by Aziah Sid
What was supposed to be a routine trip to court turned into a nightmare for 15-year-old Eva Goodman from Detroit: She was handcuffed, forced into prison garb and detained for hours – all on the orders of Judge Kenneth King of the 36th District Court of the State of Michigan.
The dehumanization and mistreatment of the teenager during the August 13 incident sent shockwaves in Detroit, with people on social media asking why the child was treated so poorly and speculating whether Eva would have been treated the same way had she not been a young black girl.
The questions shine a spotlight on the broader issue of black children’s adulthood – they are often perceived as older and less innocent than their white peers, leading to harsher treatment. Because the teenager is homeless, the incident also shone a spotlight on the plight of black students who lack secure housing.
The coming of age of black children
Research shows that due to racial bias, people simply don’t expect the best from black children and tend to criminalize them. Whether at school or on a field trip, because of these biases, black children are expected to behave like adults and are denied the care, concern, kindness and empathy shown to their white peers. They are turned into adults.
“If people see black children and don’t see them as people, then they definitely don’t see them as children,” Amir Gilmore, assistant professor of cultural studies and social sciences in education at Washington State University, told Word In Black last year.
In fact, people can fall asleep in the courtroom because they are taking medication, have an illness, the temperature in the courtroom is too high, or they cannot understand the court proceedings. But instead of assuming that Eva was tired for a good reason, King assumed that she had fallen asleep to be disrespectful to him.
“It wasn’t so much that she fell asleep, because I have lawyers who fall asleep sometimes, so it’s not a big deal. It was her whole demeanor and her whole demeanor that bothered me,” King said in an interview with 7 News Detroit on Aug. 14. “I wanted to get through to her, show her how serious this is and how to conduct yourself in a courtroom.”
Eva and her mother say the judge was unnecessarily harsh on the teenager. So Eva – along with her mother, Latoreya Hill – is suing Judge King, claiming he violated their Fourth Amendment rights. The lawsuit says King’s actions were his own version of “Scared Straight,” a misguided attempt to “teach her a lesson” that left Eva traumatized and humiliated. As part of the lawsuit, Judge King has been temporarily relieved of his duties and is scheduled to undergo additional training.
“It’s been pretty devastating. Eva doesn’t want to go out… She can hardly sleep at night. She asks me, ‘Why did the judge do this to me of all the kids?’ Like she really doesn’t understand the whole system or what happened or was going on,” Hill said at a news conference after the incident.
A crisis of homeless students
The judge was so busy disciplining Eva that he failed to notice that she and her family are homeless. Till told NBC News that they currently have no permanent housing and even arrived late at their accommodation the night before the field trip.
A recent analysis of students in Detroit found that “black students are at higher risk of homelessness than their peers of other races: 86% of students were homeless, compared to 83% of students overall.” At the national level, an analysis of federal data found that “black high school students are 2.25 times more likely to be homeless.”
Given that Eva has no place to stay, Eva’s mother expressed her outrage over King’s statement to Detroit television station WXYZ-TV about her daughter.
“The fact that he said, ‘Go home and get in your bed,’ how do you know my baby has a home? How do you know my baby has a bed, her own bed to sleep in? She doesn’t have that right now, so she was tired,” Till said.
King defended his decision to have the teen treated like a criminal, saying he didn’t like the child’s attitude. He told WXYZ-TV he hadn’t been treated so disrespectfully in a long time.
The negative effects on Eva, however, could last for the rest of her life. “I wish I could have brought my daughter here today, but she doesn’t want to be on camera,” her mother said. “She doesn’t want to talk. She’s embarrassed, humiliated and I can’t blame her.”
