Youth Justice Education Clinic

Successfully dismantling the school to prison pipeline requires acknowledging and addressing the causal relationship between unmet educational needs and involvement in the juvenile legal system. The Youth Justice Education Clinic engages in this work both for individual clients in the clinic and through policy advocacy in the YJEC Education Policy Practicum. Most of YJEC's clients are young people with disabilities who are also youth of color. Schools frequently fail to provide appropriate special education services and supports to these youths and often subject them to disproportionate school discipline.

Through YJEC, law students under the supervision of an education attorney represent these clients in individualized education program (IEP) meetings, due process hearings, and expulsion hearings to keep youth in school with appropriate supports. Through the Education Policy Practicum, law students have the opportunity to work on systemic issues on behalf of YJEC clients such as statewide school discipline reform and improving the education system in juvenile detention facilities in Los Angeles County. By pursuing both direct service advocacy and systems change work, YJEC provides students with multiple ways to fight the school to prison pipeline.