Assistant Professor of Law Dale Margolin Cecka, director of the Family Violence Litigation Clinic at Albany Law School, published an op-ed in USA Today on the phenomenon of adultification bias — the documented pattern by which Black children are perceived as older, less innocent, and more responsible for their behavior than their White peers.
Writing as a White mother to Black children, Cecka drew on her own family’s experiences navigating school discipline and youth programs that, despite progressive reputations, routinely subjected her children to outsized punishment and inappropriate scrutiny. She called on schools and youth organizations to track disciplinary disparities, require implicit bias training, and give parents clear pathways to report discriminatory treatment. “Black children deserve what every child deserves — the benefit of the doubt, and the freedom to be seen as children,” she wrote.
PKPR secured coverage in USA Today.
