- Squatter sues homeowners from prison, gets default judgment [Eric Ross, KOAA; Colorado Springs. Colo.]
- “Judge Thomas Hardiman on the history of judicial independence” [Cato Audio of last year’s Constitution Day lecture]
- There really needs to be an off ramp at Child Protective Services by which an investigation of a family that proves unfounded can just end instead of cycling through more and more investigation [Lenore Skenazy]
- Authors, journalists, photojournalists challenge AB5 in court: “California’s Anti-Freelancer Law Violates the First Amendment” [Trevor Burrus on Cato amicus brief in American Society of Journalists et al. v. Becerra, Ninth Circuit]
- California’s legislature has long been itching to gut or repeal Proposition 109 (1996), in which voters banned race and sex preferences. Now they’re going to try to bring back the old identity-spoils system [Gail Heriot, RealClearPolitics]
- “Identifying #NeverNeeded Regulation after COVID-19” [Cato Daily Podcast with Caleb Brown and Matthew D. Mitchell, Mercatus Center]
Posts Tagged ‘Child Protective Services’
Read: my WSJ piece on a bad Minnesota bill on race and child welfare
Cato has now reprinted, with no paywall, my February Wall Street Journal piece on an audaciously unconstitutional bill moving through the Minnesota senate committee that would introduce explicit racial classifications into the state’s child welfare system, the idea being to institute markedly stronger protections for black families (but not others) against child removal. Earlier here.
Minnesota bill would prescribe child-removal standards that differ by race
“Should the law require state child-welfare authorities to treat black children differently from white children? Lawmakers in Minnesota may soon vote on a bill to do just that. ” I have an op-ed in the weekend Wall Street Journal’s “Cross Country” column (paywalled) on a bill that has passed a Minnesota senate committee and would introduce explicit racial classifications into the state’s child welfare system, the idea being to institute markedly stronger protections for black families against child removal. I argue that if the provisions are a good idea, they should apply to all families, an argument with implications for the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA), on which the Minnesota bill was modeled. More on the proposed Minnesota African American Family Preservation Act: Sara Tiano/Chronicle of Social Change, Brainerd Dispatch, Insight News.
A podcast on the Indian Child Welfare Act
I join Caleb Brown at the Cato Daily Podcast for a discussion of the constitutional and practical problems with the Indian Child Welfare Act of 1978 and the challenge currently before the Fifth Circuit in Brackeen v. Bernhardt.
Schools and childhood roundup
- Most kids find whole milk the most palatable and there’s now evidence that it can also be a healthier choice for many. So why should the federal school lunch program prevent localities from offering it? [Change.org petition, Alice Park, Time 2016; Skeptical Cardiologist; Philip Gruber, Lancaster Farming] Don’t expect much from new changes to federal school lunch program [Baylen Linnekin]
- Even when one parent’s a pediatric emergency room doc, a family can still be vulnerable to having their infant seized by Child Protective Services over ambiguous indicators of physical injury. A Wisconsin nightmare [Mike Hixenbaugh, NBC News; Lenore Skenazy]
- Economist Emily Oster speaks on her book Cribsheet: A Data-Driven Guide to Better, More Relaxed Parenting, from Birth to Preschool [Cato event video, joined by Julie Gunlock and Chelsea Follett, and related Cato Daily Podcast with Oster and Caleb Brown]
- “A 2019 report found that the number of small family child care providers (one person caring for children in his/her own home) declined by 35 percent from 2011 to 2017. … Unsurprisingly, during this same time child care licensing requirements increased dramatically.” [Angela Rachidi, AEI; earlier here, here, here, etc.]
- On requirements for “community service hours” before graduation: “My line is that community service is for convicted criminals, but high school students are innocent.” [Arnold Kling]
- “Florida 6-year-old arrested, handcuffed for elementary school tantrum” [Ebony Bowden, New York Post in September] “Pointing a finger gun lands 12-year-old Johnson County student in handcuffs” [Mará Rose Williams, Kansas City Star]
In the name of child welfare
Three pending federal bills “call for increasing CPS [Child Protective Services] investigations of minor marks on children… The proposed bills should raise special concerns for families of children with rare medical conditions and disabilities” [Diane Redleaf] Argument: negotiations for kinship care in the shadow of threatened CPS proceedings amount to a parallel, hidden foster care system [Josh Gupta-Kagan, Stanford Law Review via Diane Redleaf] “Why Jailing Parents Who Can’t Pay Child Support Is Questionable Public Policy” [Hans Bader, FEE]
Schools roundup
- Progressive law school opinion has never made its peace with Milliken v. Bradley, which is another reason not to be surprised that the coming campaign cycle might relitigate the whole school busing issue [Em Steck and Andrew Kaczynski, CNN on 1975 Elizabeth Warren article]
- Irony? School “anti-bullying specialist” seems to have bullied students over officially disapproved expression [Robby Soave, Reason; Lacey Township, N.J. students suspended over off-campus Snapchat]
- How Abbott and other New Jersey school finance rulings wound up plunging the state deep in debt [Steven Malanga, City Journal; earlier here and at Cato on New Jersey and more generally on school finance litigation including here, here (Kansas, etc.) and at Cato (Colorado)]
- “Pennsylvania School District Warns Parents They Could Lose Kids Over Unpaid School Lunches” [AP/CBS Philadelphia]
- “Educational Freedom, Teacher Sickouts, and Bloated Higher Ed” [Cato Daily Podcast with Corey DeAngelis, Neal McCluskey, and Caleb Brown]
- No shock, Sherlock: New York law suspending statute of limitations for suing schools results in higher insurance premiums for public districts [New York Post]
A child-protection triptych
All at Reason: “After a False Accusation, Police and Child Services Forced a Family Apart for 7 Months” [Robby Soave] “Cop Arrests Mom for Letting Kids Wait in Car During 10-Minute Errand” [Lenore Skenazy] “A Mother Spends a Week in Jail, Is Fired From Her Job, and Temporarily Loses Her Kids After a Police Mix-Up” [Zuri Davis]
In Kentucky, a blank check for child snatching
“Kentucky social workers are failing to have courts properly scrutinize and approve the drastic step of taking some children from their homes, relying instead on blank removal orders with pre-signed judges’ signatures, which is illegal according to several attorneys and judges.” The practice, now ended following an investigation by local broadcaster WDRB, was rationalized by the state Cabinet for Health and Family Services as a way to speed things up on evenings and weekends when family court judges are not sitting, although on-call judges are supposed to be available during those times to review removal orders. The practice raises grave due process concerns, since it means that judges had not (and perhaps would not have) signed off on removal orders after individualized review, and if need be questioning, of the underlying allegations. It also permits allegations to be filled in after a child is taken, perhaps tailored to whatever household conditions were or were not discovered during the seizure. “In addition, cabinet workers have allegedly called judges after hours and told them about the need to remove one child from a home, but then used multiple copies of pre-signed emergency custody orders to take more than one juvenile.” [Jason Riley, WDRB via Robby Soave, Reason]
Schools and childhood roundup
- Stop active-shooter drills in schools: “Preparing our children for profoundly unlikely events would be one thing if that preparation had no downside. But in this case, our efforts may exact a high price.” [Erika Christakis, The Atlantic] “Lockdowns and active-shooter drills have led to officers firing blank rounds to simulate live fire, mock executions of teachers, and students tearfully writing out wills while hunkered down. …Last year, The Post reported an estimate that the odds of a child being fatally shot while at school any given day since 1999 was 1 in 614,000,000.” [Jonathan Blanks, Washington Post/Cato]
- After ordeal with Child Protective Services based on drug test fluke, Western New York mom “is certain of one thing, she’ll never eat a poppy seed again.” [WROC]
- Answer: no. “Should access to a public education be a constitutional right for all children?” [Jessica Campisi, Education Dive; Mark Walsh, Education Week, covering AEI debate on holding of 1973 Supreme Court case of San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriguez against such a federal right]
- Pay attention to the politics of schools of education, because they help determine what you’ll see in the classroom down the road [Jay Schalin, Martin Center] More: University of Washington’s Secondary Teacher Education Program “is a 12-month immersion in doctrinaire social justice activism.” [Quillette]
- “The Regressive Effects of Childcare Regulations” [Cato video with Ryan Bourne]
- “Court revives Obama-era rule that incentivizes racial quotas in special ed” [Liam Bissainthe]