Ramos v. Carrollton-Farmers Branch Independent School District, et al.

The Brewer Storefront represented Guillermo Ramos in a lawsuit against Carrollton-Farmers Branch Independent School District.

The case focused on the district’s at-large board election structure. Plaintiff Guillermo Ramos is a graduate of the district’s Newman Smith High School and grew up attending district schools. At the time, the school district enrollment was about 55 percent Latino, but there were no Latinos on the seven-member board. The lawsuit alleged that since at least 1995, racially polarized bloc-voting by whites resulted in the defeat of every Latino candidate.

In September 2015, the Storefront announced that a settlement had been reached, replacing the at-large election system with a cumulative voting system under which voters receive as many votes as there are seats in an election and may distribute those votes as they wish.