Amicus Brief: B.W. v. Austin Independent School District

Beginning in October 2017, when Brooks Warden (B.W.) was in middle school in the Austin Independent School District, he experienced severe and pervasive bullying and harassment from his fellow students. Brooks is white, Christian, and a vocal supporter of President Trump. He would occasionally wear politically oriented attire and otherwise express his support of President Trump at school. As a result, his classmates, and eventually even school staff, began harassing him because of his race, religion, and political beliefs.

Some of the harassment included accusing Brooks of being in the KKK and other false accusations. He was also accused of forcing his Christian beliefs on others, even though he never did so. He was accused of being a “school shooter” because he wanted to write a paper on the Second Amendment and refused to participate in a performative “walk-out” to oppose gun violence. Students would regularly lament to him the “evils” of the “white race.” One particularly troubling incident involved a fellow student threating to “beat the s--- out of” Brooks—and then following through with the threat—because Brooks is white. Another incident involved Brooks’s middle school principal pulling his earbuds out of his ears and asking him if he “was listening to dixie.” Brooks’s parents repeatedly reported the bullying and harassment to the AISD, but the District did nothing to prevent it from continuing.

A Fifth Circuit panel affirmed the district court’s dismissal of BW’s lawsuit, but then the full court ordered en banc review. The en banc court split evenly, with no majority. Various notable judges came together to issue two different dissents noting that B.W. had suffered racial harassment. MI filed a brief exploring ways in which harassment that is purportedly based on political belief often implicates protected classes like race and religion. This case builds on MI’s work to protect religious rights and to rein in race-based harassment on campus.

Ilya Shapiro is a senior fellow and director of Constitutional Studies at the Manhattan Institute. Follow him on Twitter here.

Tim Rosenberger is a legal fellow at the Manhattan Institute.

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