Clay Jenkins responds to mud-slinging in waning days of Dallas County judge campaign
When he was in college at Baylor University, Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins and two other men donned camouflage clothing and dark face paint, scaled a wall, climbed in an apartment window and scared the four women who lived there. It was a “college prank,” Jenkins has said.
Jenkins, who was first elected in 2010, talked about it during his first campaign. He told voters he was arrested for criminal trespass after an immature college prank, a “panty raid.” Jenkins was sentenced to one year of deferred adjudication probation for the incident, the Texas Tribune reported, citing court records.
Now, as a heated race for Dallas County judge comes to a close, that event from nearly 40 years ago has come back into public discourse.
In a 1983 Waco police report sent to two right-wing media outlets, one of the women told police that Jenkins was wearing dark oil, face paint or makeup. Only one of the women mentions it. An article published by The Lariat, Baylor’s student newspaper, in 1983 mentioned the camouflage clothing and face paint.
Now, Jenkins’ political opponents are using it as an opportunity to sling mud in the waning days before the Nov. 8 election, referencing how one woman in the police report said she thought Jenkins and the others were trying to paint their faces to look like Black men.
Jenkins’ campaign manager, Sean Gregory, said that’s not true at all.
“Judge Jenkins apologized then, when he was 19, and continues to be sorry for the poor judgment he exhibited at the time,” Gregory said in a statement. “He has never darkened his face in an attempt to appear as a member of another race.”
Rather, the face paint was just a part of the camouflage, Gregory said.
That hasn’t stopped his opponent, Lauren Davis, from using the statement of one of the women to launch political attacks. The Republican challenger for the Dallas County judge’s seat, Davis has been on right-wing TV channel The Blaze to point out that line in the police report that mentions the woman’s opinion that Jenkins and his friends were trying to appear as Black men.
Davis claimed, without citing any proof, that Jenkins and his family have tried to cover up the 1983 incident.
“He broke in and entered a home dressed not as himself and then terrorized these women,” Davis said on The Blaze in a clip she posted on her YouTube channel, titled “Clay Jenkins Exposed - Blackface Allegations.”
This story was originally published October 12, 2022 at 9:36 PM.