Students of Prairie View A&M University in Texas have filed a lawsuit to protect their civil rights in response to a letter written by the county’s district attorney Oliver Kitzman.
Kitzman suggested in a letter printed last week in the Waller Times that the university would be prosecuted if students who did not permanently live in the county voted in local elections. Kitzman argued many students are making the elections unfair for residents of the county by only voting while they are attending the university.
Students headed by the Student Government Association at PVAMU, a historically black university, filed the lawsuit following Kitzman’s statement. Texas senator Rodney Ellis was prompted to ask the Texas attorney general Greg Abbott to make a legal opinion.
In his response released Feb. 4, Abbott declared students could vote in their jurisdiction if they listed their university address as their residence, regardless of permanent address. A legal opinion is taken as an explanation of existing law, the attorney general being the highest enforcement of the law.
“College students cannot be targeted for discriminatory residency requirements, and nothing prevents them from voting where they attend school. It is well established Texas law that college students — whether they go to Prairie View or any other university ? can vote locally if they designate their campus address as their residence,” Abbott said in a statement issued the day after the opinion was released.
Kitzman expressed concern that the students’ votes were unfair to the permanent residents of Waller County. His argument is based on the fact that while students make up a large part of eligible voters during their college career, many of them do not live there permanently and do not represent the county. In his letter, Kitzman also accused students of faking their residency to deprive the residents of a fair election.
“The students felt intimidated,” Angela Hale, communications director for Greg Abbott, said. “We hope that the district attorney will follow the law.”
The controversy over student voting eligibility has been present since the 1970s, when Kitzman was also the district attorney. After a period of time, Kitzman came out of retirement to return to the position. According to Maison, Waller County has a strong history of confederate activity and Kitzman is rehashing the past. PVAMU students hope this action will end the situation and allow them to move on.
“We’re confident we will win, because we know the law is on our side,” student government association president Hendrik Maison said.
While the attorney general’s opinion is a binding law, Hayes said the district attorney could ignore it. Kitzman has not retracted his earlier statements, and the case is being investigated by the U.S. Department of Justice.
The lawsuit is the second action of protest PVAMU students have taken since Kitzman’s remarks. Jan. 15, Rev. Martin Luther King’s birthday, thousands of students marched six miles from their campus to the county courthouse. Students have had problems attaining a voting booth on campus, which they are still fighting for.
“The lawsuit was a statement saying that we aren’t going to take it anymore,” Maison said. “Our next goal is to get a voting booth on campus, because right now we have to go all the way to the courthouse to vote.”
