Madera Unified School District - Voting Rights Act Lawsuit

Voting Rights Act Lawsuit

Madera Unified's capitulation when faced with a 2008 lawsuit about the manner in which school board trustees were elected, as well as a judge's related ruling on the matter, has reportedly influenced other California school districts and other governmental bodies to change from at-large representation, which dominates the state's school districts, to a by-district system. Four Madera plaintiffs, represented by San Francisco-based Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights, alleged that the at-large voting system resulted in racial polarization that resulted in the city's Latino majority of 82 percent being politically marginalized, which they said violated the state's 2002 Voting Rights Act. That statistic is slightly misleading, however, as only 44 percent of those eligible to vote in an MUSD election were Latinos, according to a press release by Anayma DeFrias of the aforementioned LCCR. The Madera case was one of the first to be filed under the California Voting Rights Act. The school district settled out of court without admitting guilt but agreeing to change how school board trustees were elected, according to The Madera Tribune daily newspaper in 2008.