Southlake election results a rebuke of the ‘rage mob’ that supports critical race theory, PAC says

Southlake Families, a political action committee that says it is “unapologetically rooted in Judeo-Christian values,” is claiming victory for the outcome of Saturday’s city and school board elections.

Every candidate backed by the group, which has raised more than $200,000 since last summer, according to an NBC report, won with about 70% of the vote.

“This landslide victory is from hundreds of volunteers and donors, thousands of hours and all of us having the spines to stand up to the rage mob,” the group posted in an email blast.

The results have the Southlake Anti-Racism Coalition, a group led by current and former students, and others vowing to continue their push for diversity, equity and inclusion in Carroll ISD in spite of the election results.

“It’s heartbreaking and devastating,” Anya Kushwaha, a coalition founder who graduated in 2016, said Tuesday. “Now we know there’s no chance of school board-level change.”

Kushwaha said the addition of the two new board members, Cameron “Cam” Bryan and Hannah Smith, will effectively table any advancement of the coalition’s goals within the district.

The election results appear to be a resounding dismissal of the cultural competence plan, which a committee of more than 60 stakeholders presented nine months ago in response to a 2018 incident in which a video surfaced of a group of white Carroll ISD students chanting the N-word.

Former Dallas Cowboys player Russell Maryland, whose children attended Carroll ISD schools, was one of the members on the committee the district created.

“Deep down,” Maryland told The Dallas Morning News in October, “I said to myself, ‘This is something I need to do. This is a problem that has to stop. It has to end somewhere.’”

The plan is in limbo after a mother in the district filed a lawsuit last year claiming that the board violated the Texas Open Meetings Act, and a Tarrant County judge granted a temporary restraining order barring the district from moving ahead with it.

Two trustees who support the plan, Carroll ISD board president Michelle Moore and vice president Todd Carlton, were indicted last month on charges of violating the Texas Open Meetings Act.

The misdemeanor charge was linked to messages exchanged before an August 2020 board meeting to discuss the cultural competence plan, according to copies of the indictments.

The controversy is drawing national attention from prominent conservatives, including Charlie Kirk of Turning Point USA, Fox News host Tucker Carlson and Dana Loesch, a Southlake resident and the former spokeswoman for the National Rifle Association.

“This is happening everywhere,” Carlson said during a segment last week. “They’ll come in, they’ll wreck your school, they’ll hurt your children, they’ll take your money, they’ll bully you, and no one does anything. And I’m just so grateful to hear of parents who are doing something.”

On Tuesday, Smith and Bryan appeared on Fox News in separate interviews, and Bryan was asked his opinion of the cultural competence plan.

“It began to come up with a way to eliminate bullying, discrimination, racism on our campuses and in our schools,” he said. “And what was ultimately developed was a vehicle, in my opinion, to introduce critical race theory.”

Critical race theory says racism is a systemic problem stemming from laws and institutions that perpetuate racial inequality. It has become a target of conservatives, with Texas lawmakers working to advance a bill that would ensure social studies teachers focus on “traditional history” and refrain from discussing certain concepts related to race and racism. Educators are worried the legislation would have a chilling effect on classrooms and hamper efforts to encourage students to be effective citizens.

Bryan, an aviation executive, won the Place 4 seat on the Carroll ISD board with 68% of the vote over Lynda Warner, a community volunteer. Smith, a lawyer who was a clerk for Supreme Court Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, defeated business executive Ed Hernandez for the Place 5 seat with 69% of the vote.

“The voters have come together in record-breaking numbers to restore unity,” Smith told NBC. “By a landslide vote, they don’t want racially divisive critical race theory taught to their children or forced on their teachers. Voters agreed with my positive vision of our community and its future.”

In addition to the winning school board candidates, the incoming mayor and City Council members also defeated their challengers by about 70% of the vote.

Southlake’s incoming mayor, City Council member John Huffman, could not be reached by phone and did not return multiple requests for comment via email, which is his preferred method of contact, Southlake public information officer Pilar Schank said.

But in an August 2020 Facebook post, Huffman said the only reasonable path forward for the plan was to significantly amend it, citing the challenges the district faced during the pandemic.

“The teachers are facing this educational pressure as well,” his post read. “To burden them with enforcing a new system of tracking ‘microaggressions’ and implementing an ever-changing standard of diversity and inclusion, at this moment, seems very insensitive to the job they are facing in the fall.”

Physician Randy Robbins won the Place 2 council seat with 70% of the vote over entrepreneur Sabreena Hakemy, while businesswoman Amy Torres-Lepp won Place 5 with 70% over Elisha Rurka, a mother of Carroll ISD students and founder of the Southlake Cake Club.

Robbins declined to comment Tuesday afternoon, and Torres-Lepp did not respond to a request for comment.

Neither Carroll ISD’s public information officer nor representatives for Southlake Families returned requests for comment.

The controversy and the election results spilled over Monday, resulting in tension between the opposing groups during a school board meeting where the members were going to discuss the district’s COVID-19 mask mandate. Protesters gathered outside the administration building, holding signs with George Floyd’s last words, “I can’t breathe,” before the board voted to make masks optional starting June 1. They also held signs calling for Moore, the board president, to resign.

Kushwaha, the founder of the anti-racism coalition, said she hopes that despite the results of the election, Carroll ISD’s students will continue to have a voice.

“We’re literally asking for our humanity to be recognized,” she said. “What we’re fighting for, it’s two different realities, two different lived experiences.”

Staff writer Talia Richman contributed to this report.