Pointing to striking
similarities with a 1999 case that made national headlines -- the
expulsion of six black high school students in Decatur for fighting --
local pastors met Tuesday with Proviso East High School officials in
Maywood hoping to get three expelled African-American students
reinstated.The Rev. Michael Stinson, from left, Erica Edmond and her son Coris Ashford, and Lavonne Glenn and Morelle Foster met Tuesday in a bid to have the three expelled teens reinstated at Proviso East High School in Maywood.
The three 16-year-olds were among 12 students initially suspended in May after a fight in a school hallway. But school board members voted Aug. 9 to expel some of the 12 for the 2010-11 school year because of their "participation in a mob action battery of a student which caused severe injury," according to letters sent to their parents.
Proviso Township High School District 209 school board President Emanuel "Chris" Welch said the board gave each student an individual hearing, then the full board voted on the expulsions. He said he stood by his vote and that the teens "do not deserve to walk in the halls of Proviso."
The three students who asked the pastors for help said two other people -- not them -- were involved in the fight but that school officials suspended everyone found in the hallway.
The Rev. Marshall Hatch, co-chair of the clergy-based Leaders Network who, as an official with the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition, participated with the Rev. Jesse Jackson in the Decatur protests, said the Proviso East students were expelled with no alternative educational options given.
"The larger picture here is how cavalierly African-Americans can be dismissed out of school for an entire year with unclear evidence that they were involved in the assault," said Hatch.
"Even African-American administrators can fall prey to stereotypical ways of looking at young black kids, particularly black males," he said. "To put them out of school without alternative educational programs is misguided, and every day out of school is a potential tragic day for these teens because of the community they're in. It's like a death sentence."
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SOURCE: The Chicago Tribune
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