- Democrat Michelle Williams, the President of the Houston Education Association teachers union, is seeking to unseat Republican State Representative Charles Cunningham
- In a sworn statement, an ex-boyfriend of Williams once alleged that she harassed him and threatened him with violence, including threatening to stab him
- Williams, who has filed lawsuits challenging her firing from Houston ISD, shared content on her social media from a Marxist political group that seeks the “revolutionary overturn” of the American government and seeks to replace it with a “revolutionary socialist government.”
The embattled leader of a Houston teachers union who is running as a Democrat for the Texas House was once accused by an ex-boyfriend of harassing and threatening him.
The allegations against Michelle Williams are one of several controversies involving the Texas House candidate running against Republican State Representative Charles Cunningham in House District 127. The district encompasses the Kingwood area of northeast Harris County.
In April, 2013, a Judge in an East Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Family Court issued a temporary protective order against Williams after an ex-boyfriend submitted a sworn statement under penalty of perjury that she harassed and threatened him with violence.
In the sworn statement, Williams’ ex-boyfriend alleged that she sent him over 120 text messages in a 24-hour period after she found out that he had become engaged to another woman.
“In the text messages she began to threaten to stab me and [f***] me up when she see me again,” he wrote. He also alleged that Williams threatened to hit him with a softball bat “and use my head as a ball,” threatened to cut the brake and gas lines to his fiancée’s car, and threatened “to have her 5 brothers to kick my ass.”
Williams denied the allegations made by her ex-boyfriend that she threatened and harassed him and, in a court filing, said that his petition for a protective order was “retaliatory in that a third party whom petitioner may have been dating during the same time that he was dating [Williams], discovered that petitioner refused to return [Williams’] apartment key.”
The judge dismissed the ex-boyfriend’s petition, finding that he failed to prove the allegations against Williams.
Williams, who has served as President of the Houston Education Association teachers’ union since 2019, is currently embroiled in two lawsuits she has brought against the Houston Independent School District.
On July 23, 2026, Williams filed a lawsuit against Houston ISD and Texas Education Commissioner Mike Morath, seeking reinstatement to the teaching job she was fired from last year.
The lawsuit followed Morath’s decision to uphold Houston ISD’s termination of Williams because she refused to follow the District’s curriculum.
In a separate lawsuit, filed in Federal court on May 26, 2026, Williams alleged that the District and several District officials violated her civil rights, retaliated against her, and violated the Texas Whistleblower Act.
Both lawsuits are currently pending.
In a personal financial statement filed with the Texas Ethics Commission on February 12, 2026, Williams disclosed Houston ISD as her sole source of income and did not disclose ownership in any business entities or holding any board or executive positions. This does not appear to be accurate.
In addition to failing to disclose her position as President of the Houston Education Association, Williams also failed to disclose income generated from her ownership of IgniteEd, a business where she sells instructional materials and offers consulting services.
Williams has also filed for bankruptcy three times – in 1999, 2005, and 2018.
On the campaign trail, Williams has staked solidly liberal positions and has used her social media accounts to share content from a Marxist political organization that seeks to impose a “revolutionary socialist government”.
On February 16, Williams shared a Facebook post from the Party for Socialism and Liberation supporting student walkouts to protest U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
On its website, the Party for Socialism and Liberation advocates for a “revolutionary overturn” of America’s capitalist system to be replaced by a “revolutionary socialist government.”
“In order to guarantee the interests of working and poor people who make up the vast majority of the United States, a new revolutionary government run by and for the workers and poor will be established. The present capitalist government—the role of which has been to defend the big-business system of exploitation by a web of hundreds of measures, legal and illegal, and has been accessible only to the super-rich elite—will be abolished,” the Party states.
“The idea that the capitalists’ grip on society and their increasingly repressive state can be abolished through any means other than a revolutionary overturn is an illusion.”
