PONTIAC, MI – A 15-year-old African-American teenage girl from Oakland County, Michigan is being kept incarcerated because she didn’t do her homework during the COVID-19 pandemic. Named only “Grace” in court papers, Judge Mary Ellen Brennan, according to Pro Publica, she was incarcerated in May for violating her probation by not completing her online coursework when her school in Beverly Hills switched to remote learning.
“The case may also reflect, some experts and Grace’s mother believe, systemic racial bias. Grace is Black in a predominantly white community and in a county where a disproportionate percentage of Black youth are involved with the juvenile justice system,” Pro Publica reported.
“Who can even be a good student right now?” said Ricky Watson Jr., executive director of the National Juvenile Justice Network. “Unless there is an urgent need, I don’t understand why you would be sending a kid to any facility right now and taking them away from their families with all that we are dealing with right now.”