You’ve heard all about the college cheating scandal in the news – a bunch of super rich people and celebrities paid to get their average kids into Ivy-caliber schools – but for most of the country, there was little surprise that the education system (higher or otherwise) is rigged to favor the wealthy.
This case, in which a homeless woman was arrested and forced to spend time in jail simply for putting her son in a public school (which, in theory, are for everyone), really drives that point home for people still unsure how wealth inequality in America works.
In 2011, Tanya McDowell was a homeless mother in Bridgeport, Connecticut, when she was charged with first-degree larceny for enrolling her son Andrew in a Norwalk, Connecticut, kindergarten class.
McDowell says that though she and her son slept in a Bridgeport apartment at night, during the day they lived in her van or visited shelters for food.
She took a plea deal and received five years in prison (she served them concurrently with a sentence stemming from charges of selling drugs to support herself and her son), but only regrets part of what she did.
“Who would have thought that wanting a good education for my son would put me in this predicament? I have no regrets seeking a better education for him. I do regret my participation in this drug case.”
McDowell isn’t alone, either, according to New York City public defender Rebecca J. Kavanagh.
“In Ohio, Kelley Williams-Bolar was charged for lying about her residency to get her child into a better school and ordered to pay restitution of $30,000. When she did’t pay it she was sent to jail for 15 days.”
Since all public schools aren’t created equal, the practice of using friends and family’s addresses to enroll children in a “better” school district isn’t all that uncommon. It’s hard to blame poor communities and communities of color for wanting access to what should be the same for everyone – especially once you learn that white school districts get about $23 billion more in state and local funding than their nonwhite counterparts.
So while people like McDowell spend five years in jail for wanting their children to have what is available to other children, wealthy folks like Felicity Huffman get off with a slap on the wrist.
Kavanagh says this type of injustice is fairly common.
“This is really just an extension of what people do to get admitted to university already – donating money to buy buildings and fund endowments. The line between legal and illegal, donation and bribe, is blurred.”
She’s also quick to remind us that, regardless of Huffman’s (and others) sentence in this latest “scandal,” McDowell and those like her have suffered an injustice.
= #RichWhitePrivilege > #WhitePrivilege > #BlackWomen > #BlackMothers #WhitePrivilegeIsReal & #ThisIsAmeriKKKA Maybe if I speak in #hashtags this news will receive enough publicity & public outrage. #TanyaMcDowell #KellyWilliamsBolar #FelicityHuffman #OperationVarsityBlues #CollegeAdmissionsScandal #BlackWomensLivesMatter #BlackMomsMatter caption: @feministANDfluid tweets: @angryblackwoMom + @ladoctoragtj photos: Dorothy Pitman Hughes + @gloriasteinem
“While there is a part of us that may feel some sense of vindication at the idea of these parents serving five years in prison because Tanya McDowell served five years in prison when she was so much more deserving, that’s not justice. Justice is for Tanya McDowell to have never been charged, convicted, or sent to prison and to have the same educational opportunity for her son as these parents have for their children.”
As for McDowell, she hopes that things will be different for others – including her own son – in the future.
“I’m not only doing it for Andrew. I’m doing it for any other parent, any other child out there that has the potential to succeed and excel at a certain level and is just being deprived, period. My son exceeded all of my expectations.”
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