Crystal Mason thought she was performing her civic duty by filling out a provisional ballot in the 2016 election. She didn't know it would land her a five-year prison sentence, upending her family and the life she had built. At the time, Ms. Mason was on federal supervised release, a preliminary period of freedom for individuals who have served their full time of incarceration in federal prison. Ms. Mason didn’t know, and nobody told her, that the state considered her ineligible to vote while on supervised release. Because her name didn’t appear on voter rolls, she filed a provisional ballot, consistent with federal law. The state never counted her ballot but has still sought to send her to prison for an innocent mistake.

Texas requires voters who register to vote electronically or via fax to mail an original copy with the voter’s “wet signature” to the applicable registrar. A voter may be denied registration merely because the mailed copy of the form has a scanned signature on it rather than a “wet ink” one. But the Civil Rights Act prohibits states from disenfranchising voters based on immaterial paperwork errors. We’re fighting to make sure that every vote counts and supported Vote.org’s challenge to the “wet ink” law as unlawful under the Civil Rights Act.

On March 1, 2023, WRP and the ACLU of Texas sent an advocacy letter to Spring Branch Independent School District (“District”) on behalf of G.H., a Spring Woods High School student athlete. The ACLU’s investigation had revealed that the District maintained a discriminatory, sex-specific dress code and gender-based inequities in the school’s athletics program, and that the student was mistreated after objecting to these policies and practices. The advocacy letter raised concerns that the District’s actions reinforced invidious sex stereotypes, treated girl athletes as lesser than boy athletes, and potentially violated the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972. The District’s policies and actions harm all students, regardless of gender, but have particularly egregious consequences for Black girls and other girls of color.