The Justice Department is siding with a black female student and the American Civil Liberties Union in a federal lawsuit against the state of South Carolina, in a case about the violent incident captured between a school police resource officer and the student that went viral in 2015.
In the case of Niya Kenny v. South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson, the Justice Department filed a statement with the court saying it has an interest in the case because the “alleged violations of the Due Process Clause in the administration of juvenile justice — fall squarely within the ambit of the United States’ enforcement authority.”
Kenny, 18, was arrested after standing up for her fellow classmate who was flipped over in her desk and thrown to the ground by Richland County Deputy Ben Fields, a white school resource officer at Spring Valley High School in Columbia. Fields was called to the classroom because the unnamed female student refused to surrender her cell phone.
The incident was captured in multiple short video clips that went viral on social media in October 2015 and triggered national outrage.
The Justice Department believes two state statutes used to arrest Kenny — including one that makes it a crime to “willfully or unnecessarily” disturb a learning environment — should be struck down. The federal lawsuit alleges that the statute unfairly targets minorities.
In its “statement of interest,” the department also said the state statutes are too vague and contribute to what it calls the “school-to-prison pipeline.”
Kenny and the ACLU filed the lawsuit on Aug. 11 in the U.S. District Court of South Carolina/Charleston Division asking for the charges to be dismissed. Following the incident, Kenny dropped out of school.
“Students are being channeled into the criminal justice system for regular adolescent behavior that schools have dealt with for generations. This shift toward criminalization is hurting young people, particularly students of color,” ACLU attorney Sarah Hinger said in August.
Fields was fired from his job, and prosecutors announced in September he would not face criminal charges for the incident.
