Josephine Lee is a reporter and the McHam Investigative Reporting Fellow for the Texas Observer. Her reporting on education, politics, labor, and immigration, and has also appeared in The Nation, Salon, Daily Beast, Truthout, and other outlets. She previously worked as an educator and community organizer. Josephine holds a bachelor’s degree in American History from Columbia University, and a master’s degree in English and Education from Brooklyn College. She was raised in and lives in Houston.

The Texas Observer

The Death Toll: An Expensive Tollway’s High Cost in Human Lives

USPS is Falsifying Safety Docs As Its Workers Die of Heat

Students Pay as Texas School Districts Violate ‘Threat Assessment Law’

Prosecutors Won’t Drop Charges Against Brownsville ISD Honor Student

The Nation

The USPS Is Falsifying Safety Documents as Its Workers Die of Heat

The Texas Observer

The New Children’s Crusade: Recruiting for America’s Culture War

Jim Crow Still Lingers in Bonham, Civil Rights Lawyers Say

This 11-Year-Old Brownsville ISD Honor Student Was Put in Solitary

Pawns in the Voucher Scheme

Truthout

ExxonMobil is Counting on Trump-Chosen Judge to Undermine Right to Sue Polluters

Disillusioned with Dems and GOP, Independents Now Largest Voter Group in the U.S.

Texas Observer

Abbott Appointee Slams Brakes on American Indian/ Native Studies Course

Those Who Don’t Know the Past…

Abbott Demands Vouchers—Or Else

Houston ISD Takeover, The Musical

Abbott Fails on Vouchers. Again.

Houstonians Force Anti-LGBTQ Democrat Into Runoff with Progressive Challenger

‘Go Away TEA,’ Say Houston ISD Parents and Teachers

Texas Workers, Congressman Launch ‘Thirst Strike’ for Heat Protections

Abbott Wants to Deny Undocumented Kids a Public Education

Other Stories for the Texas Observer

Salon

At one Texas school, LGBTQ teens call onslaught of hostile laws ‘matter of life and death’

Daily Beast

How Reagan Started a Workers’ Civil War and How Biden Can Finally End It

Texas Observer

Not Your Everyday Snow Cone

‘American Born Chinese’ and the Limits of Cultural Representation

The Hill Country’s Lost Utopia

‘The Hobby’: A Love Letter to Board Gamers Like My Son

A Border Crossing with the Devil

Medium

The Neurotic Parents of Pixar’s ‘Turning Red’ and the ‘Parents’ Rights’ Crusade

El Pochcast Podcast, March 6, 2024: A Follow-Up on An 11-Year-Old Boy in Solitary

KXAN TV, February 16, 2024: Texas Observer: Judge dismisses charges against Brownsville ISD student

Houston Public Media Radio, December 11, 2023: A new investigative report from The Texas Observer examines the high human and economic cost of constructing the 288 toll road

Houston Public Media Radio, May 10, 2023: After the school shooting in Santa Fe, a state law requires schools to utilize threat assessment protocols that include mental health interventions for troubled students. But a Texas Observer investigation finds most districts aren’t complying with it

WNHNFM Radio, May 3, 2023: The defunding of public schools in Texas

WNYC Radio, The Takeaway, March 30, 2023: Behind the Texas State Takeover of Houston Independent School District

We’ve Got Issues Podcast, March 18, 2023: Violent right-wing ’groomers’ are weaponizing young Americans

WNHNFM Radio, March 9, 2023: Governor Abbott’s proposal to deny school to undocumented children and Turning Point USA’s ‘children’s crusade”

Member, Investigative Reporters and Editors

Member, Asian American Journalists Association

josephineklee@gmail.com