A 17-year-old senior at a Grand Prairie high school is suing the Grand Prairie Independent School District, saying it discriminated against her based on sex. Ana Mota says school administrators told theater faculty about a week into rehearsals for “Little Shop of Horrors” that she could not play Seymour, the male lead.
District officials publicly tied the decision to Senate Bill 12, a Texas law that bans diversity, equity and inclusion practices, instruction on sexual orientation or gender identity, and LGBTQ+ student clubs in public schools. The production was canceled after Mota declined a reassignment to another role. That role would have been shared with another student, and she had not auditioned for it.
The lawsuit asks a federal judge to bar district leadership from discriminating against Mota and to restore the production, which was scheduled for Dec. 10. Mota and her parents argue that the district is violating Title IX, the federal law that bars excluding students from educational programs based on sex. The lawsuit says the family tried to get the district to explain which parts of SB 12 would have been violated, and that administrators did not respond.