By Rebecca K. Smith, CLDC Board President & Cooperating Attorney
Last week, in P.P. v. Compton Unified School District, a federal court in Southern California held that a case may move forward alleging that trauma impacts from poverty and racism qualify as a disability under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). The plaintiffs in the case are multiple youth, and their teachers, who work or attend public schools in Compton, California. Compton is one of the most socio-economically distressed areas in the country, and it experiences attendant high rates of violent crime and homelessness. The youth in the Compton school district experience horrifying trauma in their daily lives, such as being stabbed or witnessing friends and family shot or stabbed in front of them, sleeping on top of the school cafeteria roof for months due to homelessness, and being arrested at gunpoint by police while at school in a case of mistaken identity.
As a result of chronic trauma, these youth experience significant difficulty with basic tasks such as learning, reading, concentrating, thinking, and communicating. Instead of changing their teaching methods to accommodate these learning disabilities, school administrators instead penalize students by suspending or expelling them from school, or requesting that local police press criminal charges against the youth for disruptive behavior in school. Directing youth into the juvenile criminal justice system for somewhat minor disruptive behavior often succeeds in assigning a social stigma to them, diverting them from the path to high school graduation, and serving as the entry point for the school to prison pipeline.
In the case, the plaintiffs noted that some schools do have appropriate programs to accommodate these types of disabilities. The programs include the following core components: (1) training educators to recognize and address the effects of complex trauma and build students’ self-regulation and social-emotional learning skills; (2) developing restorative practices to build healthy relationships and resolve conflicts peacefully, and avoiding re-traumatizing students through the use of punitive discipline; and (3) ensuring consistent mental health counseling is available for the students.
The plaintiffs assert that Compton lacks these basic accommodations and therefore is violating the Americans with Disabilities Act. Compton asked the court to dismiss the case, claiming that learning disabilities from complex trauma do not qualify as a disability under the ADA. The federal court denied Compton’s request to dismiss the case.
In part, the court noted that the lawsuit did provide significant scientific support for the plaintiffs’ theory. For example, the lawsuit provided scientific evidence that trauma can increase cortisol levels in the hippocampus and ultimately cause it to decrease in volume. The hippocampus is a brain structure in the limbic system and plays an essential role in new learning and memory formation. Additionally, researchers have documented that traumatized children have smaller or abnormal prefrontal cortex structures. The prefrontal cortex is a lobe in the front of the brain that plays an important role in regulating the complex cognitive, emotional, and behavioral functioning of humans. In light of such evidence, the court found that the plaintiffs had adequately alleged that complex trauma can result in neurobiological effects constituting a physical impairment under the ADA.