http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/11/us/school-discipline-to-girls-differs-between-and-within-races.html?ref=us&_r=0
Recently in Stockbridge, Georgia two girls were caught vandalizing a school gym bathroom. As a result, they were reprimanded and suspended from school for a few days. Both families were asked to pay $100 in restitution. Mikia Hutchings, who is 12 years old, could not pay the fee. She then had to attend a school disciplinary hearing and received a visit from a local police officer at her home. In order to dismiss charges at juvenile court, Mikia confessed to vandalizing and trespassing. Her punishment was a summer on probation under curfew, which required 16 hours of community service. On the other hand, Mikia's friend was able to pay the restitution fee and had no further consequences. The only difference, besides the fee paid, was the Mikia is an African American girl, and her friend is white.
Was Mikia treated unfairly under the law? Many think so, including her lawyer Michael J. Tafelski. He says that she faced harsher punishment because of her race, and he filed a complaint to the Justice Department. In Georgia, 5 black girls receive suspension from school to every 1 white girl. Of course Mikia did commit a crime; she wrote "Hi" on a bathroom stall door while her friend scribbled a message underneath, but does her punishment represent the proper reparation for her crime? Some argue that if her family had just paid the $100 fee, she would have been released like her friend.
What do you guys think? Was Mikia's punishment too harsh? Was she being discriminated against? With the protests concerning the Ferguson case in Missouri, the question of equal treatment under the law for all races is on our minds. The case with these girls and vandalism seems to be one more example of how there is a disparity between how people of different races are treated under the law.
Unit 5
Yeah...to me, this seems like grasping at straws. There is no evidence that Mikia would have been treated any worse than her friend had she paid the money, or that the friend would be treated better had she not. Yes, Mikia's punishment was to harsh (why didn't they just have them clean the bathroom for a week or something?), but cries of rascism here seem to me to be a little like crying wolf.
ReplyDeleteI don't think this was racist. One family pay the fine and the other couldn't. It did say that both were suspended for a few days. I do think that her punishment was a little high, they should have worked out a better deal for her to try and earn that 100 dollars.
ReplyDeleteI don't think that this was unfair they both had the same consequence one could pay the other could't they just came up with a new consequence.
ReplyDeleteI do think that it was a harsh punishment for a 12 year old. But she was unable to pay the money so she had to be punished differently than the girl who did pay money. I don't think it had anything to do with race.
ReplyDeleteI think the punishment was rather harsh. All should be equal under the law, and I think both girls would've been subject to the same punishment had both been unable to pay, but if the rules are so strict, I'm assuming they are in place to teach a lesson, why didn't both girls have to do community service? Why is there even a payment opt out?
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