Tag: Texas

VICTORY: District court blocks Texas social media law after FIRE lawsuit

AUSTIN, Texas, Feb. 7, 2025 — After a lawsuit from the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression and Davis Wright Tremaine, a district court today stopped enforcement of a Texas law that would have blocked access to broad categories of protected speech for minors and forced websites to collect adults’ IDs or biometric data before they can access social media sites.

Northern District of Texas Judge Robert Pitman granted FIRE’s motion for a preliminary injunction against provisions of the Securing Children Online through Parental Empowerment Act (SCOPE Act) requiring content monitoring and filtering, targeted advertising bans, and age-verification requirements, ruling that these measures were unconstitutionally overbroad, vague, and not narrowly tailored to serve a compelling state interest.

“The court determined that Texas’s law was likely unconstitutional because its provisions restricted protected speech and were so vague that it made it hard to know what was prohibited,” said FIRE Chief Counsel Bob Corn-Revere. “States can’t block adults from engaging with legal speech in the name of protecting children, nor can they keep minors from ideas that the government deems unsuitable.”

The SCOPE Act would have required social media platforms to register the age of every new user. Platforms would have been forced to track how much of their content is “harmful” to minors and, once a certain percentage is reached, force users to prove that they are 18 or older. In other words, the law would have burdened adults who wanted to view content that is fully legal for adults, serving as an effective ban for those who understandably don’t trust a third-party website with their driver’s license or fingerprints.

The law also required websites to prevent minors from being exposed to “harmful material” that “promotes, glorifies, or facilitates” behaviors like drug use, suicide, or bullying. That definition was far too vague to pass constitutional muster: whether speech “promotes” or “glorifies” an activity is inherently subjective, and platforms had testified that they would be forced to react by censoring all discussions of those topics.

Today’s ruling should serve as yet another warning to states tempted to jump on the unconstitutional bandwagon of social media age verification bills.

“At what point… does alcohol use become ‘substance abuse?’” asked Judge Pitman in his ruling. “When does an extreme diet cross the line into an ‘eating disorder?’ What defines ‘grooming’ and ‘harassment?’ Under these indefinite meanings, it is easy to see how an attorney general could arbitrarily discriminate in his enforcement of the law.”

FIRE sued on August 16 on behalf of three plaintiffs who use the Internet to communicate with young Texans and keep them informed on issues that affect them. A fourth plaintiff, M.F., is a 16-year-old rising high school junior from El Paso who is concerned that Texas is blocking his access to important content.

Lead plaintiff Students Engaged in Advancing Texas represents a coalition of Texas students who seek to increase youth visibility and participation in policymaking.

Nope to SCOPE: FIRE sues to block Texas’ unconstitutional internet age verification law

Press Release

Texans browsing your favorite websites, beware. If the state has its way, starting next month, the eyes of Texas may be upon you.

Read More

“Young people have free speech rights, too,” said SEAT Executive Director Cameron Samuels. “They’re also the future voters and leaders of Texas and America. The SCOPE Act would make youth less informed, less active, and less engaged on some of the most important issues facing the nation.”

Earlier, Judge Pitman enjoined the content moderation requirements while ruling on a separate lawsuit from the Computer & Communications Industry Association and Netchoice. Judge Pitman ruled in August that Texas “cannot pick and choose which categories of protected speech it wishes to block teenagers from discussing online.”

“This is a tremendous victory against government censorship, especially for our clients—ordinary citizens—who stood up to the State of Texas,” said Adam Sieff, partner at Davis Wright Tremaine. “The Court enjoined every substantive provision of the SCOPE Act we challenged, granting even broader relief than its first preliminary injunction. We hope this decision will give other states pause before broadly restricting free expression online.”

Texas lawmakers perhaps could have predicted today’s ruling. Age verification laws have been enjoined by courts across the country in states like California, Arkansas, Mississippi, Ohio, and even initially in Texas, in another law currently before the Supreme Court for review.

“Today’s ruling should serve as yet another warning to states tempted to jump on the unconstitutional bandwagon of social media age verification bills,” said Corn-Revere. “What these laws have in common is that they seek to impose simplistic one-size-fits-all solutions to address complicated problems.”

The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to defending and sustaining the individual rights of all Americans to free speech and free thought — the most essential qualities of liberty. FIRE educates Americans about the importance of these inalienable rights, promotes a culture of respect for these rights, and provides the means to preserve them.

CONTACT:

Alex Griswold, Communications Campaign Manager, FIRE: 215-717-3473; media@thefire.org

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February 7, 2025
FIRE to University of Texas at Dallas: Stop censoring the student press

The University of Texas at Dallas has a troubling history of trying to silence students. Now those students are fighting back.

Today, the editors of The Retrograde published their first print edition, marking a triumphant return for journalism on campus in the face of administrative efforts to quash student press.

Headlines above the fold of the first issue of The Retrograde, a new independent student newspaper at UT Dallas.

Why call the newspaper The Retrograde? Because it’s replacing the former student newspaper, The Mercury, which ran into trouble when it covered the pro-Palestinian encampments on campus and shed light on UT Dallas’s use of state troopers (the same force that broke up UT Austin’s encampment just one week prior) and other efforts to quash even peaceful protest. As student journalists reported, their relationship with the administration subsequently deteriorated. University officials demoted the newspaper’s advisor and even removed copies of the paper from newsstands. At the center of this interference were Lydia Lum, director of student media, and Jenni Huffenberger, senior director of marketing and student media, whose titles reflect the university’s resistance to editorial freedom.

The conflict between the paper and the administration came to a head when Lum called for a meeting of the Student Media Oversight Board, a university body which has the power to remove student leaders, accusing The Mercury’s editor-in-chief, Gregorio Olivares Gutierrez, of violating student media bylaws by having another form of employment, exceeding printing costs, and “bypassing advisor involvement.” Yet rather than follow those same bylaws, which offer detailed instructions for removing a student editor, Lum told board members from other student media outlets not to attend the meeting. A short-handed board then voted to oust Gutierrez. Adding insult to injury, Huffenberger unilaterally denied Gutierrez’s appeal, again ignoring the bylaws, which require the full board to consider any termination appeals.

The student journalists of The Retrograde have shown incredible spirit. With your help, we can ensure their efforts — and the rights of all student journalists — are respected.

In response, The Mercury’s staff went on strike, demanding Gutierrez’s reinstatement. To help in that effort, FIRE and the Student Press Law Center joined forces to pen a Nov. 12, 2024 letter calling for UT Dallas to honor the rights of the student journalists. We also asked them to pay the students the money they earned for the time they worked prior to the strike.

UT Dallas refused to listen. Instead of embracing freedom of the press, the administration doubled down on censorship, ignoring both the students’ and our calls for justice.

FIRE took out a full page ad in support of The Retrograde at UT Dallas.

In our letter, we argued that the university’s firing of Gutierrez was in retaliation for The Mercury’s unflattering coverage of the way administrators had handled the encampments. This is not even the first time UT Dallas has chosen censorship as the “best solution;” look no further than in late 2023 when they removed the “Spirit Rocks” students used to express themselves. Unfortunately, the university ignored both the students’ exhortations and FIRE’s demands, leaving UT Dallas without its newspaper.

But FIRE’s Student Press Freedom Initiative is here to make sure censorship never gets the last word.

Students established The Retrograde, a fully independent newspaper. Without university resources, they have had to crowdfund and source their own equipment, working spaces, a new website, and everything else necessary to provide quality student-led journalism to the UT Dallas community. They succeeded, and FIRE is proud to support their efforts, placing a full-page ad in this week’s inaugural issue of The Retrograde.

The fight for press freedom at UT Dallas is far from over — but we need your help to make a difference.

Demand accountability from UT Dallas. The student journalists of The Retrograde have shown incredible spirit. With your help, we can ensure their efforts — and the rights of all student journalists — are respected.

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January 21, 2025
Overtime Rule Blocked for Public Institutions in Texas; House Advances Legislation Aiming to Block Overtime Rule – CUPA-HR

by CUPA-HR | July 1, 2024

Update: On November 8, the federal judge from the Eastern District of Texas is set to hold a hearing on summary judgement in the business community’s challenge to DOL’s overtime final rule. While it is unknown how soon after we could get a decision on the validity of the rule, the judge could rule from the bench or quickly after the hearing. CUPA-HR will send out updates on the rulings as soon as we know.

On June 28, a federal judge in the Eastern District of Texas Court granted a narrowly scoped preliminary injunction for the overtime rule in the state of Texas, blocking the Department of Labor’s overtime final rule from taking effect on July 1, 2024. The judge only blocked enforcement for employees of the state of Texas (i.e., public institutions), so private institutions in Texas and all other institutions outside of Texas will still need to comply with the overtime rule beginning July 1, 2024.

The motion for a preliminary injunction was filed by the state of Texas alongside a lawsuit challenging the validity of the final rule in its entirety. At least two other lawsuits are currently pending before the Eastern District Court of Texas. The preliminary injunction will block the final rule from taking effect on July 1 for public employers and employees in Texas until a later decision is issued on the lawsuits challenging the validity of the final rule.

As a reminder, the final rule implemented a two-phase approach to increasing the minimum salary threshold under the Fair Labor Standards Act overtime regulations. The first increase was expected to take effect on July 1, increasing the minimum salary threshold from the current level of $684 per week ($35,568 per year) to $844 per week ($43,888 per year). The second increase is set to take effect on January 1, 2025, and it would increase the minimum salary threshold again to $1,128 per week ($58,656 per year). The final rule also adopted automatic updates to the minimum salary threshold that would occur every three years.

Given the judge’s narrow decision granting the preliminary injunction, private institutions in Texas and all institutions outside of Texas are still required to implement adjustments to comply with the July 1 minimum salary threshold until a later decision is made on the validity of the rule as a whole. CUPA-HR will be monitoring the pending cases closely.

House Appropriations Subcommittee Bill

On June 26, the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education released their fiscal year 2025 funding legislation for the Department of Labor (DOL) and other related agencies, which included a provision to prohibit any funding provided to DOL under the bill from administering, implementing or enforcing the overtime final rule. The Subcommittee passed the legislation out of Committee during a markup on June 27. It will now be sent to the floor for a vote, where House Republicans have a slim majority and could pass the bill along partisan lines. The fate of the overtime provision appears uncertain in the Senate, however, as the Democrat-controlled chamber is unlikely to include such language in their appropriations bill. CUPA-HR will continue to keep members apprised of any updates on the status of the overtime final rule.

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July 1, 2024
Dr. Jennifer T. Edwards: A Texas Professor Focused on Artificial Intelligence, Health, and Education: Preparing Our Higher Education Institutions for the Future

As we prepare for an upcoming year, I have to stop and think about the future of higher education. The pandemic changed our students, faculty, staff, and our campus as a whole. The Education Advisory Board (EAB) provides colleges and universities across the country with resources and ideas to help the students of the future.

I confess, I have been a complete fan of EAB and their resources for the past ten years. Their resources are at the forefront of higher education innovation.

– Dining Halls and Food Spaces

– Modern Student Housing

– Hybrid and Flexible Office Spaces

– Tech-Enabled Classrooms

– Libraries and Learning Commons

– Interdisciplinary Research Facilities

Higher education institutions should also focus on the faculty and staff as well. When I ask most of my peers if they are comfortable with the numerous changes happening across their institution, most of them are uncomfortable. We need to prepare our teams for the future of higher education.

Here’s the Millennial Professor’s Call the Action Statements for the Higher Education Industry

– Higher Education Conferences and Summits Need to Provide Trainings Focused on Artificial Intelligence (AI) for Their Attendees

– Higher Education Institutions Need to Include Faculty and Staff as Part of Their Planning Process (an Important Part)

– Higher Education Institutions Provide Wellness and Holistic Support for Faculty and Staff Who are Having Problems With Change (You Need Us and We Need Help)

– Higher Education Institutions Need to Be Comfortable with Uncommon Spaces (Flexible Office Spaces)

– Faculty Need to Embrace Collaboration Opportunities with Faculty at Their Institutions and Other Institutions

Here are some additional articles about the future of higher education:

Higher education will continue to transition in an effort to meet the needs of our current and incoming students.

For our particular university, we are striving to modify all of these items simultaneously. It is a challenge, but the changes are well worth the journey.

Here’s the challenge for this post: “In your opinion, which one of the items on the list is MOST important for your institution?”

***.

Check out my book – Retaining College Students Using Technology: A Guidebook for Student Affairs and Academic Affairs Professionals.

Remember to order copies for your team as well!

Thanks for visiting!

Sincerely,

Dr. Jennifer T. Edwards
Professor of Communication

Executive Director of the Texas Social Media Research Institute & Rural Communication Institute

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December 19, 2023
Dr. Jennifer T. Edwards: A Texas Professor Focused on Artificial Intelligence, Health, and Education: Preparing for Research Presentations

Hi Y’all!

A few weeks ago, I had the pleasure of presenting for an Undergraduate Research Group at my university. When they initially asked me about presenting about visual presentations, I had to think back to the numerous presentations that I have been fortunate to facilitate all over America.

Then, I thought about the items that I wish I would have had on site when I saw the place where I needed to place my poster. So, I decided to make a “Poster Presentation Survival Kit”. This kit contains: masking tape, t-pins, white out, sharpie markers, and cuticle clippers (to serve as scissors for your poster (just in case)).

The presentation was well received and they asked for a copy. I was very impressed with this group and their questions focused on research and the presentation process. We also had a great conversation about presenting information that has not yet been published.

Here’s the presentation:

Here are some additional resources. Thanks UNC, UC Davis, and Bucknell!

Enjoy! Please let me know if you have any questions.

Dr. Jennifer Edwards

***

Check out my book – Retaining College Students Using Technology: A Guidebook for Student Affairs and Academic Affairs Professionals.

Remember to order copies for your team as well!

Thanks for visiting!

Sincerely,

Dr. Jennifer T. Edwards
Professor of Communication

Executive Director of the Texas Social Media Research Institute & Rural Communication Institute

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March 8, 2023
Dr. Jennifer T. Edwards: A Texas Professor Focused on Artificial Intelligence, Health, and Education: Resource Alert: A Health Check-In for Meeting and Classrooms

Throughout the past few years we have definitely been part of a Zoom and Microsoft Team centric world. As we meet with teams and individuals, we have to account for the life that is happening on the other side of the screen. Through Zoom we have a unique opportunity to gain a glimpse into another person’s life to which we would normally not have access.

This means that we have a moral and ethnical responsibility as peers and as leaders to genuinely care about the people to which we are communicate with on Zoom. Here’s a great resource from the Collective Impact Forum (http://www.collectiveimpactforum.org).

The Team Color Check-In Tool is a communication tool to help people in virtual and face-to-face conversations have a check-in. The colors range from:

Red

Orange

Yellow

Green

Blue

Gray

If you are wondering how to apply this for your teams or classrooms, I would definitely recommend the following:

#1 – Utilize it when you meet with individuals one-on-one (BEFORE) the meeting.

#2 – Utilize it in Zoom via an anonymous poll to gauge how their audience is feeling BEFORE the meeting and providing resources at the end of the meeting (or in a follow-up email).

#3 – Send the check-in tool to your team/organization at the beginning of the week and provide workshops and support throughout the week for the team.

Respond Below – How would you use the resource? Do you think teams would benefit from this resource? How would you modify it?

Thanks for reading!

Sincerely,

Dr. Jennifer T. Edwards
Professor of Communication

Executive Director of the Texas Social Media Research Institute & Rural Communication Institute

***

Check out my book – Retaining College Students Using Technology: A Guidebook for Student Affairs and Academic Affairs Professionals.

Remember to order copies for your team as well!

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July 18, 2022
Dr. Jennifer T. Edwards: A Texas Professor Focused on Artificial Intelligence, Health, and Education: Learning How to Curb Inflation with a Garden

I love gardening. Whether my gardening takes place in a container, in an urban area, or in a rural area, I am all about it! This year, my daughter decided that she wanted to become a mini-gardener as well.

As a result, we are growing…tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, watermelon, and lettuce. I teach her to watch the prices as they continue to increase. My daughter and I talk about innovative ways to counteract the increasing prices. Our strategy is gardening!

I am part of a wealth of gardening groups. My favorites are “Black Girls Garden” and Black girl container gardening groups on Facebook. These groups give me inspiration and ideas to garden for my family and for the community. One thing that I like the most is the emphasis on sharing seeds and supporting one another. I also work with our community garden group as well.

This summer, I have been very fortunate to learn even more gardening skills from the local Agrilife Extension agent in Panola County, Clarissa Moon. She is an excellent teacher and she provides so much educational outreach for the community.

Another resource that I absolutely love is the USDA, which has great resources for gardening as well. I subscribe to their blog, “Farmers.gov Blog” and it has some incredible tips for gardening. It also features several other sections on their website that feature articles. These categories are:

Of course, my favorite is Farm Life! I love the “Friday’s on the Farm” series.

Check them out! What is your favorite part?

Thanks for visiting!

Sincerely,

Dr. Jennifer T. Edwards
Professor of Communication

Executive Director of the Texas Social Media Research Institute & Rural Communication Institute

***

Check out my book – Retaining College Students Using Technology: A Guidebook for Student Affairs and Academic Affairs Professionals.

Remember to order copies for your team as well!

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June 27, 2022
Dr. Jennifer T. Edwards: A Texas Professor Focused on Artificial Intelligence, Health, and Education: COVID-19 Outreach in Rural Areas

Over the past few months, our Rural Communication Institute (RCI) team (Dr. Jennifer T. Edwards, Dr. Subi Gandhi, and Dr. LaShondra Manning) has been tirelessly providing education and outreach for the rural areas of East Texas. This outreach has been both challenging and rewarding since the pediatric vaccine was approved by the Center for Disease Control (CDC) and the Texas Department of State Health Services (DSHS).

Educating parents about the benefits of the COVID-19 vaccine has been one of the most rewarding experiences of my life. As a parent, I am always very excited to share health information, but especially this information has been very important for me.

Here’s a workshop that we were very excited to view from the Texas Department of Health and Human Services. This workshop was focused on “What About the Children: Changing the Landscape on Rural Vaccine Coverage”. It focused on health in rural areas, especially for our youngest populations.

Also, we have been fortunate to receive funding for travel for our outreach events, shirts, and giveaways. Here’s a special shout out to the Episcopal Health Foundation in Texas, because they provided so much support for our project.

At first, we partnered with existing vaccination clinics and these were not very well attended, but THEN we decided to venture out on our own and to create our own clinics with the health of the Texas Department of State Health Services. We have been experimenting with the best time and date for our clinics as well all content for the clinics.

We decided a “Summer Fun and Health Clinic” approach has been the best outreach strategy for reaching the community. The mid-day clinics (before 5pm) were not as well attended for some audiences (i.e. – parents), but other times had much better attendance (after 5pm).

Also, we partnered with Agrilife (Mrs. Clarissa Moon) and Above Average Health Care and House Calls. Agrilife provided educational outreach sessions and Above Average Health Care and House Calls offered health checks and interpretations of lab results.

Do you have any suggestions for us? We are so thankful for our partners!

***

Check out my book – Retaining College Students Using Technology: A Guidebook for Student Affairs and Academic Affairs Professionals.

Remember to order copies for your team as well!

Thanks for visiting!

Sincerely,

Dr. Jennifer T. Edwards
Professor of Communication

Executive Director of the Texas Social Media Research Institute & Rural Communication Institute

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June 20, 2022
Dr. Jennifer T. Edwards: A Texas Professor Focused on Artificial Intelligence, Health, and Education: FREE 11th Annual Texas Social Media Conference

Yes! I am excited! We are getting back into the training and development mode with the Texas Social Media Research Institute (and the Rural Communication Institute)! Are you looking for a FREE conference focused on social media and rural communication? Check out our conference schedule!

Tuesday, November 2nd

5pm – Journal Club (Discussing “Reality check: How adolescents use

TikTok as a digital backchanneling medium to speak back against

institutional discourses of school(ing).”

Thursday, November 4th

8pm – #TXSocialMedia Twitter Chat – Pumpkin Spice Lattes, Sweater

Weather, and Autumn/Winter Social Media Outreach Strategies

Monday, November 8th

6pm – How Public Health Agencies in the United States in the United

Kingdom Communicate with their Target Audience During the COVID19

Pandemic (Presented by: Riley Odom, Megan Mackay, Erin McDonald,

Bayley Chenault, Sydney Brown)

8pm – How the Texas Department of Health and Safety and Colorado

Department of Health and Environment are Communicating about

Health During COVID19 (Presented By: Halie Hix, Shelby Hargrove,

Magnolia Dunlap, Michaela Bierman, Steven Duncan)

Tuesday, November 9th

5pm – Journal Club – Discussing the article: “We (Want To) Believe in

the Best of Men: A Qualitative Analysis of Reactions to

#Gillette on Twitter”

7pm – How the United States Federal Government and the State of Texas

Communicate with the Public During the Pandemic (Presented by: Kristi

Cortez, Jessica Thomas, Kennedy Onuam, Julia Nolen)

Thursday, November 11th

3pm – Neurodiversity at Work; Assignment Construction Strategies for

Creative Thinkers in Online Teams (Presented By: Melanie Mason (University

of Texas at Arlington)

8pm – #TXSocialMedia Twitter Chat – Veterans Day and How the Military

Engages the Public Through Social Media

Thursday, November 11th

11:59pm – #TXSocialMedia Undergraduate and Graduate Fellowship

Applications Due

Sunday, November 14th

6:30 pm – How the Louisiana Department of Education and the Texas

Education Agency are Communicating about Health During COVID19

(Presented By: Katherine Mitchell, Audrey Morton, Jorge Irizarry,

Audrey Morton, Morgan Maley, Christina Byrd)

Monday, November 15th

7pm – #TXSocialMedia LIVE: Let’s Network Session on Zoom –

Social Media and Privacy – The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

Tuesday, November 16th

1pm – Connecting & Engaging with Students –

Presented By: Narissra Punyanunt-Carter & Dr. Ryan Martinez (Texas Tech University)

3pm – Alzheimer’s (and Rural Health) Community Forum for Tarleton

Staff and Faculty- Register online: alznct.news/ACF1116

5pm – Journal Club – Discussing “Small Businesses Still Missing the Boat

on Social Media and Internet Advertising.”

Thursday, November 18th

8pm – #TXSocialMedia Twitter Chat – National Rural Health Day –

Innovative Ways Rural Residents Can Practice Preventative Care

7pm – #TXSocialMedia LIVE: Let’s Network Session on Zoom – Innovative

Ways TikTok Can Be Utilized in Education, Business, and Life

Saturday, November 27th

All Day – Use the Hashtag #ShopSmall for Small Business Saturday

Monday, November 28th

7pm – #TXSocialMedia LIVE: Let’s Network Session on Zoom –

Social Media and Health – How Does Social Media Impact Our Health?

Tuesday, November 30th

12:30pm – Student-based Resourcing: Responding to Increased Needs as

a Rural Institution (Presented by: Dr. Lora Helvie-Mason

& Cameron Ellner, Tarleton State University)

6pm – How the Texas Department of Health and Human Services

and the State of Louisiana Department of Health are Communicating

About Health (Presented By: Averill Hubbard, Zachary Mesa, Dylan

Antonelli, Olivia Teague, Kyon Barnes)

7pm – #TXSocialMedia LIVE: Let’s Network Session on Zoom –

Hooked on Social: Social Media the New Kid’s Toy?

Are They Becoming Hooked TOO EARLY?

National Day of Giving – Give to the Rural Communication Institute and

the Texas Social Media Research Institute

National Mason Jar Day –

Highlight Innovative Ways You Can Use Mason Jars

(Use the #TXSocialMedia and #ThinkRuralComm hashtags)

Save-the-Date & Call for Proposals

The 12th Annual #TXSocialMedia Conference & the 3rd Annual Rural

Communication Conference will be held on Friday, April 22, 2022 in Fort

Worth Texas. Submit a Proposal – http://www.tinyurl.com/SMCCFP/

Executive Director of the Texas Social Media Research Institute & Rural Communication Institute

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November 8, 2021
Dr. Jennifer T. Edwards: A Texas Professor Focused on Artificial Intelligence, Health, and Education: Reflecting on the 2020 Census

In Fall 2019, I was truly fortunate to receive a grant from the Hogg Foundation to promote the 2020 Census in East Texas. Yes, this area includes my hometown county – Panola County, then Rusk County and Shelby County. This was an AMAZING project! Thanks Hogg Foundation!

The North East Texas Counts campaign had three goals for the project. Goal one was “to select and train 200 NETX Counts Ambassadors and Junior Ambassadors to tell the importance of the census to the community”. Goal two was “to engage and educate at least 3,000 residents in the tri-county community (especially hard-to-count populations) about the importance of the census”. The final goal, goal three” was “to saturate the tri-county community media outlets with Census information pertinent to their residents”. Through this campaign, we hosted 25 outdoor Census booths, eight interactive community information sessions, an engaging social media campaign, and received coverage in almost 10 newspapers and television outlets.

The North East Texas Counts began the Census season by communicating with key contacts in the community and scheduling large-scale events to educate the community about the Census. We scheduled events at the local community college, library, etc. After the three counties restricted large scale and in-person events, we decided to develop a more robust online training and development process for our interns and volunteers.

We offered numerous outdoor Census education table sessions. However, instead of offering these sessions outside large big-box retailers in the country, we offered these sessions in formats more focused on common pain points experienced by residents of the three counties and safety protocols of the counties. Instead of shopping at big-box retailers, the residents were more focused on shopping in smaller retailers, visiting gas stations, and visiting the post office. As a result, our strategy changed. During this process, we coined the phrase, “from gas stations to grocery stores”, because these were the essential places visited by residents during the pandemic. During this process, we offered information booths outside of gas stations, libraries in each county, Tractor Supply stores, city council areas, and on the side of the major highways. These strategies proved to be very effective because many residents indicated they have not taken the Census before and they did not know the importance of the Census. We were able to provide support for these residents through interactive in-person, on-one-one programming focused on the Census.

Community Communication

The North East Texas Counts team began the Census season by communicating with key contacts in the community and scheduling large-scale events to educate the community about the Census. We scheduled events at the local community college, library, etc. After the three counties restricted large scale and in-person events, we decided to develop a more robust online training and development process for our interns and volunteers.

We offered three pop-up Census education table sessions outside large big-box retailers in the country. During these sessions, participants received USB chargers, Census t-shirts, and USB wall plugs. These technology and apparel items were essential items during the pandemic, because individuals in these areas usually have to travel to larger cities for technology items. People saw our items as they drove on the highways and many turned around to hear about the Census and to receive the items. Many residents commented that they have seen several Census shirts around their town and they wanted to learn more. We did not have any Census t-shirts left after September 30, 2020.

North East Texas Counts Census – Coverage

This project was one of the TOP projects of my faculty career. It truly changed my life and impacted the way that I see local, state, and federal government. This project ENERGIZED me!

Stay tuned!

Sincerely,

Dr. Jennifer T. Edwards
Professor of Communication

Executive Director of the Texas Social Media Research Institute & Rural Communication Institute

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November 16, 2020