BATON ROUGE, LA – Attorney General Jeff Landry voiced his serious concerns to top education officials in Louisiana over the lack of due process for Ka’Mauri Harrison, a 9-year old fourth-grader who was suspended earlier this month after safely and responsibly handling a BB gun during a virtual learning session, and other students who have been denied appeals.
In a letter to the Louisiana Department of Education and the Louisiana Board of Elementary and Secondary Education, AG Landry notes that the law clearly grants parents and their child a right to appeal to the School Board and to seek judicial review of a decision by the Superintendent when the child has been recommended for expulsion. By systemically violating students’ constitutional rights, AG Landry declares, school systems’ eligibility for state and federal funds are jeopardized.
“Legal action can often be a lengthy process, but I am committed to seeing this through no matter how long it takes,” said AG Landry. “Today’s letter is just the next of many steps my office and I are taking to seek justice for Ka’Mauri and his family.”
“Ka’Mauri is a bright young man with a great family; and the fact that he was recommended for expulsion, received a suspension, and not given his right to appeal is appalling,” added AG Landry. “Ka’Mauri was not only deprived of educational instruction, he was also denied opportunity.”
“This Harrison family has basically been sent into a bureaucratic abyss for no reason and told there is no way out,” concluded AG Landry. “The ‘adults in the room’ failed Ka’Mauri when they unfairly punished him; I will not let them fail him again.”
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