Texas’ Jim Crow-Styled Highland Park ISD

On May 22, 2022, the Wall Street Journal published this story about three remarkable sports figures who graduated from Texas’ Highland Park Independent School District (HP ISD)– without mentioning HP ISD’s prolonged and quite intentional history focused upon establishing and maintaining white privilege.

On Twitter, Southern history writer Joshua Benton relays in impressive detail HP’s efforts at preserving their whiteness in their community and their ISD.

Below is Benton’s discourse, which includes commentary by Chinese-American author Jamie Ford, who in 2017 spoke at HP ISD (“I’ve visited 100+ schools. HP was the only one where students called me a chink.”)

I'm not sure how you write a story about how great the schools in Highland Park, Texas, are without noting that they exist entirely to allow rich white Dallasites to maintain Jim Crow-style segregation.

THREADhttps://t.co/F7AQEKdYdi

— Joshua Benton (@jbenton) May 22, 2022

Dallas ISD students are 69.9% Hispanic and 21.4% Black.

Highland Park ISD students are 6% Hispanic and 0.8% Black.

85% of Dallas students qualify for free/reduced lunch.

0.2% of Highland Park students do.https://t.co/Y0AwSjAQtZhttps://t.co/yFmM1Ipy3khttps://t.co/lpHdk5ZHZE pic.twitter.com/jzMKDLbp6T

— Joshua Benton (@jbenton) May 22, 2022

When the town was planned in 1913, it required all property owners to have a deed covenant saying it "shall be used for residence purposes only, and by white persons only…not excluding bona fide servants of any race."

— Joshua Benton (@jbenton) May 22, 2022

The years after Brown v. Board of Education were spent trying to figure out how to avoid getting sued and forced to educate Black kids.

Dallas eventually stopped taking them.

— Joshua Benton (@jbenton) May 22, 2022

In 1969, when the town worried that some of its ~50 Black children — again, the kids of live-in servants — might try to enroll, it banned all kitchens in "servants' quarters." Starve 'em out!

It worked: The number dropped quickly to zero.https://t.co/JKxbgaN3gv

— Joshua Benton (@jbenton) May 22, 2022

Highland Park didn't get its first Black student until ***1974***.

They'd never even *had* to set up "separate-but-equal" school systems.

They'd found the simpler solution: Just don't have any Black students to begin with!https://t.co/1k9oFTYTKIhttps://t.co/gvF1YMbwre

— Joshua Benton (@jbenton) May 22, 2022

An HP senior in that story: "I think it’s real scary to go to school with blacks and I’m glad I don’t have to."

The writer: HP kids see "people of dif­ferent races not as fellow students but as servants, people who provide convenience and comfort for them, who aim to please." pic.twitter.com/MfWegFzMTG

— Joshua Benton (@jbenton) May 22, 2022

(That story also called the female half of the homebuying couple, then 36 years old, "a girl.")https://t.co/DIeVt2cOqJ

— Joshua Benton (@jbenton) May 22, 2022

In 2005 — not long ago! — I was covering K-12 schools for @dallasnews and co-wrote this story:

Highland Park HS had an annual "Thug Day" when all the rich white kids dressed up as Black people.

Also, "Fiesta Day," for dressing up as your lawn guy.https://t.co/HNSQrbspvS

— Joshua Benton (@jbenton) May 22, 2022

"On senior Thug Day, students wore Afro wigs, fake gold teeth and baggy jeans. On Fiesta Day, which was to honor Hispanic heritage, one student brought a leaf blower to school."

An outraged whistleblower called us about it.

— Joshua Benton (@jbenton) May 22, 2022

The magic of all this segregation is that Highland Park residents pay a school property tax rate ~10% ***less*** than Dallas residents do —

but their tax base means they still get to spend 78% ***more*** per student than Dallas schools can.

— Joshua Benton (@jbenton) May 22, 2022

Police can do that because Highland Park makes all sorts of normal behavior — jogging! eating in a park! playing tennis! "protracted lounging"! — either illegal or reserved for Highland Park residents only.https://t.co/QI7ieoj7p7 pic.twitter.com/IJ4S9KywL3

— Joshua Benton (@jbenton) May 22, 2022

Matthew Stafford, Clayton Kershaw, and Scottie Scheffler are very talented athletes, and I have no reason to think they aren't wonderful people.

But a story that portrays their high school as some kind of hits factory should acknowledge *why and how* it became one — bigotry.

— Joshua Benton (@jbenton) May 22, 2022

(I can assure you the sentiment is the same in both towns, but just FYI, that's my mistake.)

— Joshua Benton (@jbenton) May 22, 2022

Also, I found some clips on the time in 1982 Highland Park started arresting non-Highland Park residents who had the UNMITIGATED GALL to jog on its streets.

(For their own safety, of course.)https://t.co/X5MRJ5AHMj pic.twitter.com/EndTzgn0Fy

— Joshua Benton (@jbenton) May 22, 2022

Originally tweeted by Joshua Benton (@jbenton) on May 22, 2022.

In 2017, Chinese-American author @JamieFord gave a talk at Highland Park HS.

"…students began to interrupt with random cascades of clapping and cheering, so loud he struggled to talk over them."

Then they "clapped and cheered the Japanese Internment."https://t.co/cHgadCyt6j pic.twitter.com/ByWIalNA0C

— Joshua Benton (@jbenton) May 23, 2022

The other was that when I got back to my hotel, I was inundated with emails from marginalized kids (and teachers) in that school. They shared their horror stories, but also begged me not to mention any of them for fear of reprisals.

— Jamie Ford (@JamieFord) May 23, 2022

Then the threatening emails from parents rolled in. From parents WHO WERE NOT THERE that day–who told me how they were going to kick my ass for harassing their children who did nothing wrong.

FYI, I've visited 100+ schools. HP was the only one where students called me a chink.

— Jamie Ford (@JamieFord) May 23, 2022

It's worth noting that many of the marginalized students who were stuck in that mob of Freshman in 2017, addressed the school directly as seniors, asking for change. Not sure if they were heard or not. https://t.co/jT3xWRWij7

— Jamie Ford (@JamieFord) May 23, 2022

To be fair, I did receive emails of apology from many parents (and students). I wish the parents who sent apologies would sit down and have a talk with the parents who sent hate mail.

— Jamie Ford (@JamieFord) May 23, 2022

Also, some teachers mentioned that Romeo & Juliet was banned for "sexual content" when they suspected it was actually because the cover of the book had a Black Romeo and a white Juliet.

— Jamie Ford (@JamieFord) May 23, 2022

Let me close with the “Dear Highland Park” video referenced above, a 2020 effort by HP ISD students to address the “us versus them” attitude of race entrenched in school and community– and where “us” means “white.” One request that a student makes of HP ISD is that it “invest in educators and administrators of color, with precautions against tokenism.” Another student comments that for over a century, Highland Park has been known as a “sundown town”– unsafe after dark for people of color. In reference to the murders of persons of color including George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery, yet another student asks, “your students have cried, petitioned, and protested, but where are you?”

There is so much pointed content to this 24-minute video, and what has HP and HP ISD done in response since its creation two years ago? Not much, it seems.

Watching the video on Youtube allows one to read the comments– an education in themselves.

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