Derrick Johnson

Aug. 27 (UPI) — The NAACP is suing Texas over its new congressional maps, calling them racially gerrymandered in violation of the Voting Rights Act.

The nation’s largest civil rights organization filed the motion Tuesday seeking a preliminary injunction against the new maps in ongoing litigation in a 2021 case it filed against Texas over its previously drawn maps, which it said “intentionally diluted the votes of Black Texans and other Texans of color.”

“The State of Texas is only 40% White but White voters control over 73% of the state’s congressional seats,” Derrick Johnson, president and CEO of the NAACP, said in a statement.

“It’s quite obvious that Texas’ effort to redistrict mid-decade, before next year’s midterm elections, is racially motivated. The state’s intent here is to reduce the members of Congress who represent Black communities, and that in, and of itself, is unconstitutional.”

The NAACP, along with civil rights groups and the Justice Department, under the previous Biden administration, sued Texas in December 2021, alleging Texas’ then newly drawn congressional maps to be in violation of the Voting Rights Act and the 14th Amendment.

Based on new census data, Texas had gained 4 million people, 95% of whom were people of color, gaining the state two new congressional House seats. The NAACP argues the new maps based on the new information were gerrymandered as the new seats, despite the demographic shift, were draw to favor Anglo-majority districts.

In March — amid litigation and after President Donald Trump won re-election and returned to the White House — the Justice Department dismissed its claims in the case, the trial for which ended on June 11.

Less than a month afterward, the Justice Department sent Texas a letter arguing that four Democrat-held congressional seats were racially gerrymandered, instructing Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, to redraw them.

Those redrawn maps are expected to give Republicans five additional seats in the U.S. House of Representatives, which were recently passed by both the Texas state House and Senate.

Democrats have been furious with this change, accusing the Trump administration of attempting a power grab to increase the Republicans’ odds of maintaining control of the congressional branch following next year’s midterm elections.

The NAACP, represented by the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights, argued in the Tuesday court document that Texas “overtly targeted districts where multiple minority groups together constituted a majority of the voters.”

“Dismantling Congressional districts because of their racial composition is intentional discrimination,” the civil rights group said in the motion.

The civil rights group is asking the court for a permanent injunction against the state from enforcing the alleged gerrymandered maps.

“We now see how far extremist leaders are willing to go to push African Americans back toward a time when we were denied full personhood and equal rights,” NAACP Texas President Gary Bledsoe said in a statement.

“We call on Texans of every background to recognize the dangers of this moment. Our democracy depends on ensuring that every person is counted fully, valued equally and represented fairly.”

Earlier this month, Education Secretary Linda McMahon announced that nearly 50% of the department’s 4,133 federal workers were being fired en masse.

Last week, Trump signed an executive order to close the department and move its responsibilities to the states.

The first lawsuit filed against the executive order on Monday was brought by Democracy Forward in Massachusetts on behalf of a local school district and several teachers and professors unions.

The second lawsuit was filed in Maryland shortly afterward by the National Education Association on behalf of the NAACP and others.

Both lawsuits argue that since the department was created by Congress, it is Congress, and not the president, that has the power to dismantle it.

“Because the Department of Education was created by Congress — and mandated by Congress to operate various programs for the benefit of America’s students, parents and schools — it cannot be eliminated by the President or the Secretary of Education,” the Massachusetts lawsuit argues.

In response to the lawsuits, Education Department spokeswoman Madi Biedermann said in a statement that the Trump administration has promised to work with Congress to close the department.

“Instead of focusing on the facts and offering helpful solutions to improve student outcomes, the union is once again misleading the American public to keep their stranglehold on the American education bureaucracy,” she said, referring to the American Federation of Teachers union, a plaintiff in the first case.

In the Maryland case, the plaintiffs argue that the steps taken by the Trump administration since the Jan. 20 inauguration “constitute a de facto dismantling” of the department by “executive fiat.”

They warn that shuttering the department puts millions of vulnerable students, including those from low-income families and English-language learners as well as homeless and rural students, at risk, along with more than 400,000 educator jobs.

“Education is power. By firing half of the workforce at the Department of Education, Trump is not only seeking to dismantle an agency — he is deliberately destroying the pathway many Americans have to a better life,” Derrick Johnson, president and chief executive officer of the NAACP, said.

Photo courtesy of Pixnio

“Mom was a committed civil rights leader in New York City and the nation and worked tirelessly on the front line almost to the end,” Dukes said.

New York City Mayor Eric Adams ordered all flags on city buildings to be lowered to half-staff to honor Dukes.

New York Governor Kathy Hochul likewise ordered flags on all state buildings to be lowered to half-staff.

“The leadership, courage and bravery of Hazel Dukes transformed New York for the better,” Hochul said Saturday in a news release.

“Her unwavering commitment to the fight for civil rights transformed lives and uplifted our communities,” Hochul said. “New York is forever indebted to her for the courage, strength and love she brought to every battle.”

Dukes was born in Montgomery, Ala., in 1932 and moved to New York in 1955, where she became involved in community organizing on behalf of the Economic Commission of Nassau County.

Former President Lyndon Johnson appointed Dukes to the Head Start early childhood education program that he created in the 1960s, and she became the first Black to hold a position within the Nassau County Attorney’s Office.

Dukes eventually moved to Harlem, where she became a local NAACP leader in the 1990s and worked on local and national political initiatives.

“No words can convey the devastation that this loss brings upon us as individuals and the NAACP as an organization,” NAACP Chairman Leon Russell, Vice Chair Karen Boykin Towns and President and Chief Executive Officer Derrick Johnson said in a joint statement.

“She led with conviction, always put her community first and stood up to those who tried to bring us down,” the NAACP leaders said. “There is no corner of the movement that has been untouched by Dr. Dukes’ legacy.”

The NAACP leaders said her legacy “will outlive us all” and “we hold her memory close to our hearts while carrying the torch she lit.”