Mississippi School-to-Prison Pipeline continues to outrage
Officials and civil rights activists want arrests of students, mostly Black, to stop.
By Jonathan P. Hicks
BET
Federal civil rights attorneys are suing the city of Meridian, Mississippi, and others for operating what the government labels a school-to-prison pipeline. Federal lawyers contend that students in Meridian are being denied their constitutional rights and that they are incarcerated for minor infractions in school.
The defendants include Lauderdale County, judges of the county's Youth Court and the State of Mississippi Division of Youth Services. Roughly 6,000 students, more than 85 percent of them African-American, attend grades kindergarten through 12th grade in a dozen schools in the Lauderdale County School District.
"We had no choice but to file suit," said Roy Austin, a deputy assistant attorney general.
It's the first time that a local jurisdiction has been charged under a law designed to protect the due process rights of juveniles in such circumstances.
According to the suit filed by the Justice Department, children in the schools have been arrested and handcuffed while at school. Also, the students are often detained for more than 48 hours while waiting for a hearing, the suit says. Also, the municipalities do not provide students with legal representation.
Derrick T. Simmons, a state senator in Mississippi, said that the conditions in the school system have created a firestorm in the state.
"People are extremely alarmed and outraged by this case," Simmons said in an interview with BET.com.
"What is most alarming is the fact these children are not committing violations that are serious," said Simmons, who is Black. "They are arrested for things like not wearing the proper school clothes or talking in class. It's very disturbing because I would have to believe that there are students who don't look like me who are violating school rules at the same rate, but nothing happens to them."
Austin said that Meridian is not the only location in the country with such a system. However, he said, it is the only one to date where local authorities have not been fully cooperative with federal investigators.
Simmons said a decision is expected in the early part of 2013.
+ Top Story
The Justice Department secretly obtained two months of telephone records of reporters and editors for The Associated Press in what the news cooperative’s top executive called a “massive and unprecedented intrusion” into how news organizations gather the news.
The woman’s voice was frantic and breathless, and she was choking back tears. “Help me. I’m Amanda Berry,” she told a 911 dispatcher. “I’ve been kidnapped and I’ve been missing for 10 years and I’m, I’m here, I’m free now.”
PepsiCo is once again learning the risks of celebrity partnerships after an ad for Mountain Dew was criticized for portraying racial stereotypes and making light of violence toward women. The soda and snack food company said it immediately pulled the 60-second spot after learning that people found it offensive.
Kiera Wilmot, 16, is by all known accounts an excellent student with impeccable behavior. She is also — now — a marked woman who will be tried as an adult for discharging a weapon on school grounds in what was allegedly a bungled science experiment," reports WSTB.com.
America's blacks voted at a higher rate than other minority groups in 2012 and by most measures surpassed the white turnout for the first time, reflecting a deeply polarized presidential election in which blacks strongly supported Barack Obama while many whites stayed home.
Three college friends of Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev were arrested and accused Wednesday of trying to protect him by going into his dorm room and getting rid of a backpack filled with hollowed-out fireworks three days after the deadly attack.
Chris Kelly, half of the 1990s kid rap duo behind one of the decade's most memorable songs, "Jump," has died at an Atlanta hospital of an apparent drug overdose, authorities said. He was 34. Kelly, known as "Mac Daddy," and Chris Smith, known as "Daddy Mac," made up the rap group Kris Kross...
According to the data found in a new report, “The Buying Power of Black America,” now may be the most opportune time ever for businesses to develop a strategy for increasing their share of the Black American market.