Four Madera plaintiffs, represented by the San Francisco-based Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights, alleged that the at-large voting system resulted in racial polarization that resulted in the city's Latino majority of 82 percent being politically marginalized, which they said violated the state's 2002 Voting Rights Act.
[3] However, that statistic is slightly misleading, as only 44 percent of those eligible to vote in a MUSD election were Latinos, according to a press release by Anayma DeFrias of the LCCR mentioned above.
After a short search, a new superintendent, Gustavo Balderas, was hired 2011 on a three-year contract.
Balderas surprised the district by resigning to take another superintendent position in Southern California in 2012.
In July 2013, it was announced that Ed Gonzales, a former teacher and principal at Madera Unified, had been hired as superintendent.