LDF attorney Damon Hewitt discussed LDF’s latest advocacy efforts to dismantle the School to Prison Pipeline live on the nationally syndicated Tom Joyner Morning Show with correspondent Roland Martin.
The discussion highlighted LDF’s recent advocacy efforts, including an historic consent decree on school discipline issues in the long-standing Barnhardt v. Meridian Municipal Separate School District school desegregation case and a federal civil rights complaint filed in Bryan, Texas, challenging the school district’s use of police officers to issue criminal misdemeanor tickets to students for minor misbehavior, such as disrupting class and cursing. As Mr. Hewitt explained, these are just two of many examples of similar cases nationwide.
You can listen to the interview here.
LDF has led nationwide effort to address the School to Prison Pipeline. In a recent article in the Washington, DC-based journal POLITIO, LDF Director-Counsel Sherrilyn Ifill called upon school districts to reject harsh practices that label children as criminals by unnecessarily pushing them out of school and into the juvenile and criminal justice systems. And LDF staff attorneys, along with partners from the Dignity in Schools Campaign, have led a years-long lobbying effort on Capitol Hill to push lawmakers to change federal education policy to replace harsh discipline with proven alternatives.
Read more about LDF’s School to Prison Pipeline advocacy efforts here.
