that the investigation remains to be open, however the present superintendent, employed in June, was not conscious of any communication from an OCR investigator. She stated the district had sought mediation with OCR in spring 2024, however Naqvi had denied that request and had not given Lubbock-Cooper a timeline for resolving the complaints.
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Simply over 20 miles away from downtown Lubbock, within the neighboring city of Slaton, which had its personal sequence of racist incidents and ensuing complaints to OCR, residents say the racial ambiance has deteriorated even additional this 12 months and the college administration has been fully unresponsive. Faculty officers promised to work with native authorities to color over a part of a mural within the heart of city that depicts Black males choosing cotton below the watch of a white farmer, lecturers say. However that by no means occurred. Dad and mom say the n-word is used repeatedly by white college students with out consequence within the district, the place simply 5 p.c of scholars are Black.
“I’ve witnessed youngsters on my campus calling Black youngsters ‘monkeys,’” stated a Slaton trainer who grew up within the city and spoke on situation of anonymity out of worry for her job. “I’m sorry to say that it’s gotten worse. I really feel like extra of the extremists have come out.”
Dad and mom say their kids continued to be bullied due to their race even after Slaton directors pledged in 2022 to self-discipline college students for slurs. One mother stated her second grader was known as an “African monkey” the subsequent 12 months by different youngsters in his class at Cathelene Thomas Elementary. She says she informed the principal, who stated, “‘Would you be offended in the event that they known as him a cat or one thing totally different?’” the mom recalled. “I bought up and left. I didn’t even know what to say.”
After that she began homeschooling her youngsters. She requested to stay nameless as a result of her kids nonetheless take part in group occasions and he or she is fearful they are going to face retribution.
Cathelene Thomas Principal Margaret Francis didn’t reply to requests for remark. Superintendent Shelli Conkin stated in an e mail that federal legislation prevented the district from discussing student-related issues and didn’t reply to further questions. “Since I turned superintendent in 2023, Slaton ISD has skilled many optimistic developments that spotlight our dedication to college students and employees,” she wrote, together with facility upgrades, a district fundraising effort and a four-day college week.
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Anzley, in the meantime, remains to be preventing for justice for his grandson. After the district declined to self-discipline the lady for making the accusation, he stated, and with OCR not seeming like an choice for redress, he’s hoping to discover a lawyer to file a civil rights lawsuit on behalf of his grandson.
The district’s apology and dedication to higher prepare directors didn’t undo the injury to Ja’Maury, he and his grandfather stated. “Individuals stored on messing with me about it, saying I used to be a pedophile, saying I used to be a pervert,” stated the center schooler. “After that I virtually hated life, I didn’t even wish to stay no extra after that. That was horrible.”
Final spring, 4 months after Ja’Maury had been again at McCool, he bought right into a struggle with a boy who known as him the n-word on the college bus, he stated. This fall, Anzley determined to switch Ja’Maury from the top-rated college he as soon as liked — which is 9 p.c Black — to Dunbar Faculty Preparatory Academy, which is 45 p.c Black and obtained an F ranking this 12 months from the Texas Training Company. Ja’Maury says he feels safer there; Anzley says the transfer was mandatory for his grandson’s psychological well being however that he most well-liked the educational alternatives at McCool.
“None of that is new, as a result of the very identify Lubbock is the identify of a Accomplice soldier,” stated Gant. “It’s heartbreaking, nevertheless it doesn’t shock me. The aggression of it has been heightened below the Trump administration.”
She added, “The districts know that OCR has been dismantled so there’s no urgency to repair these points. It’s on the group, and it’s on the dad and mom to be factual, vocal and never stop.”
Contact senior investigative reporter Meredith Kolodnerat 212-870-1063 or kolodner@hechingerreport.org or on Sign at merkolodner.04.
This story about federal investigations in colleges was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, unbiased information group targeted on inequality and innovation in schooling. Join the Hechinger e-newsletter.
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