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A group of Florida teenagers has brought suit against the city of West Palm Beach, in hopes of overturning that city’s youth curfew.
The National Youth Rights Association of Southeast Florida (NYRA-SEFL) filed the lawsuit in federal court late last month, after their efforts to negotiate with the city were rebuffed.
According to the executive director of the national NYRA, this lawsuit is the first formal legal challenge to a curfew ordinance ever brought by a youth-led youth civil rights group.
Afternoon update: Here’s a copy of the complaint.
An Arkansas teenager and her mother are suing a private Christian high school over the treatment the daughter received when school officials learned she was pregnant.
According to the lawsuit, officials at Trinity Christian School badgered the teen into admitting her pregnancy, then expelled her on the spot with only eleven days remaining in the school year. After telling the student (who is not named in public court documents) that she was being expelled, school officials escorted her to a Christian pregnancy crisis center, where she was administered a pregnancy test and given counseling. Staff at the crisis center then shared information about the student with the school.
At no point during their questioning of the student or the trip to the crisis center did school officials contact the student’s mother.
The lawsuit charges race and gender discrimination as well as false imprisonment and intentional infliction of emotional distress. The suit claims that other students who were known by the school to have engaged in sexual activity were not expelled.
The remaining five Jena Six defendants pleaded to reduced charges yesterday, ending a court case that dragged on for two and a half years and sparked national controversy.
In the fall of 2006, three white students hung nooses from a tree on the grounds of Louisiana’s Jena High School, a mostly-white school in a rural part of the state, and school administrators called the incident a harmless prank.
A few months later a white student was beaten at school by six blacks, later identified as the Jena Six. Though no weapons were used in the assault, and the victim suffered no long-term physical harm, the six were initially charged with attempted murder, and one was convicted by an all-white jury of charges that carried a maximum jail term of twenty-two years. (His conviction was later thrown out, after which he pled guilty to a reduced charge.)
The other five defendants remained in legal limbo until yesterday, when each pleaded no contest to misdemeanor charges of simple battery. Each will pay $500 to $1,000 in court costs and fines, and will be placed on unsupervised probation for seven days. A civil lawsuit filed by the beating victim was settled immediately before the sentencing for undisclosed terms.
The five remaining Jena Six defendants are expected to plead guilty to reduced charges today. No information on the specifics of the plea deal has been released.
The Jena Six were students at Jena High School in Jena, Louisiana, in 2006 when they were accused of beating a white youth. The incident followed months of racial conflict at the school.
The Six were charged with attempted murder in the wake of the beating, a far more serious charge than any white student involved in similar recent assaults. Wikipedia has a detailed discussion of the ensuing controversy here.
One member of the Jena Six pled guilty to battery in late 2007.
In an unexpectedly lopsided 8-1 vote, the United States Supreme Court this morning ruled that the 2003 school strip search of eighth grader Savana Redding was unconstitutional.
I wrote about oral arguments in the case, Safford v. Redding, here, here, and here. Today’s Supreme Court ruling can be found here. I’ll have more on the decision next week.
Evening update: Here’s some interesting coverage of the decision from Pandagon, Meanwhile, the Washington Post wonders whether this is Justice Souter’s last opinion.
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