“You’re about to go down the most interesting rabbit hole of your life,” RRISD Vice President Tiffanie Harrison told me in the first of several long interviews we conducted in September, as we learned how far-right activists in RRISD – which includes a large part of North Austin along with its Williamson County namesake – were trying to take over the district’s public schools.
Harrison’s metaphor was apt. The sensation of free fall continued through weeks of research, as we heard accounts of used tampons sent to her and her supporters by far-right foes allied with her opponent Zimmerman and the Round Rock One Family slate. We collected information on dominionist Christian billionaires from West Texas who had donated thousands of dollars toward winning the RRISD school board.
As we fell down the hole, we encountered Trustees Danielle Weston and Mary Bone, also part of this One Family crowd, whom our sources blamed for sowing chaos in the district. At board meetings that could last until 2am, participants called Black parents “racists,” got arrested for obstructing meetings, and spurred death threats toward Harrison, RRISD’s only Black trustee, and toward Board Secretary Amy Weir. We heard a great deal that didn’t make it into the piece: details on lawsuits and counter-lawsuits filed against trustees by the warring factions of the board; allegations that Weston and Bone had illegally shared private school board business with their political allies; and the alleged connections of Round Rock’s right-wing community to figures like Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and the leader of the Oath Keepers, Stewart Rhodes, recently convicted of conspiring to overthrow the government.
This article appears in December 16 • 2022.
