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- Title
DISRUPTING THE TRAJECTORY: REPRESENTING DISABLED AFRICAN AMERICAN BOYS IN A SYSTEM DESIGNED TO SEND THEM TO PRISON.
- Authors
Hill, Leah Aileen
- Abstract
This Essay presents the narrative of three African American brothers as they journey through the special education system. Their narrative illustrates the human cost of the failure to implement reforms meant to combat the systemic inequality that supports the school-to-prison pipeline. The brothers' narrative is shaped by several factors all too common to the school-to-prison pipeline: unequal treatment of children of color in schools; lack of access to quality health care; structural flaws in the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act ("IDEA "); and poverty. The IDEA is a statute designed to protect the rights of children with disabilities by mandating that states provide students with disabilities with a "free appropriate education " tailored to their unique needs. This Essay recommends interim solutions to address the negative outcomes for students with disabilities caught in the school-to-prison pipeline. Namely, students with disabilities should have access to free interdisciplinary legal services to enforce their rights under the IDEA and to assist with providing access to health care. The Essay suggests that, although there is widespread recognition of the need to implement reforms to address the school-to-prison pipeline, achieving reform is complicated by the deep structural flaws in the systems that contribute to the pipeline. As a result, reform is a slow-moving process. A ll the while, a whole class of students continues to enter the pipeline and face potentially grave consequences. These students need solutions now. While access to justice and health care advocacy will not eliminate the pipeline, it can provide much needed relief for individual students and disrupt the pipeline, one case at a time.
- Subjects
LEGAL status of juvenile prisoners; JUVENILE offenders -- Trials, litigation, etc.; CRIMINAL justice system; JUVENILE delinquency; DISCRIMINATION in juvenile justice administration; JUVENILE prisoners; CRIME victims
- Publication
Fordham Urban Law Journal, 2017, Vol 45, Issue 1, p201
- ISSN
0199-4646
- Publication type
Article