Parents of two children in Dallas Independent School District are suing the district after they claim their children were targeted by the former superintendent’s unlawful mask mandate.
In 2021, Gov. Greg Abbott relaxed COVID mask mandates throughout the state. However, former Dallas ISD Superintendent Michael Hinojosa announced he would continue to impose a mask mandate on students in the district.
For medical reasons, two students—who received documentation from their physician—refused to follow Hinojosa’s mandate while attending George Bannerman Dealey Montessori Academy in Dallas ISD.
The parents of the students have alleged that the district was retaliating against their children, saying staff segregated and targeted their fifth- and eighth-grade children for opposing the district mandate.
As a result, the children and their parents filed a lawsuit against Hinojosa, the Superintendent’s Chief of Staff and Chief Racial Equity Officer Pamela Lear, Hinojosa’s Chief of Schools Tiffany Huitt, Principal of George Bannerman Dealey Montessori Academy Beth Wing, DISD Executive Director of Magnet Schools and Director of School Leadership Ryan Zysk, and Chairperson of the Dealey Site-Based Decision Making Committee Marnie Glaser.
The lawsuit alleges that as a result of Hinojosa’s mask mandate Dallas ISD staff “began a three-month campaign of abuse and neglect,” targeting the two children and their parents for “their audacity in standing on their Constitutional, Statutory, and Natural rights, and for demanding Defendants recognize and honor those rights.”
Dallas ISD allegedly forced the children into toxic, unventilated, plexiglass cages; physically separated them through daily isolation in the school library; isolated them from their peers during lunch; manufactured a false major school disruption and blamed it on the two children to send them to an alternative school; and released the children’s confidential school and private health information.
The lawsuit also states that the defendants denied the children the fundamental right of access to education, increased the risk of the children being exposed to dangerous conditions, and “functionally excluded Plaintiffs from DISD’s system of public education because of their political views.”
Lauren Davis, one of the parents of the children, told Texas Scorecard that the lawsuit is not about the mask mandates, but to hold Hinojosa and the other staff accountable for her children’s “cruel and unusual punishment.”
“My children paid the price for Superintendent Hinojosa’s political attack on Governor Abbott disguised as a concern for safety. I can assure you Hinojosa did not keep my kids safe. His actions were cruel and abusive,” said Davis. “We want to make certain nothing like this happens to any other children, anywhere. If a parent or babysitter did this to a child… They lose the child and lose their freedom. But because it happened in a school, it’s OK? No. It’s cruel and it’s abuse.”
“None of these people should be anywhere near children,” she added.
Davis and her family are requesting a trial by jury and for the court to award the family compensation for damages, attorney fees, costs of court, and other further relief they may be entitled to.
Dallas ISD did not respond to Texas Scorecard’s request for comment before publication.
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