Watch out, Fox News. There’s a new show competing for the fruit-fly attention of Southlakers. Since steamrolling into office on a wave of white fragility in early 2021, Carroll school board trustee Hannah Smith, a self-described “religious freedom attorney,” has wasted no time coming to the aid of Christian zealots who are paradoxically oppressed yet capable of controlling an entire county, ours.
In October, Smith pushed for the reprimand of a teacher whose classroom bookshelf included a copy of the New York Times bestseller This Book Is Anti-Racist. The religious freedumb warrior was likely taking orders from on high, which for Republicans like her means professional liar Tucker Carlson. Making the move largely unilaterally, without the consent of staff or without any warning, Smith had compromised the district legally, which became evident after the teacher filed a grievance.
Not one to take responsibility for her blunder, or probably much else, Smith, according to open records requests we reviewed, sought Christian-friendly legal counsel on behalf of Carroll’s board in the weeks leading to the Jan 24 grievance hearing (“News Roundup,” Jan 19).
When trustee Sheri Mills learned that Smith was looking for lawyers for a board that already had attorneys, Mills emailed fellow trustees Eric Lannen and Michelle Moore as well as superintendent Lane Ledbetter to voice concerns about Smith’s choice of the Amarillo-based Underwood Law Firm. Given the conservative makeup of Carroll’s school board, Smith likely knew she could garner a majority of votes for her push to hire Underwood.
As Lannen and Smith “have placed this item on the agenda, it appears as [if Smith and her fellow conservative board members] have hand-selected the attorney … before we hear the [grievance] against the board of trustees for the reprimand” of the teacher, Mills wrote.
Trustee Mills went on to allege that Smith was pushing to add Underwood to the school district’s existing roster of law firms solely because the current board attorney advised that reprimanding teachers was beyond the scope of trustees.
To Smith and the slew of Fox News pundits who likely inspire her, rules don’t matter. If you don’t like something, like the landslide electoral victory of President — President — Joe Biden, just gather your fellow right-wing nut jobs and agree that the truth can be whatever you want it to be.
Mills also brought up one of Smith’s social media posts. To the racist parent who bitched about This Book Is Anti-Racist initially, Smith said, “We have your back,” meaning Smith and her Fox News true believers.
Hiring Underwood was simply another favor Smith was doing for parents who have nothing better to do than meddle in school district dealings for purely ideological reasons, Mills argued — and we would add, “purely racist, purely elitist” reasons. Carroll’s school board, largely at Smith’s urging, hired the Underwood Law Firm in mid-January, and the board subsequently withdrew the teacher’s reprimand, likely to avoid a lawsuit.
The most recent episode of The Hannah Show is tied to the celebrity trustee’s efforts to choose members of the school district’s new strategic action committee, the group of parents and school employees tasked with creating steps for implementing the district’s strategic plan. In culture war-loving Southlake, those committee members are potentially positioned to sniff out books and textbooks that don’t conform to the bigoted beliefs of wealthy supporters of twice-impeached Loser-with-a-capital-L Donald J. Trump. Conservative school leaders across the state have recently begun tracking down so-called “woke” books that honestly depict the lives of nonwhite, noncisgender youths.
A majority of Southlake parents on the strategic action committee have direct connections to Smith and her true believers, either through campaign contributions, political endorsements, or responses to Smith’s Facebook posts that sought volunteers.
Tara Eddins, one parent on the committee who apparently thinks she’s auditioning for a Fox News show, has made her views on minorities and human decency known. Scoffing at investigative work on the part of two NBC News reporters who honestly revealed rampant racism in Southlake, Eddins vented to school leaders in October that NBC News should be examining the “breakdown” of the Black family unit and the perils of facemasks, or “muzzles,” as she says. Another Southlake mother on the new committee, Bonnie Pendergrass, suggested that board member Mills should face the same ongoing bogus criminal charges that the Tarrant County district attorney levied against Todd Carlton and Moore last spring, possibly as a favor to wealthy Republican donors in Southlake. The two trustees who texted each other when discussing ways to protect Black and LGBTQ+ students now face charges for allegedly violating Texas’ Open Meetings Act, marking the only time the DA has gone after anyone for anything similar since 432 A.D.
Last fall, NBC News published audio recordings of a meeting headed by members of Southlake Families, the well-monied right-wing PAC that Smith loves. In the audio, Southlake Families co-founder Leigh Wambsganss detailed a litmus test for candidates seeking those juicy PAC donations: support of the Second Amendment (because everyone needs a semiautomatic rifle to hunt deer), support of pro-life values (which should read “pro-embryo/anti-women” values), and uncompromising opposition to the Democratic party (because equality is so terrible). One normal Southlake parent who asked to remain anonymous said the new committees will likely gut any topics that promote diversity and open-mindedness from Carroll’s curriculum come fall.
Smith’s right-wing antics have made The Hannah Show popular among Southlakers, who seem oblivious to the fact that most North Texans might be only slightly disturbed if a Biblical flood washed away the racist residents of the tony suburb. Powerful leaders who act with impunity and with little regard for the masses never fared well in the Bible, and throughout history real-life tyrants lost power when the people they sought to subjugate teamed up and fought back.
This column reflects the opinions of the editorial board and not the Fort Worth Weekly. To submit a column, please email Editor Anthony Mariani at Anthony@FWWeekly.com. Columns will be gently edited for factuality and clarity.
