Sentenced to school as a teenager, young black woman sues Illinois city for violating her civil rights

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It took four years and a jury trial for Amara Harris to beat the ticket that accused her of stealing another girl's AirPods. Now she's heading back to court in hopes of stopping schools from using police to discipline students.

Illinois law prohibits schools from fining students. But police regularly issue tickets to children for minor misbehavior at school, imposing financial penalties on families.

Amara Harris, the young black woman from the Chicago suburbs who won a year-long fight against a police ticket accusing her of stealing a classmate's AirPods, has once again taken her fight to the courts. courts Tuesday.

This time she was the plaintiff and not the defendant.

The civil rights trial

Harris' lawyers filed a federal lawsuit Tuesday alleging civil rights violations, including racial discrimination and malicious prosecution. When she was a high school student in 2019, a city police officer based at the school, using information gathered by the school's deans, ticketed her for violating a city ordinance against theft. Harris has always said she didn't steal the AirPods, but got them by mistake, thinking they were hers.

The city refused to remove the ticket, which could have cost Harris up to $500, despite a lack of evidence, according to the lawsuit. Harris maintained his innocence for nearly four years and took the order violation case to a rare jury trial in August. A jury found Harris not responsible after a three-day trial.

The lawsuit names as defendants Naperville — Illinois' fourth-largest city, about 30 miles west of Chicago — as well as former school police officer Juan Leon and his then-supervisor, Jonathan Pope. Leon, who issued the ticket, acknowledged at trial that he had no direct evidence that Harris stole the AirPods.

ProPublica and the Chicago Tribune first highlighted Harris' 2022 fight as part of “The Price Kids Pay” investigation, which examined school ticketing in Illinois schools and its impact on students and their families. Two civil rights lawyers took on Harris' case after this story was published.

Harris' hopes

Now 21, Harris graduated from Spelman College in Atlanta on Sunday, then returned home to Naperville before the lawsuit was filed.

Harris said she hopes the lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, will not only rectify her troubling experience but also allow students to be treated fairly. The lawsuit seeks compensatory damages of at least $20 million, punitive damages and asks Naperville and its police department to implement training and monitoring to prevent future civil rights violations.

“They were wrong and they need to face the consequences and be held accountable for what they did and for dragging this out,” Harris told ProPublica this week.

Defense of the city

Naperville City Attorney Mike DiSanto said in a statement that the allegations “are without merit” and that the city plans to “vigorously defend this lawsuit.” He said the city relied on statements from school officials and students, and noted that the city had won several pretrial motions, including one from Harris' attorneys seeking to have the case thrown out.

“The fact that the jury acquitted Ms. Harris does not negate the factual basis for the actions of the City and its officers,” according to the statement.

Investigation

“The Price Kids Pay” investigation found that across Illinois, students were subjected to a capricious system of police tickets as a form of school discipline. Municipal tickets – for violating ordinances such as vaping, truancy and disorderly conduct – are difficult to fight and often come with fines and administrative fees that can reach hundreds of dollars. Some families fell into debt and faced serious financial consequences due to unpaid tickets. Unlike juvenile court, there is no option for a public defender. And taking the case to a jury, as Harris did, can require incredible resources and commitment.

“We hope to emphasize that this form of discipline must be prohibited throughout the state of Illinois and indeed throughout the country,” said Juan Thomas, Harris' attorney and recent chair of the Civil Rights and Justice Section. social justice of the American American Association. Order of the Bar.

Following Tribune-ProPublica investigation, Illinois superintendent of education asked administrators to stop handing discipline over to police, Gov. JB Pritzker said he wanted to end ticketing School and state lawmakers have considered ways to change the law, although efforts have stalled. the last two legislative sessions.

[Related: What happened after Minneapolis removed police officers from schools]

S. Todd Yeary, who also represents Harris, said he hopes the lawsuit will deter schools from using tickets, as it did in Harris' case.

“If lawmakers fail to fix the law, if the system fails to ensure accountability, the only recourse is to involve the courts,” said Yeary, former CEO of the Rainbow PUSH Coalition. a civil rights organization.

“It's about the courage of a young woman who said, 'The reason I'm not going to pay the ticket is because I didn't do anything wrong,'” Yeary said. Just before the trial began in August, a Naperville prosecutor offered to settle the case if Harris paid a $100 fine. She refused.

The ProPublica-Tribune investigation found that black students were twice as likely to receive a ticket at school as their white peers. At Naperville North High School, Harris' school, black students were nearly five times more likely than white students to be ticketed by police during the three school years examined by the survey, through spring 2021 .

The lawsuit alleges that Harris was discriminated against because she is black and that the ticket she was issued “constituted racial discrimination, denial of constitutional rights, intimidation and retaliation.”

“If ever there was a civil rights issue, this is it,” Yeary said.

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Naperville spokeswoman Linda LaCloche previously denied that race played a role in Harris' case or in police decisions to ticket students. The school district distanced itself from the matter and said it was Naperville police who decided whether to ticket students.

Since police issued him the ticket, Harris has graduated from high school early, earned an associate's degree from a community college, studied abroad in Japan, and earned a B.S. international. She said she was considering applying to veterinary school.

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Jodi S. Cohen is a reporter for ProPublica whose work has examined the widespread practice of forcing students into school by police, the improper use of seclusion and restraint in Illinois public schools, systemic problems in Michigan's juvenile justice system and a college financial aid scam. Previously, Cohen worked at the Chicago Tribune where she covered higher education and helped expose a secret admissions system at the University of Illinois. Her stories led to changes in state laws and policies as well as the release of a detained teenager.

Jennifer Smith Richards is a reporter for ProPublica. Previously, she worked for the Chicago Tribune, where her work exposed student school violations, educator abuses, wasteful government spending, sexual abuse in schools, failures of police accountability and mistreatment of students with disabilities. Richard's stories led to new state laws, lawsuits against school officials, and the creation of child welfare units in school districts and state education departments. 'State.

ProPublica is an independent, nonprofit newsroom that produces investigative journalism with moral force. We dig deep into important issues, shining a light on abuses of power and betrayals of public trust – and we stick with these issues for as long as it takes to hold power to account.