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A federal judge dismissed a lawsuit against Arlington ISD over a resident’s complaints about the district’s grievance process and transparency.
Plaintiff David Jarvis, a retired attorney, said he doesn’t plan to appeal the ruling, but he would use the outcome to push for Texas lawmakers to change state law about how school districts handle grievances.
U.S. Judge Reed O’Connor issued the ruling in August, eight months after allowing the lawsuit to move forward in part and about a month before it was scheduled to go to trial.
The case saw Jarvis and Citizens Defending Freedom, a conservative-aligned organization that fights for transparent local government, accusing the district of repeatedly skirting accountability and denying Jarvis free speech rights for his long-standing public criticism of the board.
The suit alleged the offenses amounted to violations of Jarvis’ First Amendment guarantee of free speech, the Texas Open Meetings Act and the Texas Constitution. Attorneys from Citizens Defending Freedom did not respond to requests for comment.
O’Connor ruled there wasn’t adequate evidence from plaintiffs to back their claims and that Arlington ISD acted appropriately in all instances.
“Just because you get frustrated with the government, doesn’t mean the government is behaving illegally,” said Austin-based attorney Bill Aleshire, who often takes cases against governmental bodies for violations of the open meetings act and overstepping their authority.
“If you’re going to spend the time and effort to challenge the government’s actions in court, be serious about it. Understand what evidence is required,” Aleshire added.
Arlington ISD officials declined to comment.
Dismissal of Jarvis’ grievances
O’Connor ruled that the Arlington ISD school board did not infringe on Jarvis’ freedom of speech, nor did it violate the Texas Constitution, when it dismissed six of his grievances without giving him a hearing — an action Jarvis argued amounted to retaliation for his “vocal criticism” of the school board.
Between November 2022 and March 2024, Jarvis filed 18 grievances against the district, according to court documents. In multiple, he asked whether the district provides any moral training to students or teachers, specifically around abortion, race and gender issues.
Jarvis also questioned the district’s internal governing processes and suggested changes to board policy, such as that the board allow speakers to talk for five minutes when signed up for public comment.
Several of Jarvis’ grievances escalated to a level four hearing before the school board. After the hearings, the district amended its grievance policy to specify that grievances must “explain specifically how (the grievant was) harmed or injured” and cannot concern “matters that affect the individual no differently than the public at large,” according to court documents.
After amending the policy, Arlington ISD officials dismissed six of Jarvis’ grievances, citing the new amendments as partial grounds for dismissal.
Arlington ISD attorneys argued that the district didn’t dismiss his grievances in retaliation, “but because the complaints did not meet the definition of a grievance” and duplicated complaints Jarvis filed in previous years. O’Connor agreed with the district that officials were within their rights to deny them.
O’Connor added that Arlington ISD submitted evidence that they appropriately reviewed Jarvis’ grievances before dismissing them.
Jarvis argued that his grievances were not duplicates of previous ones, but rather different questions about the same topics. He felt O’Connor was applying a “very narrow reading” of the Texas law that spells out school districts’ grievance process.
He has since contacted the Texas Education Agency and is pushing to have lawmakers specify that school districts must engage in dialogue with people who file grievances before dismissing them.
“I’m going to get in touch with the legislators who are supposed to provide oversight over TEA and ask them if they’re in agreement with the judge’s interpretation,” Jarvis said.
In his email to TEA, Jarvis argued that O’Connor’s interpretation of Texas law “allows every school district in Texas to easily avoid compliance with the clear legislative intent of this law” by dismissing grievances without providing a board hearing.
He said lawmakers may decide they need to amend the law to clarify “you cannot turn around and dismiss all the grievances to protect the board from a hearing.”
Arlington ISD’s alleged Texas Open Meetings Act violations
The lawsuit alleged that Arlington ISD violated the Texas Open Meetings Act in 2021 when two school board trustees texted about scheduling an emergency school board meeting to discuss potentially suing Gov. Greg Abbott’s statewide ban on mask mandates during the pandemic.
That emergency board meeting was eventually canceled, and then-Superintendent Marcelo Cavazos told reporters that a draft of the lawsuit would be considered at the next regularly scheduled school board meeting. At this meeting, trustees voted against the lawsuit.
The Texas Open Meetings Act broadly requires governmental entities to keep official business publicly accessible. It mandates that, with few exceptions, governing bodies hold their meetings and vote on decisions publicly, and school districts with over 10,000 students must broadcast their meetings online.
Citizens Defending Freedom further argued that the school district violated the law when it started drafting the lawsuit against Abbott without first publicly discussing it. It also alleged the district did not appropriately notify the public of the meetings where it would be discussed.
O’Connor ruled that the school district followed the law throughout the whole process. In order to trigger the open meetings act’s requirements, a majority of the school board would need to be privately discussing the potential lawsuit.
But the two board members’ texts did not include the five other members of the board and, therefore, did not violate the open meetings act.
“You’ve got to have the evidence of the (open meetings act) violation to begin with,” said Aleshire, the attorney. “Just having two members of the body talk to each other — that’s not evidence of a violation.”
Arlington ISD has since filed a motion for Jarvis and Citizens Defending Freedom to repay the district $7,393 of the $41,683 that it spent on legal fees as defendants. Citizens Defending Freedom has not responded to the motion, and Jarvis declined to comment on it, defaulting to Citizens Defending Freedom.
Jarvis’ central claims were those about Arlington ISD’s handling of his grievances, while Citizens Defending Freedom was the proponent of the school district’s alleged violations of the Texas Open Meetings Act.
Jarvis and Citizens Defending Freedom initially filed the lawsuit Jan. 19, 2024, in the Tarrant County-based 236th District Court of Texas.
Arlington ISD then moved the case to federal court and asked a judge to dismiss it in 2024, which the defendant has the right to do when a lawsuit involves both state and federal laws, attorneys previously told the Report.
Aleshire said he would not have taken the case, as he agreed with O’Connor that the plaintiffs did not have appropriate evidence for their claims.
“If you don’t have the evidence, or if you, if you realize the evidence isn’t there, don’t bring the lawsuit,” he said. “It backfires.”
Drew Shaw is a government accountability reporter for the Fort Worth Report. Contact him at drew.shaw@fortworthreport.org or @shawlings601.
At the Fort Worth Report, news decisions are made independently of our board members and financial supporters. Read more about our editorial independence policy here.
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