Exploring the Spectrum: How the Law May Advance a Social Movement

2016, Past Issues, Print, Volume 48 (2016) Issue 2 (Summer)
Tiffani Darden. The school-to-prison pipeline too often places young people into a hamster’s spinning wheel. According to the Department of Justice, suspension from school diminishes a student’s chance to graduate from high school and increases a student’s chance at entering the juvenile justice system. The rollercoaster halts only when interrupted by a young person’s confrontation with adult criminal courts. In my opinion, a balanced approach, reconfigured to critique public education alongside youth correctional facilities, will more fully develop our understanding of the problem and assist in crafting holistic solutions. Children should not suffer undue trauma associated with adjudication, the “delinquent” label, and separation from supportive family and community networks. The school-to-prison pipeline literature places a heavy onus upon public schools to reform internal policies—scholars focus heavily on prevention at the…
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Managing Our Blind Spot: The Role of Bias in the School-to-Prison Pipeline

2016, Past Issues, Print, Volume 48 (2016) Issue 2 (Summer)
Laura R. McNeal. For decades, we have witnessed the increased criminalization of our nation’s youth, especially youth of color and students with disabilities, through the implementation of “zero tolerance” policies and overly harsh school disciplinary practices. Instead of improving school safety, these practices have blurred the lines between school discipline and school safety, pushing students out of school and into the juvenile justice system. Perhaps most troubling and relevant are the concerns expressed in the post-Ferguson era regarding allegations of inappropriate and excessive use of force by school police on students. In schools all over the nation, school police carry and use tasers and pepper spray in situations that do not call for this type of weaponry. Every year there is a new series of local news articles highlighting students…
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Dismantling the School-to-Prison Pipeline: Tools for Change

2016, Past Issues, Print, Volume 48 (2016) Issue 2 (Summer)
Jason P. Nance. The school-to-prison pipeline is one of our nation’s most formidable challenges. It refers to the trend of directly referring students to law enforcement for committing certain offenses at school or creating conditions under which students are more likely to become involved in the criminal justice system, such as excluding them from school. This article analyzes the school-to-prison pipeline’s devastating consequences on students, its causes, and its disproportionate impact on students of color. But most importantly, this article comprehensively identifies and describes specific, evidence-based tools to dismantle the school-to-prison pipeline that lawmakers, school administrators, and teachers in all areas can immediately support and implement. Further, it suggests initial strategies aimed at addressing implicit racial bias, which appears to be one of the primary causes of the racial disparities…
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The Misidentification of Children with Disabilities: A Harm with No Foul

2016, Past Issues, Print, Volume 48 (2016) Issue 2 (Summer)
Claire Raj. Special education, despite being a uniform federal mandate, is often implemented drastically differently depending on the school system delivering services, the particular category of disability, and the race or ethnicity of students. Affluent white children who attend well-managed school districts tend to benefit from special education services. In the under-funded and over-tasked districts where most minorities attend school, the special education system does not always provide the same benefits. In these schools, special education, too often, operates as a dumping ground for those students the general education system cannot or refuses to serve. In these instances, the label of “special education” may carry harms that outweigh its benefits. Full Article
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Returning to Plato’s Cave: Metadata’s Shadows in the Courtroom

2016, Past Issues, Print, Volume 48 (2016) Issue 2 (Summer)
Zachary Rosenberg. The computer revolution changed every facet of our lives, including litigation. Though computer interfaces are designed to display information through familiar renderings of everyday physical objects, computer files are stored and behave differently from their physical counterparts. Metadata, the information contained in a computer file that are almost invisible to users, can profoundly affect the admissibility and authenticity of digital files. This paper explains what metadata are and the role they play in litigation to authenticate other evidence or as evidence in itself. This paper proposes a new best practice for attorneys: whenever a lawyer receives an electronic file or hard drive from a client, the attorney should immediately back up and forensically image it so that the metadata are preserved. Full Article
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