After facing an initial sentence of 10 days in jail and $400 in fines for his involvement in a transgender rights protest at a Nov. 8, 2022, Conway School Board meeting, a judge reduced UCA senior Alex Barnett’s sentence to 100 hours of community service and $250 in fines.
According to Arkansas CourtConnect, Circuit Judge H.G. Foster oversaw Barnett’s appeal. Foster dismissed Barnett’s criminal trespassing misdemeanor from Judge Chris Carnahan and Barnett pleaded guilty to a failure to disperse misdemeanor.
“People might be wondering why I decided to take a deal whenever I said before that I wasn’t going to take a deal. A large part of it was that I thought about it more and there’s a certain defiance in saying ‘Yes, I committed this crime. I’m not sorry,’” Barnett said.
Barnett added that he also agreed to take the deal out of concern for his safety.
Barnett spent one night in jail before he appealed his sentence.
“The first time that I went to jail, there were a lot of people who were not exactly happy about why I was in jail — particularly members of the Aryan Brotherhood who weren’t necessarily supportive of trans rights. I did experience some threats of violence in jail.
“That was something that I was willing to go back to jail and deal with. But there were a lot of people in my life who really wanted me to take this deal, and I did have to realize that I owe responsibility to them,” Barnett said.
On Nov. 8, 2022, Conway High School students and community members protested the Conway School Board’s passing of policies 4.20 and 4.56.2, which restrict students from using gendered bathrooms that differ from their assigned sex at birth or being placed in overnight lodgings with individuals that differ from their assigned sex at birth.
Board member Linda Hargis traveled to the state capitol Jan. 26, 2023, to ask the House Education Committee to support Rep. Mary Bentley’s, R-Perryville, bill that would make those policies apply to all Arkansas public schools.
There, she said Bentley’s bill “mirrors exactly” the bathroom and overnight-trip policies handed down by the Conway School Board.
Governor Sarah Sanders signed Bentley’s bill March 21, 2023, and it is now Act 317.
In May 2023, the Conway School Board received attention from the nonprofit publication ProPublica, which covered in part the protest Barnett organized, his arrest and his 10-day jail sentence.
According to an Arkansas Times article, Barnett was among 30 nonviolent protesters in attendance.
After protesters started chanting “trans lives matter” during the board meeting proceedings and refused to stop, police were called to counter the disruption.
The school board went into recess after the chanting but continued the meeting after shutting the door less than 10 minutes later.
Barnett said, “I had sort of been entertaining the idea of taking a plea deal since back in October. The main obstruction to that was that the prosecutor [City Attorney Charles Finkenbinder] made a condition of any plea deal that I apologize to him personally for calling him a transphobe in the news.”
“It actually started off as he was gonna give me 50 hours community service but would bump it down to 20 hours if I apologized to him, and I said, ‘No, I’m not going to do that.’”
“It wasn’t until about two weeks ago that he reached out to me [through my lawyer] and said, ‘Okay, 100 hours of community service with no apology,’ and I accepted that deal.”
Police arrested Barnett along with two other UCA students, Keylen Botley and Colburn Clark, after they refused to disperse from the lobby of the building where the Nov. 8, 2022, meeting took place.
Botley pleaded guilty and was fined with no jail time, and Clark pleaded not guilty and was fined $650 and three days in jail, which he is awaiting an appeal trial on.
Both Clark and Barnett were sentenced by Carnahan, who according to KARK campaigned for the Arkansas Supreme Court with the slogan, “Finally, a Conservative Judge” in 2022.
Barnett said that while he wasn’t sure of the requirements for fulfillment of his community service, he plans to put service hours into “places like Lucie’s Place, basically different organizations in Arkansas that help trans people. That’s kind of my way of getting just one more middle finger to Carnahan.”
Carnahan won the reelection for Faulkner County district judge during the March 5 primaries.
Barnett said, “I’m not surprised. I am disappointed that someone like Carnahan who is just so clearly biased and so clearly should not hold the position of power in Conway gets to continue to do so.”
“The fact that I had to plead my case in front of him of all people was absurd, and he should not be a judge in Arkansas.”
Barnett said that he plans to continue to be part of future protests alongside the Young Democratic Socialists Club.