Texas Judge Orders Largest Sanctions Ever Against CPS For Lying to Remove Children: Just One Problem, the Parents Are White
Family court Judge Mike Schneider awards Melissa and Dillon Bright a $127, 000 settlement against cps workers Levar Jones and his supervisor Niesha Edwards — who lied in order to remove their two young children — and orders them to have no contact with the children.
First and foremost, I am genuinely happy for the Bright family — having been reunited with their children (ages 5 months and 2 years) and for helping to expose the unethical and illegal behaviors of DHS workers. All that being said, this case serves as a reminder and example of white privilege within the child welfare system. After all, I have yet to see a black family — there was the one time when CPS was called on Will and Jada Pinkett-Smith when their then tween daughter Willow appeared in a photo with an older man on social media, needless to say, DHS found nothing after conducting their intrusive investigation — who has experienced a similar situation (i.e., the unjust and needless removal of their children by unscrupulous and lying DHS workers) receive the same amount of media coverage — if they receive any media coverage at all — that this family and case has. Moreover, I don’t believe that the outcome — both legally and financially — would have been the same had the family been black.
It is white privilege that makes these kinds of stories news worthy in the first place.
Speaking as social justice advocate with extensive personal and professional child welfare experience, — several of my own children were unjustly removed by dishonest and unethical Ohio DHS workers — this kind of scenario is fairly common, routine even at some agencies, within the child welfare “system” — that is, a child is accidentally injured, the concerned parent(s) takes the child to the hospital, the parent(s) are subsequently reported to DHS/CPS by healthcare personnel, and child welfare workers willfully engage in fraudulent, illegal, and/or otherwise unethical behaviors resulting in erroneous and traumatic child removals wherein the child is subjected to abuse while in foster care (in this case the Bright’s 2-year-old daughter was abused during her time living with a foster family).
Family Law Judge Mike Schneider stated that he would have made Child Protective Services pay even more but didn’t want to burden taxpayers.
What was uncommon about this case, however, was the fact that healthcare professionals — who are around 10 times more likely to call DHS on a black parent for suspected child abuse — decided to call CPS on a white, two-parent, middle-class family (which is the only reason why we know about this case) rather than the usual “suspect” low-income, overwhelmingly black, single parent. More uncommon, was the fact that the children were actually removed, rather than “screened-out” which is usually what happens when (white) middle-class parents are reported to CPS, and that the DHS workers responsible for the removal got “caught” misrepresenting facts — although, neither of the workers have been fired and are still employed at DHS as of now. Even more uncommon, some would say extraordinarily so, was the fact that the judge choose to hold the dishonest DHS workers accountable for their misrepresentations — something that, unfortunately, is very rare in child welfare cases.
“This is by far the largest sanction I’ve ever been a part of or ever heard of being imposed against CPS.”
— Dennis Slate, attorney for the Bright family
I have written extensively about white privilege within our child welfare system and this case — even though justice was eventually and rightly served — clearly demonstrates that privilege, especially for those of us who have intimate and/or first-hand knowledge of our current child welfare system. We know and understand that the only time anyone important — such as the media, politicians, advocacy groups, civil rights/parental attorneys, and federal judges — takes notice of, or even gives a flying-flip at all about, the arbitrarily horrendous treatment and needless separation of families (many permanent) by DHS workers and the all too eager to rubber stamp juvenile and family court judges — treatment that thousands of low-income and overwhelmingly black families endure every single day in this country — is when it happens to a “normal” everyday white family — families that look like and have the same socioeconomic background as the majority of the decision makers in child welfare system (e.g., DHS/CPS workers, judges, GAL’s, CASA’s, lawyers, and services providers themselves). Then, and only then, do (white) people start to pay attention enough to get uncomfortable, and unconformable enough to do something — like what was done in the Bright’s case (i.e., have no issues retaining an aggressive lawyer, having the children promptly returned, the judge holds DHS workers accountable, and adequately compensates the family for pain and suffering).
“The reason we’ve tolerated the level of impreciseness in these [child welfare] laws for decades, is that they tend to be employed almost exclusively in poor communities — communities that are already highly regulated and overseen by low-level bureaucrats like the police.” “For somebody like me, the ‘free-range’ cases that are hitting the paper today are a dream come true, because finally people who otherwise don’t care about this problem are now calling out and saying, ‘Aren’t we going too far here?’”
— Martin Guggenheim, New York University law professor and co-director of the school’s Family Defense Clinic.
In an 2015 article detailing a similar case — wherein a white two parent upper-middle-class family (Alexander and Danielle Meitiv) made international news when they were subjected to two intrusive DHS investigations and court orders — the writer states, “The Meitiv case was highly unusual, but not because of the arbitrariness or overreaction of CPS, it was unusual because the Meitivs are white, affluent, and highly educated: He’s a theoretical physicist, and she’s a science writer and consultant.” Diane Redleaf, executive director of the Family Defense Center, stated in the article and in response to the Meitiv case, “I’ve worked in this field for 35 years, and I can’t remember when child-welfare cases like this have been in the news.”
In other words, and like I stated previously, no one gives a damn about what DHS/CPS can and does do unless that which is done happens to negatively affect a white family with social and financial capital — when it does, it is a huge problem for all involved. Child welfare professionals and DHS officials know this universal and undeniable truth, a truth made possible by white privilege, which is why 99% of the time they don’t interfere with middle-class or upper-middle class (white) families, regardless of the perceived or actual condition of their children — for all intents and purposes, it really doesn't matter if children are being abused or neglected if the parents are white and middle or upper-class, DHS is more than likely not going to get involved.
This phenomenon (i.e., white privilege within the child welfare system) explains why children in (white) affluent households tend to suffer abuse and/or neglect in silence and without the needed and justified assistance of DHS and/or the child welfare system — while DHS focuses all they're attention and resources on easier targets (i.e., low-income and overwhelmingly black families). This is also the reason why there are virtually no middle-class or upper-middle-class children in state or foster care anywhere in the country. However, and for the sake of the thousands of low-income families that DHS/CPS needlessly rips apart on a daily basis, I hope that there are more cases like the Brights and Meitivs. Because, the more DHS workers targets families like the ones I discussed here,— and they will, considering the ever-growing child welfare industrial complex — the more likely it is that such actions will spur sweeping and long lasting change.
#NAFPAorg #AfricanAmericanChildWelfareAct #ChildWelfare #WhitePrivilege #LivingWhileBlack #BlackFamilyMatters #BlackLoveMatters #BlackLivesMatter #BlackFamiliesBelongTogether #BlackHistory #CasaSoWhite #NationalAdoptionDay
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Latagia Copeland-Tyronce, MSW, CADAS, is a longtime parental rights and social justice advocate, child welfare reform activist, writer/blogger, and journalist whose work has been featured in BlackMattersUs and Rise Magazine. She is the founder, president, and executive director of the National African American Families First and Preservation Association (NAFPA) a groundbreaking 501c4 nonprofit origination, the first of its kind, devoted exclusively to the protection and preservation of the African American (Black) Family though policy and legislative advocacy.
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