Felicity Huffman Gets 2 Weeks Women of Color Gets Years
Felicity Huffman Gets 2 Weeks in Jail for Gaming Educational System — Not So Long Ago, a Black Mom Wasn’t So Lucky
With tears of misspent white privilege streaming down her face, actress Felicity Huffman was sentenced Friday to 14 days in prison for paying a fixer to change her daughter’s SAT scores in order to secure her a spot in the college of her choice.
It was the first major outcome of a national college admissions scandal that snared Huffman and a number of wealthy, predominantly white, families, accused of gaming the nation’s college admissions system to get their privileged kids into the schools they desired.
In sentencing Huffman to 14 days in prison, community service, and a $30,000 fine, U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani rejected the actress’ request to be spared jail time.
However, Huffman’s sentence paled in comparison to that of another mother, a black woman from Connecticut named Tanya McDowell, who was sentenced to five years in prison for the crime of using a friend’s address to enroll her son in kindergarten in 2010, as The Hour explained in a 2017 story.
And yet another black woman, an Ohio mom named Kelley Williams-Bolar, spent nine days in jail in 2011 for a similar so-called crime — using her dad’s address to enroll her child in a better-performing school district. Her case, as the Akron Beacon-Journal reports, was referenced by federal prosecutors in Huffman’s case as they tried to get the judge to hand down a harsher sentence.
SOURCE ⇒ THEROOT
