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Dismissed: Lufkin ISD School Resource Officer Applicant’s Lawsuit

Image: TexEdNews

U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals
Ruling: A rejected applicant for an ISD school resource officer position waited too late to claim he was illegally retaliated against for previously filing a grievance against the district.

  • Mickey Hadnot v. Lufkin ISD, et al., No. 25-40196 ($). Issued June 4, 2026. Ordered “not published.”
Background

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Mickey Hadnot, a veteran law enforcement officer with more than 30 years of experience, applied for a Lufkin ISD (LISD) school resource officer job in 2019.

The district hired two other candidates instead.

Hadnot:

  • Believed he was passed over in retaliation for a 2015 grievance he had filed alleging racial discrimination against Black student athletes (including his son) on LISD’s baseball team.
  • Pursued an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) complaint and a Texas state court lawsuit in 2019 — both unsuccessful (state appeals court ruling) — before finally bringing federal constitutional claims in May 2024.
  • Appealed to the Fifth Circuit after the federal trial court judge dismissed the federal lawsuit.
Waited too Long to Sue

Both the trial court judge (and now a three-member Fifth Circuit panel in this unanimous decision) ruled against Hadnot — not on the merits of his retaliation claim, but on timing: because he waited too long to sue.

The justices cited Texas law giving Hadnot two years to pursue his retaliation claims, with the deadline clock starting in 2019 when he wasn’t hired as a school resource officer and ending two years later. By not filing his federal lawsuit until 2024, he missed the deadline by roughly three years, the justices noted.

Rejected

The justices rejected Hadnot’s various reasons as to why the two-year deadline calendar should have been paused, including his claim that he wasn’t made aware of “critical information” supporting his retaliation claim until 2023.

The justices ruled that Hadnot had all the information he needed to pursue a retaliation claim when he wasn’t hired in 2019.