Fresh off last year’s voter approval of a parental rights amendment to the state’s constitution, three rulings last month signal how the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services faces more scrutiny when it comes to permanently removing children from harmful and abusive families. In two cases last month, the Texas Supreme Court pushed back on the agency’s assessment that a parent should lose their rights entirely, clearing the way for the children to be put up for adoption. In a third June court case, which could change how future abuse and neglect determinations are made, an Austin judge found that DFPS violated the constitutional rights of Temecia and Rodney Jackson after their newborn girl was briefly taken from them in 2023 over a dispute with a pediatrician over managing the child’s jaundice condition.
The judge ruled the agency violated the couple’s due process rights by giving them no way to appeal its decision that it was “unable to determine” whether they abused their child. “Our goal is to hold people’s toes to the fire to what the Constitution requires. The Constitution requires due process,” said Sophia Howard, a Texas ACLU law fellow who worked on the Jacksons’ successful case.
While there’s no precise way to determine whether families in the crosshairs of a DFPS abuse investigation are winning more than before, Texas courts are giving a clear signal: it’ll take much more than than general concerns about child abuse for the state to permanently remove a child from their home. What’s happening in the courts is the result of policies Texas has been spearheading for years: an intense decades-long bipartisan effort to rewire the agency’s mission, court-ordered reforms stemming from a costly 15-year-old lawsuit over conditions in the state’s foster care system and a post-pandemic parent population more willing to push back against the state after suffering through school lockdowns and whiplash-inducing public health advice about COVID-19. Andrew Brown, vice president of policy for the Texas Public Policy Foundation, a conservative policy group that has advocated for reform of the state’s child welfare system, said parents are more vocal about exercising their rights.
“I think COVID played into that, because it gave families a very stark reality check,” Brown said. The pandemic added fuel to a decades-long trend of some parents pushing back …
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