{"id":3274,"date":"2007-03-25T20:46:07","date_gmt":"2007-03-26T03:46:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.amptoons.com\/blog\/archives\/2007\/03\/25\/paris-tx-schools-racism-and-shaquanda-cotton\/"},"modified":"2007-03-25T20:46:07","modified_gmt":"2007-03-26T03:46:07","slug":"paris-tx-schools-racism-and-shaquanda-cotton","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=3274","title":{"rendered":"Paris, TX Schools, Racism, and Shaquanda Cotton"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sharon <\/a>emailed me about the story of Shaquanda Cotton and asked that I put it up.\u00a0 I have seen several other bloggers\u00a0posting about her case (Here<\/a>, Here<\/a>, Here<\/a>, Here<\/a>).\u00a0Here’s an excerpt from the Chicago Tribune<\/a> that summarizes her case:<\/p>\n

And then there is the case that most troubles Cherry and leaders of the Texas NAACP, involving a 14-year-old black freshman, Shaquanda Cotton, who shoved a hall monitor at Paris High School in a dispute over entering the building before the school day had officially begun.<\/p>\n

The youth had no prior arrest record, and the hall monitor–a 58-year-old teacher’s aide–was not seriously injured. But Shaquanda was tried in March 2006 in the town’s juvenile court, convicted of “assault on a public servant” and sentenced by Lamar County Judge Chuck Superville to prison for up to 7 years, until she turns 21.<\/p>\n

Just three months earlier, Superville sentenced a 14-year-old white girl, convicted of arson for burning down her family’s house, to probation.<\/p>\n

“All Shaquanda did was grab somebody and she will be in jail for 5 or 6 years?” said Gary Bledsoe, an Austin attorney who is president of the state NAACP branch. “It’s like they are sending a signal to black folks in Paris that you stay in your place in this community, in the shadows, intimidated.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Personally, I think pushing a hall monitor is a serious offense, but not an offense that\u00a0could lead to up to 7 years in juvenile prison.\u00a0 Maybe something like a suspension even being sent to alternative school, but not 7 years in jail, especially when the teenager in question doesn’t have a prior criminal record.<\/p>\n

However,\u00a0when I\u00a0read about the case further, I even began to question those more conventional punishments.\u00a0 Here is why:<\/p>\n

In the past five years, black parents have filed at least a dozen discrimination complaints against the school district with the federal Education Department, asserting that their children, who constitute 40 percent of the district’s nearly 4,000 students, were singled out for excessive discipline.\u00a0<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In this particular case her mother believes that Shaquanda was targeted by school officials after the mother protested the school’s practices.\u00a0 When I read about the number of discrimination complaints leveled at the schools, I was shocked.\u00a0 It takes quite a bit of time and energy to file a complaint like this, which sets off red flags related to the schools practices. The US Department of Education has been investigating the school:<\/p>\n

But the federal investigations of the school district are not so clear-cut, and they are not finished. In one 2004 finding, Education Department officials determined that black students at a Paris middle school were being written up for disciplinary infractions more than twice as often as white students–and eight times as often in one category, “class disruption.”<\/p>\n

The Education Department asked the U.S. Justice Department to try to mediate disputes between black parents and the district, but school officials pulled out of the process last December before it was concluded.<\/p>\n

And in April 2006, the Education Department notified Paris school officials that it was opening a new, comprehensive review to determine “whether the district discriminated against African-American students on the basis of race” between 2004 and 2006. Federal officials say that investigation is still in progress.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

If you want more information about this case or would like to find contacts for the case, you can link to Sharon’s site<\/a>.\u00a0 She has a comprehensive list of links.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sharon emailed me about the story of Shaquanda Cotton and asked that I put it up.\u00a0 I have seen several other bloggers\u00a0posting about her case (Here, Here, Here, Here).\u00a0Here’s an excerpt from the Chicago Tribune that summarizes her case: And … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[93,92],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3274","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-race-racism-and-related-issues","category-whatever"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3274","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3274"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3274\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3274"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3274"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3274"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}