South Carolina: Criminal offense or adolescent misbehavior? 'Disturbing schools' blurs the line

‘Disturbing schools’ law was written to protect girls’ schools, not to arrest students

The authors of South Carolina’s original 1917 disturbing schools law could not have envisioned that it would one day become the No. 1 justification for police arresting students. That’s because the law was not meant to apply to students. “The intent was always to protect against interlopers, trespassers, somebody who had a gripe or a grudge,” said Jay Elliott, a Columbia attorney and former police officer who has studied and critiqued the disturbing schools law for decades. In its earliest form, passed in 1919, the law prohibited “Disturbing Schools Attended by Girls or Women.” At any school or college attended ...

Continue reading...

http://www.postandcourier.com/20160...-protect-girls-schools-not-to-arrest-students

 

Criminal offense or adolescent misbehavior? 'Disturbing schools' blurs the line

Caleb Adams is 14. No taller than 5 feet 4 inches or heavier than 100 pounds, he wears his hair slicked dramatically to one side and a silver crucifix around his neck. His parents say he's generally a good kid. But sometimes his hunger for attention leads him into trouble, as does his attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. By the time he left C.E. Williams Middle School, he had been suspended so many times — for speaking out of turn, playing paper football with salt packets from the cafeteria, dancing in the middle of class — he said he missed more ...

Continue reading...

http://www.postandcourier.com/20160...misbehavior-disturbing-schools-blurs-the-line

 

South Carolina Law on Disrupting School Faces Legal Challenge

The video was startling and soon went viral: A white sheriff’s deputy in a South Carolina high school drags a black girl from her desk, slams her to the floor and then handcuffs her. The girl’s crime? She had refused a teacher’s order to put away her cellphone, then refused an order to leave the classroom. Taped by her fellow students at Spring Valley High School in Columbia, that jolting encounter last October was widely condemned as police overkill. It led to the officer’s rapid dismissal, a federal civil rights investigation and national reflection on the line between youthful misbehavior ...

Continue reading...

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/12/us/south-carolina-schools.html

 

ACLU, Arrested Students Sue Over South Carolina's 'Disturbing Schools' Law

A group of students who've been charged under South Carolina's "disturbing a school" law filed a lawsuit with backing from the American Civil Liberties Union, arguing that the law is overly broad and leads to unnecessarily harsh discipline in the state's public schools. The suit comes the same week the South Carolina Board of Education gave tentative approval to new regulations for school-based police officers, with some academics and child advocacy groups arguing the rules don't go far enough. The lead plaintiff in the suit, Niya Kenny, was arrested under the state law after she filmed a classmate's violent arrest ...

Continue reading...

http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/rule...r_south_carolinas_disturbing_schools_law.html

 

Federal suit challenges SC 'disturbing schools' law

A Greenville County student is among a group of plaintiffs in a federal lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of South Carolina’s law that makes it a crime to “disturb” schools. The New York-based American Civil Liberties Union, along with its South Carolina affiliate, filed the suit Thursday in U.S. District Court in Charleston. The organization in a release contends that “hundreds of students – as young as 7 years old – are being charged under a far-reaching and nebulous statute for behaviors like loitering, cursing, or undefined ‘obnoxious’ actions on school grounds." “The statute also has a chilling effect on students ...

Continue reading...

http://www.greenvilleonline.com/sto...hallenges-sc-disturbing-schools-law/88582064/

 

South Carolina schools often criminalize black students. The ACLU is fighting back.

As America’s criminal justice system became more punitive over the past few decades, so did school discipline. In fact, school discipline became so harsh that it became tied to the criminal justice system — getting students sent to jail for infractions that may have gotten them detention before. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) on Thursday announced that it’s suing South Carolina to fight laws that fuel this "school-to-prison pipeline." According to the ACLU, the "disturbing schools" law "allows students in school to be criminally charged for typical adolescent behaviors including loitering, cursing, or undefined ‘obnoxious’ actions on school grounds." ...

Continue reading...

http://www.vox.com/2016/8/12/12451572/south-carolina-school-disturbance-law

 

‘Disturbing school’ law faces challenge

“Disturbing a school” or acting “in an obnoxious manner” is a crime in South Carolina, but the law is unconstitutionally vague, charges the ACLU. Thousands of students — disproportionately African-American — have faced charges, says the civil rights group. The ACLU is challenging the law on behalf of Niya Kenny, who was arrested last fall after a school police officer violently removed a classmate who’d refused the teacher’s order to put away her phone. Kenny stood up and cursed the officer, but didn’t interfere with the arrest, she told the New York Times. Kenny was calling attention to police abuse, ...

Continue reading...

http://www.joannejacobs.com/2016/08/disturbing-school-law-faces-challenge/

 

Scoppe: Why we shouldn’t arrest kids, or adults, for cursing or being obnoxious

I HAD JUST LEFT the home of a friend who lives in one of those gated communities that rents a security guard to enforce its speed limit when I saw the blue lights flashing behind me. I pulled over, and the security guard walked up and asked if I realized I was driving 35 in a 30 zone. “Oh my goodness; you must be kidding,” I said, allowing him to believe that I meant, “I can’t believe I was driving so ridiculously fast.” Of course what I actually meant was: “I can’t believe you’re wasting my time stopping me for ...

Continue reading...

http://www.thestate.com/opinion/opn-columns-blogs/cindi-ross-scoppe/article95772347.html

 

Former South Carolina deputy seen in video manhandling teen won’t be charged

A former South Carolina police deputy seen violently tossing a high school student to the ground in a classroom will not face any criminal charges. Prosecutors issued the decision Friday from the October 2015 incident captured on a student's smartphone. Ben Fields, who became known on social media as "Officer Slam" was fired from the Richland County Police force after he was recorded in the disturbing altercation with a student who refused to put away her cellphone after repeatedly instructed to do so by her teacher Fields enters the classroom, standing over the student who is seated in her desk ...

Continue reading...

http://blavity.com/south-carolina-deputy-manhandling-teen-wont-charged/