Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry will be part of the federal case of a fourth-grader suspended after he moved a BB gun that his brother had tripped over during a virtual class, the boy's attorney in the case said.
"The judge granted intervention," Chelsea Cusimano, a partner at Brener & Kraus Law in New Orleans, told the Louisiana Record during a telephone interview. "So the attorney general of the state of Louisiana is now a party of this lawsuit. That issue has been resolved."
Up next to be resolved is Jefferson Parish School Board's call for an act named for the boy, that passed unanimously in the state legislature last year, be declared unconstitutional.
Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry, standing far right, with the Harrison family in February
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The next step in the case is for the boy's legal team to respond to the school board's pleadings that there is no cause of action against the board and that the law named after the child is unconstitutional, Cusimano said.
Cusimano represented elementary school student Ka'Mauri Harrison during advocation for student rights before the Louisiana legislature, efforts that resulted in the The Ka'Mauri Harrison Act.
The act, which revised the state's student discipline statute regarding student rights during virtual instruction, went into effect immediately after after Gov. John Bel Edwards signed it into law on Nov. 5. The act, which had 90 co-authors, was named for the boy who faced possible expulsion after he moved a BB gun his brother knocked over during a virtual class setting in the Harrison home.
The act resulted from public furor over the Sept. 11 incident in the Harrison home when the Woodmere Elementary School student who lives in Harvey was taking a test. His brother entered into their shared bedroom and tripped over a Daisy BB gun, making it visible to the teacher and the rest of the online class.
The child initially was accused for bringing "a federally banned weapon to school," but a hearing officer later knocked that down to being "guilty of displaying a facsimile weapon while receiving virtual instruction from Woodmere Elementary School," according to the federal lawsuit filed the following month. The boy was suspended for six days.
The federal lawsuit filed by the boy's father, Nyron Harrison, against the Jefferson Parish School Board alleged the school board exceeded its authority by "purporting to regulate non-disruptive conduct in a student’s private home."
In November, the federal Judge in the case denied a motion to remand the case to state court.
In February, Landry filed a motion seeking to intervene in the federal lawsuit on the Harrisons' side.
In a news release announcing his motion, Landry said the school board "interpreted and applied state law improperly" in seeking to expel the student for conduct in his own home, in violation of the boy's rights and that of his parents. Landry maintained the school boarded erred "expanding the law in a manner never contemplated by the Legislature." Landry also alleged that the school board violated the due process rights of students and parents.
"The Jefferson Parish School Board has violated state law over and over," Landry said in the news release. "It is unfortunate that we have had to go to such lengths to correct the Board's egregious behavior and misinterpretation of the law. The Legislature even unanimously passed a law [the Ka'Mauri Harrison Act] expressly reaffirming that the home is not school property and discipline policies cannot treat it the same. The Board's dogged insistence upon continuing to do so is not only senseless and wrong, but it is also a waste of taxpayer dollars."
Late last month, the school board filed its answer in the Harrison case, asking that the Ka'Mauri Harrison Act be declared unconstitutional, saying the act deprives the school board "of property without due process of law."
The school board also told the federal judge that Landry's intervention is not proper and that the attorney general's arguments "exceed the scope permitted" under federal law.
The school board also faces a lawsuit over another alleged online BB gun incident filed on behalf of 11-year-old Tomie Brown, who also was suspended.
With Landry's intervention, the case ending up in the U.S. Supreme Court is not outside the realm of possibility, Cusimano said.
"Obviously our goal as attorneys is to resolve this before it goes to any sort of court," she said. "I can't speak to whether or not that's going to happen. My guess would be that, with the attorney general involved, it will bring a heightened level of attention to this case on a national level. Obviously, our goal is to get this resolved favorably and to avoid litigation for a 9-year-old, but that doesn't seem to be working too well right now."