Texas judge grants injunction in case that will impact how state history is taught in schools

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Statue in Central Park is graffitied with red spray paint. (Credit: Jennifer Mitchell for Fox News)

Galveston County Judge Kerry Neves of the 10th District Court on Tuesday granted a temporary injunction in a case that will impact how state history is taught in schools. 

The temporary injunction stops the Texas State Historical Association (TSHA) from holding meetings until a dispute is resolved over the makeup of the board. 

A view of Galveston County Courthouse in Texas.  (Getty Images)

Executive Director J.P. Bryan, who filed a temporary restraining order against TSHA President Nancy Baker Jones, contends that the board is violating its own bylaws which mandate that it must comprise 10 academics and 10 non-academics. The board now consists of 12 academics and eight non-academics. 

In a previous interview with Fox News Digital, Bryan argued that the board's imbalance of members has unfairly shifted the organization's ideological tilt towards the left.  

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Defendants in court filings, meanwhile, have accused Bryan of downplaying non-Anglo communities in shaping Texas history.  

"I don't think this has anything to do with politics, or whatever your view of history is," Bryan told Fox News Digital. "It just has to do, legally, with — are there 10 lollipops in the jar, or are there five? That's what we're fussing about. If you can count, I think, to me, it's all self-evident." 

TSHA's chief historian Walter Buenger, who has been a member for nearly 50 years, said the association has had two non-academic presidents in the past 15 years who "have written books, held graduate degrees, and taught occasional classes as adjuncts [but] no one objected to their classification as non-academics." 

Buenger said the court's order prevents the board from carrying out its fiduciary duties and normal oversight responsibilities.

"To those who do the actual work of the TSHA the interim Executive Director is not only authoritarian, he promotes an approach to Texas history that excludes large swaths of the people who lived in the region and elevates mythology, legend, and ideology over honesty and accuracy," Buenger said. " Those who do the work of the TSHA rightly regard this approach as un-Texan."

Captain Neal Coldwell's Frontier Battalion of the Texas Rangers, Lela, Texas, circa 1885. (Underwood Archives/Getty Images)

Neves is expected to hear within 45 days a motion to change the venue from Galveston to Austin. A trial on the case is slated to begin on Sept. 11. 

Founded in 1897, TSHA publishes research material and education programs about the Lone Star State. 

The association’s output includes the Southwestern Historical Quarterly, the Texas Almanac, the Handbook of Texas, and other books and periodicals frequently cited by classrooms and authors and influences content on Texas historical sites, which include urban museums, Spanish missions, and world-famous revolutionary battlefields. The organization receives taxpayer funds from the Texas Legislature. 

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Fox News Digital reached out to Jones' attorney for comment.