Thank you, Justin, for that gracious introduction – and for inviting me to the University of Houston Law Center to deliver remarks this evening to the American Constitution Society – and the broader community. I first must acknowledge that today is the fifth anniversary of the passing of my maternal grandmother, Mary Lee Dunbar Jackson. My family has inspired my work across the decades, and they continue to do so.
Last month, I celebrated my seventh anniversary as an attorney. As I imagine is the case for all of you, I marvel at the passage of time. A decade ago, I was preparing for my first set of exams at LSU. Unlike me, y’all will absolutely CALI your classes. As I commemorated this anniversary in Jackson, Mississippi – for a work trip – I drew particular gratitude from certain reinforcing elements of this journey. ACS fits that bill quite perfectly.
When I was in law school, as the president of the Black Law Students Association at LSU, my chapter collaborated with ACS to discuss an incident of police brutality that occurred in Lafayette in 2015. This impactful event remained with me, for reasons that I couldn’t quite articulate at the time. As it turned out, addressing and remedying police abuses – especially those that occur in schools – would come to be a central & defining drive of my professional life.
In 2019, about a year and a half into my tenure as a staff attorney at Advancement Project, I traveled to Charlottesville to present at the ACS Student Convention that year. On a panel, I discussed the ways in which movement lawyering informed my approach to the racial justice causes I supported in that role.
A couple weeks after that conference, I went to Philadelphia to support an incredible youth base-building organization called the Philadelphia Student Union. They were fighting against a proposal that would’ve placed more metal detectors in schools across the district. Motivated by my time at the ACS Student Convention, I took the Amtrak from D.C. to Philadelphia to strategize with youth organizers before the board meeting. I ultimately drafted a letter that detailed the harms of metal detectors, both empirically and anecdotally, and stood prepared to testify if they needed me to. Due to my ongoing political education, I understood more that such a proposal creates hardened and militarized school environments that fuel the school-to-prison pipeline.
I didn’t testify during that board meeting, but, once again, I witnessed in the early stages of my legal career, through my partnership with directly impacted people, how certain threads were being weaved throughout my life. I moved to Austin a few months later to join Texas Appleseed, and I began my involvement with the ACS Austin Lawyer Chapter toward the end of 2019.
We all know what came next. March 2020 barreled toward me – and each of us – and transformed the world. I worked remotely from my parents’ home in Oklahoma for virtually the rest of 2020, preparing for the 87th legislative session in Texas as I did so. For folks who may not know – to match an odd political environment, the Texas Legislature only meets during odd years.
I took many opportunities in the first year of the pandemic to reflect on all that had occurred up to that point. I thought of my stints at the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law and Advancement Project, with a particular emphasis on the parent and youth organizers I encountered along the way.
As I testified at the Texas Legislature for the first time in April 2021, I kept them in mind, particularly as I highlighted how the pandemic was impacting student engagement, discipline, and the overall climate on school campuses across the state. As folks may imagine, the wins can be slim at the Legislature, but we did get a bill passed during that regular session – SB 179 – that explicitly stated that school counselors should spend the vast majority of their time on non-administrative duties. Such a framework largely illustrates the approach to dismantling the school-to-prison pipeline in our present conditions. Policymakers should devote as many discretionary funds as possible to mental health professionals – such as social workers, counselors, and psychologists, who can use their expertise in child development to create better conditions in schools – and significantly decrease the likelihood of violence on campus in the process.
I engaged a bit during the special legislative sessions that took place later on in 2021. In July of that year, before the Senate State Affairs Committee, I made the case that critical race theory bans, and the censorship they bring, stand poised to exacerbate the school-to-prison pipeline. From my vantage point, Black and Brown students, LGBTQ young people, and kids with disabilities – those students most likely to be funneled in the pipeline – would be the ones to have their speech targeted for discipline. The critical race theory ban went into effect, but the effort to stop it reinforced the idea that broad coalitions will be the mechanisms that build community power and shift the tide.
During the regular session in 2023, which ran from January to May, I fought alongside advocates assiduously to oppose school hardening measures proposed in the aftermath of Uvalde. As that tragedy entered public consciousness, so did the reality that hundreds of police officers on the scene did nothing to stop that act of mass violence. I made that point as many times as I could before the House Select Committee on Youth Health & Safety, the Senate Education Committee, and the House Public Education Committee. Despite our best efforts, HB 3 went into effect after the regular session – requiring an armed school security officer on every campus across the state.
With all of this in mind, here we are in November 2023. The legislative landscape looks bleak, with the Governor having just called another special session to push forward his unpopular school privatization schemes. For me, I often hold the contradictions of any given moment in time with the best balance I can; I am grateful to be a Black civil rights lawyer in Texas, doing this work in 2023; however, I realize that these fights, in many ways, mirror those that were taking place in 1973, 1923, and 1873. I pose the question to myself, as I imagine y’all do, where does one draw hope?
For me, it comes from collective community power. That takes the form of the support of a progressive legal network like ACS, as well as the resources and space to do this work in the present moment. Just last week, I collaborated with two central Texas organizations to host a convening in Austin focused on long-term planning for our work to achieve police-free schools. After all we have collectively endured, I don’t take that responsibility lightly. For George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Tony McDade, and so many Black folks who we have lost brutally and prematurely at the hands of the state, it is a privilege to do this work with an imaginative vision. That collective community power that I am supporting, fueled by working class people across the state, nation, and world, will carry this work many generations into the future.
Many fights await us, but I’m encouraged by the next generation of civil rights lawyers & progressive attorneys I behold. Recognizing that I don’t want to make my work about me, I appreciate more recognition for my vision for a much better world. Last month, I appeared on KUT’s new podcast, the Mind of Texas, to discuss mental health in Texas public schools. There, and here, I appreciate that I can explicitly name that I do this work on behalf of Black children – one of the most misunderstood demographics living in twenty-first century America. I pronounce that I do this work for them, because, if we lift the tide for them, we lift the tide for everyone.
I am so grateful for the past and present components of my journey. Through the support of a network like ACS, I find myself in a rich tradition, seeking human dignity and prosperity for all. This is an incalculably important gift, and I thank y’all for conferring it.
Andrew Reginald Hairston 