This summer, a 59-page complaint was filed with the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice by the social justice groups Texas Appleseed, the National Center for Youth Law, and Disability Rights Texas on behalf of seven Dallas area students.
The complaint, which is the result of a year-long investigation, details civil rights violations that frequently occur in the “school-to-prison-pipeline” in Texas.
In Texas, if a student is absent or tardy “too much,” both the student and parents can be convicted of a Class C misdemeanor and fined up to $500 in addition to court costs per extra absence. In the name of helping the student, the state has actually fast-tracked them into the prison system.
According to the complaint: “Once ensnared in the Dallas County truancy court process, children are subjected to a byzantine legal process resulting in increasingly punitive measures including arrest, handcuffing, and threats of jail time and detention. The harms of the system extend to students’ families, who get caught in a cycle of workdays missed due to court hearings and debt flowing from fines, costs, and fees.”
The complaint indicts a racist “truancy court” system that violates the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Equal Educational Opportunities Act and the Civil Rights Act.
Children’s rights violated
The complaint also alleges that “Dallas County violates children’s rights by failing to appoint counsel for truancy court proceedings,” and that “minority students are disproportionately referred.” The complaint details how students have been given truancy convictions for cases such as caring for a mother with congestive heart failure, giving birth, chronic respiratory disability, using the restroom, and missing classes while serving an out of school suspension given by the school itself.
The Dallas County truancy courts are not about “justice” or helping students. They are an attack on the rights of children, families and workers. It is a “legal” system designed to criminalize young people from poor families and fill the booming Texas private for-profit prison system with cheap labor.
What does the existence of the truancy court in Texas tell us? It shows that public education and the judicial system under capitalism are becoming more oppressive. An apartheid school-to-prison-pipeline is being strengthened. How should we respond? We must fight back for the rights and futures of our children and communities.
