§ 106.003.Penalties

The criminal provision, and it turns on knowledge.

A person commits an offense if the person knowingly violates Section 106.001.

"Knowingly" is the mental state, and it does real work here. The civil prohibition asks whether the official acted because of a listed characteristic; the offense asks whether they knew they were doing so.

The punishment is a fine of not more than $1,000, confinement in county jail for not more than one year, or both.

The combination is unusual. A $1,000 maximum fine is trivial, while a year in county jail is the ceiling for a Class A misdemeanor — so the custodial exposure is serious and the financial one is not.

The provision is stated by punishment rather than by grade, which dates it: modern drafting names a class and lets the Penal Code supply the terms.

Its practical significance is not the sentence. Prosecutions under the section are rare, and its function is to mark official discrimination as criminal rather than merely actionable.

That characterisation has consequences elsewhere. A public servant convicted of an offense of this kind faces removal proceedings, licensing consequences and, under the local government indemnification chapter, the loss of any indemnification for official misconduct.

The offense reaches the same conduct the civil section prohibits, including the exceptions — so a school official acting under a desegregation plan, or an official operating a qualifying supplier diversity programme, commits no offense.