Mothers for Justice
Mothers for Justice formed in response to the feeling among Latino and African-American parents in the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District that students of color were being disciplined far more harshly than White students. Mothers for Justice came together after an incident at John Adams Middle School in which a Latino student and a White student got into a fight and the disciplinary actions resulted in the Latino student receiving a criminal charge of assault with a deadly weapon (which were his fists), while the White student merely received Saturday school. A group of mothers began communicating and organizing and soon discovered that there was a history of students of color receiving far harsher punishments than White students in the district. On June 27th Mothers for Justice marched down the Pico neighborhood to the district office where parents shared testimonies. Mothers for Justice also submitted a report to the district office citing statistical data that showed the disproportionate numbers of suspensions and expulsions experienced by Black and Latino students at Lincoln and John Adams middle school, and Santa Monica High School.
As a result of these efforts, John Deasy, Superintendent of SMMUSD, formed the Race and Discipline Task Force comprised of members of Mothers for Justice, community activists, city personnel, clergy and counselors. According to Mothers for Justice member Irma Carranza, the Race and Discipline Task Force ultimately discovered that “a lot of data was missing.” According to Ms. Carranza, “We had no idea how many times police came on campus, or students were interrogated or arrested.” The task force has since created a “Police on Campus Form” that administrators are required to fill out whenever police visit the school and that asks for information on who called the police, the officer’s name, the ethnicity and grade of the youth, the type of incident and any documentation that changed hands between the school and the law enforcement personnel. The task force additionally created a series of protocols that require the school to notify parents immediately if their child is involved in a police-related incident at the school. These protocols requires that the student be informed of his or her rights, including, the right to have a parent present and the fifth ammendment. Currently, Mothers for Justice is looking at why students of color are not achieving at the same level as White students and working to create more awareness of cultural differences in the community.
