FRISCO — A motion to investigate a Frisco Independent School District (ISD) trustee after an alleged interaction with a transgender student back in September failed Monday evening at a special meeting of the district’s school board.
The motion failed to get a second during the meeting, where more than 30 speakers sounded off either in support or condemnation of Trustee Marvin Lowe, who has been accused of “harassing” a transgender student at an educational conference last year.
Most of the speakers during the public comment portion of the meeting appeared to support Lowe, but there were enthusiastic applause and jeers on both sides of the issue inside the board chambers, which were packed with more than 100 people.
Before the motion was raised, Lowe called the alleged harassment of the transgender student “unfounded claims.”
“I tell you, they’re not true,” Lowe said.
Lowe made mention of the existence of a video that would soon break in the news about some of his fellow trustees, which he said was about them trying to “limit the voices of parents in the district.”
“And, unlike me, there’s an actual video tape recording of you all doing this,” Lowe said, eliciting cheers from his supporters.
Frisco ISD community member Melanie Jones spoke out in support of Lowe, saying that “somehow we’ve devolved into an us-versus-them polarized society” and that “real strength is characterized by the ability to stand firm in your beliefs and to show love and compassion to people who are on the opposite side of your belief system.”
“And that is who Marvin Lowe is. He is a man of faith,” Jones said.
Kathryn Vargas, another Frisco ISD resident, said that she wanted to talk about school budgets instead of culture war issues.
“Mr. Lowe has, once again, embarrassed us and our district in his words and behavior, which has been confirmed by four witnesses,” Vargas claimed.
Lowe told The Dallas Express on Monday, before the meeting, that he believed the other trustees (Debbie Gillespie, Rene Archambault, and Dynette Davis), did not like him because of his stance against critical race theory.
“In my opinion, what they are trying to do is sully my reputation, so the conservatives who are running they can associate them with me,” he said.
Lowe further claimed that although he could not remember the entirety of the alleged incident, he said he was simply speaking to the mother of the transgender student about how he believed locker rooms should be reserved for people of the same biological sex.
This contrasts with the original report from The Dallas Morning News, in which an unnamed 15-year-old student claimed that Lowe said that “men like to walk around naked with their junk hanging around.”
But Lowe told The Dallas Express that he did not say that. He stressed that he only said to the transgender student that they would be likely to create tension in a locker room scenario.
“I forgot how I put that,” Lowe said, explaining he did not remember exactly what he said that “got me in hot water.”
“Nothing I was saying was meant to be provocative or provoke a response from them,” he said.