Houston Academy is a non-profit independent college preparatory school in

Dothan, Alabama Dothan () is a city in Dale, Henry, and Houston counties and the Houston county seat in the U.S. state of Alabama. It is Alabama's eighth-largest city, with a population of 71,072 at the 2020 census. It is near the state's southeastern corner, ...

. The school offers instruction to children from preschool through grade 12. The nineteen acre campus is located on the west side of Dothan in a middle class residential area.

History

The school was founded in 1970 in response to integration of the public schools in Dothan, as a way to maintain segregated schooling under the guise of private education. This history received national attention in 2016, when

Bill Clinton William Jefferson Clinton ( né Blythe III; born August 19, 1946) is an American politician who served as the 42nd president of the United States from 1993 to 2001. He previously served as governor of Arkansas from 1979 to 1981 and agai ...

revealed in a campaign speech that his wife

Hillary Clinton Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton ( Rodham; born October 26, 1947) is an American politician, diplomat, and former lawyer who served as the 67th United States Secretary of State for President Barack Obama from 2009 to 2013, as a United States sen ...

had made an undercover visit to the area investigating

segregation academies Segregation academies are private schools in the Southern United States that were founded in the mid-20th century by white parents to avoid having their children attend desegregated public schools. They were founded between 1954, when the U.S. ...

in 1972. In 1970, the

IRS The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is the revenue service for the United States federal government, which is responsible for collecting U.S. federal taxes and administering the Internal Revenue Code, the main body of the federal statutory tax ...

allowed the school to retain its tax exempt status despite its policy of discriminating on racial grounds. While the school no longer enforces a ban on non-white students, in 2015 only eight black students were enrolled and thirteen percent of the student population were minorities of any kind. Mark Saliba, the current mayor of Dothan, was a chairman of the school's board from 2007 until 2014.

References

{{authority control Buildings and structures in Dothan, Alabama Educational institutions established in 1970 Private elementary schools in Alabama Private high schools in Alabama Private middle schools in Alabama Schools in Houston County, Alabama Preparatory schools in Alabama Segregation academies in Alabama